Sunday, August 7, 2011

How do I know I'm dreaming?

I read an article about various tricks about how you can check if you are dreaming or not when you get to a  certain level of awareness in a dream, and I catched up a new one I haven't tried before, but it's a common one:

- You take the finger on one hand and drive to drive it through the palm of the other hand. If the finger goes through your palm - tada - you are dreaming.

You can make it a habit in your daily life to perform this test every time you come to a new room or go outside. Eventually it will become a habit and suddenly you'll do it in a dream, your finger will pass through your palm, and you'll realize - "This is a dream!" and you will be lucid!

The first dream I tried this I managed to "re-lucid" myself through 4 false awakenings. (False awakening: When you wake up in bed from a lucid dream, but it's actually a new dream, you have just lost your lucidity and you think you have woken up for the next day in your real life.) I did the finger-test right away and instantly became lucid again.

The only thing I had a slight problem with was that I imagined pain as my finger went through the palm - and it hurt like hell. But after doing this test a couple of more times I managed to control my mind enough to remember that pain in a dream is only an illusion - it's all in your head.

These are the other ways I check if I'm dreaming. Try them out:
- Read text on a poster or sign. Turn around and look back again. If the text changed - you're dreaming!
- Check your feet. If you find something odd about your feet, like missing toes - you're dreaming!
- Check the time. If the clock keeps showing random times everytime you look at it - you're dreaming!
- Check your hands. If you find something odd about your hands - you're dreaming!
- Look at a person, turn away, then back again. If the appearance changed - you're dreaming!