This is a book for all levels. For those that have mastered examining reality, keep that in mind, but still play! ;)
Chapter 2 - Super Reality Checks
Reality checks are a curious thing. While being one of the most practiced tools of the lucid dreamer, they may be one of the least effective and most misunderstood. Your experience of a reality check as a beginning lucid dreamer will be much the same as your experience of a reality check years later as a more advanced lucid dreamer. In this light, reality checking really isn’t a skill you develop, it’s more of a stepping stone to a skill which you hope to acquire.
At some point, many of the more advanced lucid dreamers acquire the skill that reality checks strive to teach. Then they toss them aside, seeing them as no longer useful. Those dreamers that never quite acquire this mysterious skill also toss reality checks aside, seeing that they had no effect on their quest for lucidity. Either way, reality checks are ultimately tossed aside. It’s not that the reality check is a bad tool, it’s just a bit flawed. So let’s take a look at this old trick and see if we can figure out where it went wrong.
Reality checks are tests performed while awake to establish that one is, in fact, awake. A successful reality check is usually followed by a mnemonic reminder to perform a reality check that night in the dream. By getting into the habit of performing reality checks throughout the day, the likelihood of performing one during a dream is increased. And of course, when a reality check is performed in the dream, things don’t behave as they should and the dreamer realizes she is dreaming and can become lucid on the spot.
Right away, there are many flaws in this system. We usually don’t point out the flaws because there’s nothing we can do about them. How else are we going to wake up in our dreams? We want something we can do right here, right now, with minimal effort that will skyrocket our likelihood of becoming lucid tonight. Other than vague self-hypnotic affirmations right before bed, or waking up and going back to sleep all night, there just aren’t that many tools available, so we keep coming back to this malformed contrivance, and we keep having minimal, unpredictable moments of success with it.
In many ways, performing reality checks is a lot like buying lottery tickets. If I do a reality check today, I might just win the lucid dreaming lottery tonight. And of course, so we reason, if I do 100 reality checks today, I’ll be 100 times more likely to win that prize. If we applied this same logic to winning the Power Millions, we would find ourselves rapidly going broke.
But what is it that causes this tool to (sometimes) work? Often, the very intent of performing a reality check in a dream has been enough to cause me to become lucid. Simply remembering to test the dream, to wonder if I could be dreaming, will trigger lucidity before having even performed the test. Conversely, I have performed reality checks in dreams that should have caused me to wake up, but were instead rationalized away.
“Oh, gravity is just off today.”
“There’s probably a wiring problem with that light switch.”
“I can only sort of fly. If I were dreaming, I could fly a lot better.”
If we consider these scenarios the outliers of reality checking, they may shed some light on what is really going on. What was the difference that caused the tests to fail on one end, and not even be necessary on the other? To really understand that difference, we must put ourselves into the experience and look at it from the inside. Consider then the failed reality check…
Going through the motions of a reality check is useless without some crucial bit of consciousness. Without a sudden halting of whatever mode of consciousness you’re in, followed by a sincere questioning of the world, the reality check and any number of bizarre circumstances which may be present can all be explained away. The reality check is not supposed to be an automatic thing, it is supposed to be a waking up. Consider now the scenario in which the mere thought of performing the test is enough to become lucid…
You’re going along in the dream, there is some random train of thoughts going through your mind. The idea suddenly occurs to you to perform a reality check. Now this thought didn’t feel like the thoughts you’d been thinking moments ago. As you thought it, you felt something happen. Like pulling your head out of the sand, you suddenly remembered yourself, you stepped back from the automatic flow of the dream and looked around. You regained something when you decided to do a reality check. Some nebulous aspect of consciousness returned to you. What was a moment before gone, lost, or scattered throughout the dream came flooding back into your being. Simply remembering to do the test to wake up was enough to wake you up. You realize it’s all a dream and leap into the air to fly.
The real purpose of the reality check is to get you to question, in hopes of leading you somewhere else. But to start, you must first seriously consider the question, “Am I awake?” This is a curious question to consider because the very act of asking it can cause one to awaken. Go ahead and try it now. Feel what it feels like to ask. Don’t just ask the question in your head as an interesting idea, but rather step into the world of the question. Genuinely consider. What are you feeling? Are you feeling awake? As you ask the question, your level of ‘awakeness’ will rise… and then immediately fall back when the question completes. Unless you hold on to it. Somewhere in that rise and fall of awakeness lies the key. In that moment of questioning, if you delve in, if you explore that second long enough, it pulls you out. You learn how to pull your head out of the sand. You experience a complete physical, mental, and emotional release from whatever “dream” you were caught up in. For a brief moment, you simply See. This is the skill the advanced lucid dreamers find, and once found, reality checks no longer become necessary. We want to learn to go straight there, and then find out what lies beyond.
We’ve established that the reality check is not intended to be a mental phenomenon. In order to work, it must be an experiential thing. With that in mind, let us see if there are more flaws in the way these tests are currently performed. PD Ouspensky is known to have claimed that it is impossible for one to remember their name in a dream. A large percentage of the population will accept this statement without question, and they will find that it is indeed impossible to remember their name in a dream. Another percentage of the population will meet this statement with disbelief. And if a few of them happen to be talented lucid dreamers, they will then set out to test this bold statement. Luckily for us, Dr. Stephen LaBerge, the godfather of lucid dreaming, is one such dreamer. He didn’t believe the statement and was able to disprove it in the dream world. He believed he could remember his name, and he did.
Along the same lines, in Wagoner’s book he talks about the influence of expectations on dreaming tools. Before Laberge tied the expectation of spinning to creating a new dream scene, Wagoner spun and experienced the appearance of balls of light. What does this have to do with reality checks? Consider one of the most common reality checks: the book test. In the book test, the idea is that text is unstable in a lucid dream. If you pick up a book or newspaper and read it, turn away, then read it again, the text will have changed, thus alerting you to the fact that you’re dreaming. This has long been a bedrock of “what’s so” in the world of lucid dreaming. However, Wagoner reports that text is relatively stable in his dreams. Like with spinning, it would seem he never bought into this part of lucid dreaming “reality.”
Talented dreamers know the power of intent and expectation in the dream. If you expect text to stay the same, it’s going to stay the same. If you expect it to change or if you expect that you’ll be unable to remember your name, you’ll experience just that. So what happens if we set out with intent to break apart other common reality checks? After reading Wagoner’s book, I set out to do just that with the light switch test in November 2013.
Browsing popular lucid dreaming forums, we find that all reality checks can be unreliable. Most people recommend doing a number of tests in case one or more fail to trigger lucidity in the dream. Anything from looking at your hands to jumping up and down can all trigger lucidity, or keep you convinced that you’re not dreaming. So we return again to that crucial component, we must deeply experience the question, “Am I awake?” while performing a reality check. There is something about the state of consciousness that the question induces which causes us to truly wake up in the dream. But what exactly is that state of consciousness and where does it lead?
Because it’s a state of consciousness (a pausing, considering, and not knowing) that causes a reality check to succeed, we want to be accustomed to that state of consciousness. We want it to become second nature. In a dream, a brief moment of that consciousness will cause us to awaken. With normal reality checks, we may not get to the desired state of consciousness each time, so it’s no surprise that we don’t always carry it over into the dream world. If, on the other hand, we can induce that state of consciousness and hold on to it for extended periods, it has the cumulative effect of doing hundreds of normal reality checks at once.
But how far can this one little exercise take us? Interesting things begin to happen when you complete this exercise and continue in the state of not knowing for 20-30 minutes. Give it a try, if you start to lose the super reality check state of consciousness, do another reality check and return to not knowing.
Quote:
Chapter 2 - Super Reality Checks
“Do not be misled by what you see around you... You live in a world which is a playground full of illusion.” – Shirdi Sai Baba
Reality checks are a curious thing. While being one of the most practiced tools of the lucid dreamer, they may be one of the least effective and most misunderstood. Your experience of a reality check as a beginning lucid dreamer will be much the same as your experience of a reality check years later as a more advanced lucid dreamer. In this light, reality checking really isn’t a skill you develop, it’s more of a stepping stone to a skill which you hope to acquire.
At some point, many of the more advanced lucid dreamers acquire the skill that reality checks strive to teach. Then they toss them aside, seeing them as no longer useful. Those dreamers that never quite acquire this mysterious skill also toss reality checks aside, seeing that they had no effect on their quest for lucidity. Either way, reality checks are ultimately tossed aside. It’s not that the reality check is a bad tool, it’s just a bit flawed. So let’s take a look at this old trick and see if we can figure out where it went wrong.
Reality checks are tests performed while awake to establish that one is, in fact, awake. A successful reality check is usually followed by a mnemonic reminder to perform a reality check that night in the dream. By getting into the habit of performing reality checks throughout the day, the likelihood of performing one during a dream is increased. And of course, when a reality check is performed in the dream, things don’t behave as they should and the dreamer realizes she is dreaming and can become lucid on the spot.
Right away, there are many flaws in this system. We usually don’t point out the flaws because there’s nothing we can do about them. How else are we going to wake up in our dreams? We want something we can do right here, right now, with minimal effort that will skyrocket our likelihood of becoming lucid tonight. Other than vague self-hypnotic affirmations right before bed, or waking up and going back to sleep all night, there just aren’t that many tools available, so we keep coming back to this malformed contrivance, and we keep having minimal, unpredictable moments of success with it.
In many ways, performing reality checks is a lot like buying lottery tickets. If I do a reality check today, I might just win the lucid dreaming lottery tonight. And of course, so we reason, if I do 100 reality checks today, I’ll be 100 times more likely to win that prize. If we applied this same logic to winning the Power Millions, we would find ourselves rapidly going broke.
But what is it that causes this tool to (sometimes) work? Often, the very intent of performing a reality check in a dream has been enough to cause me to become lucid. Simply remembering to test the dream, to wonder if I could be dreaming, will trigger lucidity before having even performed the test. Conversely, I have performed reality checks in dreams that should have caused me to wake up, but were instead rationalized away.
“Oh, gravity is just off today.”
“There’s probably a wiring problem with that light switch.”
“I can only sort of fly. If I were dreaming, I could fly a lot better.”
If we consider these scenarios the outliers of reality checking, they may shed some light on what is really going on. What was the difference that caused the tests to fail on one end, and not even be necessary on the other? To really understand that difference, we must put ourselves into the experience and look at it from the inside. Consider then the failed reality check…
You’re going along in the dream, almost seemingly in 3rd person. There is no control, you’re simply acting out a story. Some part of your consciousness is the helpless witness of everything that takes place. There is no spark of self-awareness in that consciousness, it merely follows the script of the dream. The dream self is on automatic. As part of the story, as part of whatever life or routine you’re in, it becomes time to perform a reality check. The feel of the reality check is no different than any other event in the dream. You go to perform a reality check like you would go to pick up a glass or get in the car. It’s just an automatic event. As such, there’s no true break in consciousness. There’s no shift. The reality check may indicate you’re dreaming, but it is explained away because deep down, there is no part of you that is truly questioning whether or not this is a dream. You are simply going through motions.
Going through the motions of a reality check is useless without some crucial bit of consciousness. Without a sudden halting of whatever mode of consciousness you’re in, followed by a sincere questioning of the world, the reality check and any number of bizarre circumstances which may be present can all be explained away. The reality check is not supposed to be an automatic thing, it is supposed to be a waking up. Consider now the scenario in which the mere thought of performing the test is enough to become lucid…
You’re going along in the dream, there is some random train of thoughts going through your mind. The idea suddenly occurs to you to perform a reality check. Now this thought didn’t feel like the thoughts you’d been thinking moments ago. As you thought it, you felt something happen. Like pulling your head out of the sand, you suddenly remembered yourself, you stepped back from the automatic flow of the dream and looked around. You regained something when you decided to do a reality check. Some nebulous aspect of consciousness returned to you. What was a moment before gone, lost, or scattered throughout the dream came flooding back into your being. Simply remembering to do the test to wake up was enough to wake you up. You realize it’s all a dream and leap into the air to fly.
The real purpose of the reality check is to get you to question, in hopes of leading you somewhere else. But to start, you must first seriously consider the question, “Am I awake?” This is a curious question to consider because the very act of asking it can cause one to awaken. Go ahead and try it now. Feel what it feels like to ask. Don’t just ask the question in your head as an interesting idea, but rather step into the world of the question. Genuinely consider. What are you feeling? Are you feeling awake? As you ask the question, your level of ‘awakeness’ will rise… and then immediately fall back when the question completes. Unless you hold on to it. Somewhere in that rise and fall of awakeness lies the key. In that moment of questioning, if you delve in, if you explore that second long enough, it pulls you out. You learn how to pull your head out of the sand. You experience a complete physical, mental, and emotional release from whatever “dream” you were caught up in. For a brief moment, you simply See. This is the skill the advanced lucid dreamers find, and once found, reality checks no longer become necessary. We want to learn to go straight there, and then find out what lies beyond.
We’ve established that the reality check is not intended to be a mental phenomenon. In order to work, it must be an experiential thing. With that in mind, let us see if there are more flaws in the way these tests are currently performed. PD Ouspensky is known to have claimed that it is impossible for one to remember their name in a dream. A large percentage of the population will accept this statement without question, and they will find that it is indeed impossible to remember their name in a dream. Another percentage of the population will meet this statement with disbelief. And if a few of them happen to be talented lucid dreamers, they will then set out to test this bold statement. Luckily for us, Dr. Stephen LaBerge, the godfather of lucid dreaming, is one such dreamer. He didn’t believe the statement and was able to disprove it in the dream world. He believed he could remember his name, and he did.
Along the same lines, in Wagoner’s book he talks about the influence of expectations on dreaming tools. Before Laberge tied the expectation of spinning to creating a new dream scene, Wagoner spun and experienced the appearance of balls of light. What does this have to do with reality checks? Consider one of the most common reality checks: the book test. In the book test, the idea is that text is unstable in a lucid dream. If you pick up a book or newspaper and read it, turn away, then read it again, the text will have changed, thus alerting you to the fact that you’re dreaming. This has long been a bedrock of “what’s so” in the world of lucid dreaming. However, Wagoner reports that text is relatively stable in his dreams. Like with spinning, it would seem he never bought into this part of lucid dreaming “reality.”
Talented dreamers know the power of intent and expectation in the dream. If you expect text to stay the same, it’s going to stay the same. If you expect it to change or if you expect that you’ll be unable to remember your name, you’ll experience just that. So what happens if we set out with intent to break apart other common reality checks? After reading Wagoner’s book, I set out to do just that with the light switch test in November 2013.
I am at some big university or institute. It's not the traditional kind. It's more like a learning environment. Sarah and I have a bottle of alcohol that reminds me of olive oil. We're drinking it and having a great time going through the bottle. There are a few people with us, and they're giving us sideways looks because we’re not supposed to be drinking. We're very aware of them, but are having an awesome time, so we continue. I start to hand her the bottle when I realize I’m dreaming. I immediately want to fly and consider taking her flying but luckily I remember my task. I leave the courtyard we’re in and start looking for a light switch. She follows me, but I don’t have time to explain what I’m doing. I go into a classroom and find one. I gather my intent and focus my will. “When I flip this switch, it will get brighter.” I flip the switch and the lights immediately come on.
Browsing popular lucid dreaming forums, we find that all reality checks can be unreliable. Most people recommend doing a number of tests in case one or more fail to trigger lucidity in the dream. Anything from looking at your hands to jumping up and down can all trigger lucidity, or keep you convinced that you’re not dreaming. So we return again to that crucial component, we must deeply experience the question, “Am I awake?” while performing a reality check. There is something about the state of consciousness that the question induces which causes us to truly wake up in the dream. But what exactly is that state of consciousness and where does it lead?
Exercise 2: Super reality checks
Select a wide variety of reality checks and perform them. For example, turn a light on and off. Sometimes in a dream, if it fails to perform, you know you’re dreaming. In this case, if it behaves properly, realize that you may be dreaming and that the light is just following your expectations. You may be dreaming this light and it is doing exactly what you’ve set it up to do. Be amazed at how seamless the dream reality is. Be amazed at your talent in creating this dream and realize that the light test can’t tell you whether or not you’re dreaming.
Select another test. For example, the gravity test. Jump up and down. Sometimes in a dream, gravity doesn’t behave as expected. In this case, if it behaves properly, realize that you may be dreaming this gravity and that gravity is just following your expectations. You may be dreaming this whole thing and it is doing exactly what you’ve set it up to do. Be amazed at how seamless the dream reality is. Be amazed at your talent in creating this dream and realize that the gravity test can’t tell you whether or not you’re dreaming.
Continue like this through every reality check you can think of. Once all tests are exhausted, realize there is absolutely no test you can perform that can tell you whether or not you’re dreaming. You truly do not know. Explore the world while holding on to this state of mind.
Examples of reality checks: changing text, changing clocks, gravity, non-functional light switches, hand through matter, breathing through a plugged nose, continuity of memory throughout the day, the non-existence of bizarre dreamsigns (flying pink elephants), etc.
Select a wide variety of reality checks and perform them. For example, turn a light on and off. Sometimes in a dream, if it fails to perform, you know you’re dreaming. In this case, if it behaves properly, realize that you may be dreaming and that the light is just following your expectations. You may be dreaming this light and it is doing exactly what you’ve set it up to do. Be amazed at how seamless the dream reality is. Be amazed at your talent in creating this dream and realize that the light test can’t tell you whether or not you’re dreaming.
Select another test. For example, the gravity test. Jump up and down. Sometimes in a dream, gravity doesn’t behave as expected. In this case, if it behaves properly, realize that you may be dreaming this gravity and that gravity is just following your expectations. You may be dreaming this whole thing and it is doing exactly what you’ve set it up to do. Be amazed at how seamless the dream reality is. Be amazed at your talent in creating this dream and realize that the gravity test can’t tell you whether or not you’re dreaming.
Continue like this through every reality check you can think of. Once all tests are exhausted, realize there is absolutely no test you can perform that can tell you whether or not you’re dreaming. You truly do not know. Explore the world while holding on to this state of mind.
Examples of reality checks: changing text, changing clocks, gravity, non-functional light switches, hand through matter, breathing through a plugged nose, continuity of memory throughout the day, the non-existence of bizarre dreamsigns (flying pink elephants), etc.
Because it’s a state of consciousness (a pausing, considering, and not knowing) that causes a reality check to succeed, we want to be accustomed to that state of consciousness. We want it to become second nature. In a dream, a brief moment of that consciousness will cause us to awaken. With normal reality checks, we may not get to the desired state of consciousness each time, so it’s no surprise that we don’t always carry it over into the dream world. If, on the other hand, we can induce that state of consciousness and hold on to it for extended periods, it has the cumulative effect of doing hundreds of normal reality checks at once.
But how far can this one little exercise take us? Interesting things begin to happen when you complete this exercise and continue in the state of not knowing for 20-30 minutes. Give it a try, if you start to lose the super reality check state of consciousness, do another reality check and return to not knowing.
via Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views - Attaining Lucidity http://ift.tt/1huKst3
No comments:
Post a Comment