Thread: Help! I can't transition RC's in real life to my dream state!

I had just gotten back into LD and my dream journal is looking good. Each night I can remember 2-3 long and detailed dreams.

I RC about 5 times a day in this order:

Palm through hand
Plug my nose
Count my fingers

However every time I'm in a dream, I never actually RC which leads to me not gaining lucidity. Any suggestions?! Thanks ahead of time!

Well, your RC's are good and all, but you have to be in a state of critical awareness. You have to really believe you could be in a dream, and ask yourself questions, like "Is this real," or "Am I dreaming," or even try to remember what you did a couple of minutes ago. Then that's when you perform the reality check, while repeating your mantra. And only 5 reality checks may be a bit lacking, I'd give it around 7-8, or 10 if you can.

But this will take some time, so give it at least a month of consistently doing it to find good results. You know you're on the right track when you are close to starting to do a reality check without thinking about doing one, meaning you don't think, "it's time to do an RC" before performing one.

Best of luck! Sweet dreams..

Originally Posted by Blaed

However every time I'm in a dream, I never actually RC which leads to me not gaining lucidity. Any suggestions?! Thanks ahead of time!

For what it's worth, Blaed, I have had many thousands of LDs and have never, even once, become lucid by doing a RC...and yet I still do RC's regularly.

I think RC's real value is in waking-life, because they are instrumental in building your lucid state of mind. Do them, and do them sincerely, and feel free to continue expecting an RC to make you lucid (it does work for many). But don't be disappointed if you do not become lucid thanks to an RC done in a NLD; they have great value anyway.

Following along with these guys, it won't be so much the RC making you lucid. It will be the question or even statement, 'Am I dreaming?' 'I am dreaming'. The RC at least for me was a test, and confirmation of the state I was in, not the triggering of said state. Though it can and does happen the other way around. The hand through palm RC is a great one to use for common real life situations. Like clocking in at work, do an RC. Getting into or out of a car. Talking to somebody you don't always talk to.

These situations will come up in a dream, and your minds habit will hopefully trigger lucid thoughts, whether they are statements or questions.

Hi Blaed, I would also suggest doing some practice to raise awareness before entering a REM cycle, such as WBTB and MILD. I do RCs often during the waking state, but without induction, I feel their usefulness is limited.

It sounds like you're working on time-based prospective memory which doesn't work when you're not focused on time in your dreams. Event based prospective memory is a lot more powerful.

For example, I often have dreams about waking up in my bed, so when I'm focused on RCing when I wake up in bed in waking life, those RCs transition into my dreams.

Find patterns in your dreams and only RC when those patterns occur in waking life. That way, when the patterns occur in your dreams, you'll be more likely to RC.

I've solely used the plug nose RC in all of my Lucid Dreams. It did take a while for my RCs to transition into my dreams, but I only did it passively and didn't assert much effort into it when I was first starting out. Like the others have said, you have to convince yourself that you are dreaming all the time until you prove yourself wrong with one of those techniques. Once you get into that habit, you'll begin to see results.

Originally Posted by Firetrapped

Like the others have said, you have to convince yourself that you are dreaming all the time until you prove yourself wrong with one of those techniques. Once you get into that habit, you'll begin to see results.

They actually didn't say that, and I think for good reason.

A RC is a simple state test: ask yourself, "Is this a dream?" and then do a physical test (i.e., finger through palm, nose plug, checking a clock, etc.) to confirm that you are not dreaming; if the test fails, then you are not dreaming. It's that simple and ought to stay that way. It is important to do your RC sincerely, but there really is no need to convince yourself that you are dreaming... if that is even possible, of course. On top of that, doing a RC to prove that you are not dreaming after you've convinced yourself that you are dreaming seems like a bit of self-imposed cognative dissonance to me.

So, with RC's there is no need to convince yourself of anything; just ask the question and do the test sincerely and you are done... They really do work best when kept simple.