Reality checks
Asking “am I dreaming?” by day, until the night asks it too.
How do reality checks work for lucid dreaming?
What it is
Reality testing is the habit of stopping several times a day to ask, in earnest, am I dreaming? The question is followed by a check. Read a line of text, look away and read it again: in dreams the words change. Look at the hands. Pinch the nose and try to breathe through it. The idea is that a question asked often enough by day will be asked in a dream too, where the check gives a different answer.
The teaching
As the reflection technique of Paul Tholey teaches it.
The critical question
Paul Tholey's reflection technique rests on one question, which he called the critical question: am I dreaming or not? It is asked by day, several times a day, at least five to ten, and in earnest. The idea is that a habit of mind formed awake goes on working in sleep. In waking life the honest answer is no. In a dream the same question, honestly asked, can be answered yes, and the dream becomes lucid.
Asking in earnest
The question is worthless asked by rote. Tholey and LaBerge both insist that it be put seriously, as a real possibility: stop, look around, and consider that this might in fact be a dream. LaBerge calls this critical state testing. A handful of real questions a day is worth more than fifty mumbled ones.
Looking back
Tholey adds a second step. While asking, attend not only to what is happening now but to what has just happened: how did I come to be here, and what was I doing a few minutes ago? Waking life has an unbroken thread. A dream usually does not; its scenes begin in the middle, and the dreamer who looks back often finds a gap where the journey should be.
When to ask
Tholey names three things that make the question work: how often it is asked, how like a dream the moment is, and how near to sleep. So ask it often. Ask it above all when something surprising, strange or emotional happens, since those are the moments that most resemble dreams. Ask it in the last waking minutes before sleep. And add the cues from your own journal: whenever you meet one of your dream signs by day, ask. Some people also tie the question to everyday moments, such as stepping through a door or glancing at a clock.
The checks
A question needs a test that gives a different answer in a dream. The best, in LaBerge's experience, is text: read a line, look away, and read it again, for in dreams printed words rarely stay the same and often turn to nonsense. A digital clock behaves the same way. Light switches often fail in dreams, or give only a dim light. The hands may look wrong, with too many or too few fingers. Close the lips and try to breathe in through the mouth, or pinch the nose and try to breathe through it: in a dream the air often comes anyway. Try to push a finger through the palm of the other hand, which in a dream may simply pass through.
Two rules keep the checks honest. Use more than one, since a single test can mislead either way. And believe the result: dreamers often explain away a failed light switch, so when a check says dream, take it at its word.
From day to night
The checks feed the other methods. A dream sign met by day is a cue to ask; a question asked by day returns at night; and the intention at bedtime names both. Tholey also advised, while asking the question, imagining intensely that one is in a dream at that very moment, as a rehearsal of the realisation. Woven into the journal and the night's intention, the checks become part of a single habit of noticing.
The dream yoga of the day
Tibetan dream yoga has its own practices of the day, and they go further. Tenzin Wangyal teaches that the first of its four foundational practices is to meet every experience with vivid, open awareness of the present moment and to ask often, is this a dream? The second is to treat one's own reactions the same way: when anger or desire rises, to relax, return to awareness, and recognise the situation and the reaction alike as part of a dream. The aim is not only lucid dreams but a looser grip on what one grasps and resists by day.
This is a religious practice, taught within a whole path and best learned from a teacher. It asks one to hold the waking world lightly, and that is exactly why it is not for everyone.
When the question unsettles
Asking whether the world is real can, in some people, loosen their hold on it. If reality testing leaves you uneasy, or if you begin to doubt waking life in a way that lingers, stop altogether. It is not for anyone who has had psychosis, or who sometimes struggles to know whether they are dreaming or awake. The question is a tool for the night, and it should leave the day exactly as solid as it was.
How it is practised
Pick two everyday cues, such as walking through a doorway or looking at the time. At each, stop and truly ask the question. Re-read a line of text, and think back over how you came to be here. A handful of sincere checks is worth more than fifty by rote. If questioning what is real feels unsettling by day, drop this method. It is not for anyone who finds dream and waking hard to tell apart.
Where it comes from
The German psychologist Paul Tholey worked out the method from 1959 and called it the reflection technique: ask the critical question five to ten times a day, above all when something seems strange. Stephen LaBerge taught a similar practice as critical state testing, and found that text was the most telling check, since printed words in his subjects' lucid dreams changed three times in four on a second look and nearly always on a third. Reality checks are now the best known of all the methods.
What is known, and what is not
The evidence is mixed. Early reports by Tholey and others were encouraging. In a 2017 Australian study, a week of reality testing by itself did not raise the number of lucid dreams; combined with MILD after waking in the night, it did. The fair reading is that the checks support other methods and seldom work alone. They do at least build the habit of noticing a dream sign.
Its words
- Reality Testing
- The daytime habit of seriously asking whether one is dreaming and checking, so that the same question arises during a dream.
- Dream Sign
- A recurring oddity in a person's dreams, such as a dead relative alive or a light switch that fails, that can serve as a cue to become lucid.
Ask the Oracle further
Which reality check is most reliable inside a lucid dream?How often should I do reality checks by day for lucid dreaming?
Before you practise
Lucid dreaming is a real, studied skill. Keep your sleep first: do not break your nights or take anything to force it. Stop for a while if it brings sleep paralysis, nightmares or tired days, and leave it alone if you have had psychosis or find dream and waking hard to tell apart.
Its other branches
What it isThe dream journalThe intention at nightStaying in the dreamWhen to pauseThe whole artSearch the tree
