Reality checks

[stan]

Reality checks are well known among lucid dreaming circles, though many people from those circles are not aware that through this technique they can enter the astral plane. This technique helped me many times to have astral experiences. It consist of doing many checks throughout the day of where you are. So what you can do is....get conscious of where you are, look around you, try to remember when did you went to sleep last time. How do you know you didn't go to sleep just 2 hours ago and that it's not actually a middle of the night? Observe people around you, how do they act? Is there anything strange going on?

Once you closely observe the reality you are in, you do the CHECK. One of good checks that works for me is making a slight jump with intention to float. If you are in the astral you will float if you have intention to float/fly. This can be inconvenient if you are among people, so if you are not alone there is another check you can do and that is pulling your finger with INTENTION to stretch. If you are in the astral, finger will stretch, but again it's important to have this INTENTION to stretch. To have this intention you need to stay open that you could be in the astral any time, and that you don't know if this is or isn't the astral until you do check.

I had so many dreams where I did regular mundane things, being fully sure I'm in the physical. Then when I did the check I did it with assumption that I am in the physical and the check did not worked. So when doing a reality check, it's crucial that you stay open that you could be in the astral. The more checks you do, the more it will get recorded into your subconscious and eventually you will start doing it in the astral.

This way of entering the astral is called "waking up from dreams". In one moment you dream and have dream images around you, and in next you become conscious and dream images dissolve and you start seeing the actual astral reality. However, not always does the dream dissolve. This then means that you are "stuck" in a lucid dream. I find that when I get "stuck" in lucid dream like that, I can always kind of feel my physical body laying on bed. This is a very good sign because the astral body is split from my physical body and all i need to do is move focus to my physical body and just gently get up from bed, or roll out.

Good luck!

[blis]

I find myself trying to fly fairly often when I'm awake these days. Not just out of habit but because I genuinely cant be sure if I'm in the physical or not.

[jkjk8991]

Good tips! MY favorite reality check is holding my nose shut and trying to breath through it, its pretty simple and can easily be done anywhere without looking too strange if you do it quickly. Also whenever I lookd at my hands I try and actually look at them for a few seconds and observe them in hopes that if it comes up in a dream I'll notice the difference. I'll be sure to try out the jumping/floating method and stretching finger too though, they sound like a fun way to realize you're not in the physical reality.

[stan]

Bliss, yes, we really can't be sure here we are unless we check.

Jkjk, thanks for the "nose"  tip. I never done that one yet. In regards to hands, in what way do they look different in a dream?

[jkjk8991]

Generally in a dream at least for me my hands appeared disfigured. They could have 6 digits or 4 digits, or the fingers are longer or shorter than they should be. In general dreamlike. For me when I stare at them they shift even, never remaining in the same shape for too long. I've heard some people being able to make their hands out fine though, especially in AP's.

[stan]

I find that the reason why I see my hands looking out of the ordinary is usually influenced by how conscious I am, but there is also something to astral body looking differently. It looks like better and improved version of physical body.

[Xanth]

I simply don't think the "astral body" is something that objective or fundamental.  I think it's simply a reflection of our belief that we require a "body" to "interact" with our environment.

[light487]

I have been doing these "reality checks" for the last few days also. One thing I use to test is "how did I get here?".. retracing my steps on how I arrived at this particular place and/or situation and recalling the events, in detail, of where I was before. Generally in a dream, I find it difficult to recall how I got where I was more than just a small time previous. So yes, thinking back to when you woke up and then piecing together the events that led up to you being where you are now is definitely a good way to do a reality check, in my opinion. Another thing I check on is how things feel, physically, so I might read out and grab my water bottle and feel its physicalness, take a drink from it and feel the water entering my mouth and as a swallow; how the bottle feels against my lips, or the straw feels in my lips etc.

Similar to the "jump" test.. you can simply push back against your chair at your desk; or try to push your hand through the desk.. feel more than just the resistance but also feel the solidness of the object as well.

[stan]

Ryan, in essence we do need a body to interact and to experience environment and dimension fully. That's one of the reason why we also have a body in this physical dimension, because being simply a point of consciousness wouldn't allow us to gain thousands of physcial experiences which require a body. Same principle applies for other dimensions.

Light487, "how did I get here" is something I also incorporate in my reality checks. It is definitely very important. One other thing which can be experimented with is kind of always having the sense of wonder in regards to where we are...always being on an "environmental lookout" and see if something is different in our environemt. In dreams things are always different, even if we are always in a familar environment. Something will always be different.

[Optic]

Is it possible to develop some ability to discern which reality or dimension we are in just by perception of the experience? What I mean is that there must be some unique characteristic feature within each dimension that sets them apart from each other, I think reality checks are great and can help us greatly but at the same time I think that there must be something else, some type of ability to discriminate, which can aid us in realizing that we are infact within the "astral" dimension etc.

Although im guessing that this type of ability would be developed over an extended period of time, training the consciousness to discriminate between realities on a constant basis would be quite a challenge yet after some time it would be a normal way to perceive, thus such a person would be conscious of being in altered states or dimensions... naturally and spontaneously.

[stan]

Astral plane has it's own feel to it and that can be recognized once conscious in the astral. But physical plane is just an extension of the astral, so there are lots of similarities when it comes to lower astral levels and physical plane. Everything from the physical plane has its counterpart in the lower astral planes. That's why we cannot really be sure where we are at any moment unless we do a reality check. Incorporating this kind of checking in ones life will result in becoming more and more conscious in dreams.

It's also a matter of how much consciousness we have here, because the more conscious we are in this world, the more we are over there during sleeping hours. The more we increase our consciousness, the more lucid we are in dreams and the more natural and spontaneous it is to realize that we are dreaming.