Reality Checks, sometimes referred to as reality tests or critical state testing, are an important step to learning to lucid dream. One might even say  that they are the single most important step on your lucid dreaming journey. They are so instrumental to the process of becoming lucid that simply understanding and conducting regular reality checks may be the only technique that you’ll need to start having lucid dreams. And though it is recommended that you should learn other lucid dream initiation techniques, you will essentially need to know how to properly conduct reality checks to make use of any of them.

In simple terms, reality checks are just what they sound like — testing the reality around you to determine whether or not you’re dreaming. While it usually seems painfully obvious to us that we are awake when we are, we often overlook absurdities and inconsistencies that occur while we’re dreaming. By making a habit of conducting reality checks throughout the day, you greatly increase your chances of doing so while in your dreams. Because of this, it is crucial to make a habit of testing reality throughout the day or when specific situations arise to give yourself a higher chance at conducting these tests while you’re dreaming.

An avid or aspiring lucid dreamer should conduct reality checks often and thoroughly, even when it seems painfully obvious that they are awake to make sure that they don’t miss out on potential lucid dreams.

While testing your current ‘reality’ is technically all that’s necessary, there are some tried and true techniques that have a higher degree of success in helping you determine whether you are awake or not. Below we have listed the most successful and commonly used reality check techniques along with the best practices to ensure that you make proper use of them.

Reality Check Techniques:

• Checking the Time
• Finger Through Palm
• Counting Your Fingers
• Breathing Through Closed Nose
• How Did I Get Here?
• Flipping the Light Switch
• Looking in the Mirror
• Jumping
• Can’t read words
• Dream signs

Checking the Time

While in dreams, paying attention to digital clocks will often reveal to you that you are dreaming. Clocks are notorious in dreams for changing each time you look away and look back at them, and may begin to display symbols that aren’t numbers.

An easy way to make use of this is to use a digital watch that beeps every hour to conduct reality checks. The digital display of the time makes it easy to see if the time is changing when you look away and back, and the beeping will help you to remember to consistently test reality throughout the day. To get the most out of this, you should also conduct reality checks should you ever notice that you aren’t wearing it. This way even if you aren’t wearing it in the dream, you will know to conduct a reality check regardless.

You can also set alarms on your phone to get the same effect, given that you’re in an environment where you can have your phone going off every hour or couple of hours.

Finger Through Palm

A simple reality check that you can conduct throughout the day without looking out of place to those around you is the finger-through-palm test. To conduct this reality check, you simply try to push your finger gently through the palm of your hand. In waking life, nothing out of the ordinary will happen here, but in dreams it is common for your finger to go through your palm and out the other side. If that happens, you can reasonably determine that it’s likely you are dreaming, and some simple reflection will confirm that you are in fact asleep.

Counting Your Fingers

Similar to the finger-through-palm technique, counting your fingers will often reveal that you are asleep. Though seemingly less effective than the finger-through-palm technique (from anecdotal data) it is still a commonly used tactic. 

To conduct this reality check, start on one side of your hands and count your fingers one by one, paying close attention to them as you do so. In dreams, doing this will often showcase inconsistencies with reality. It is likely for your fingers to not add up to the correct amount, or you will notice along the way that something else about your hands is off. If they seem odd but you are still unsure, try another technique to confirm such as the finger-through-palm mentioned above.

Breathing Through Closed Nose

In waking life, you cannot breathe through your nose while you are holding it closed. In a dream, however, holding your nose closed will usually still allow you to breathe, as you haven’t actually obstructed the pathways needed to breathe.

Breathing is also such second nature to us that even with the idea that our breathing is obstructed in a dream, we will usually still be able to breathe perfectly fine. If you hold your nose closed for a few seconds but find that you can still breathe just fine through it, it is a good indicator that you are in a lucid dream.

It is possible for this method to fail (if you hold your breath), but it is a very common method that most people have reported success with who have tried it.

How Did I Get Here?

While dreaming, it is easy to get enveloped in the dream world around you and mistake it for reality. But even the most realistic dreams had to start somewhere — usually by spontaneously transporting you to a scene in the dream. By asking yourself how you got to where you are, you set yourself up to realize that you are dreaming by noticing that you didn’t come here by traditional means.

All you have to do to conduct this reality check is ask yourself “how did I get here?” And if you find that you don’t know how you got there, you can use another method to confirm that you’re dreaming. In many instances, just realizing that this may be a dream will be all it takes to remind you that you went to bed before you showed up here.

This method has been around for quite some time, and it can be seen in the movie Inception, which helped to popularize the concept of lucid dreaming in the last decade or so. For the best success, ask yourself “how did I get here” each time that you go to a common place in your life, such as school, work, or the store.

Likewise, anytime that you feel you are in a bizarre or unique place you can ask yourself if this is a dream or not and try to remember how you got there.

For safety reasons, you should follow up this method with a physics-based reality check that is more fail proof, such as the finger-through-palm or breathing with a closed nose technique.

Flipping the Light Switch

Within dreams, it is typically not possible to change the lighting of the dream without changing the setting entirely. Because of this, flipping light switches on and off won’t affect the lighting of the dream, and this can easily alert you to the possibility that you are dreaming.

Since it is somewhat likely in real life that the lights may be broken or not plugged in, it is recommended to follow this method up with other methods critical thinking to ensure that you’re dreaming.

Looking in the Mirror

Looking in the mirror can be strange in reality at times, but it tends to be a lot more bizarre within dreams. To use the mirror method of reality check, just spend some time looking at yourself each time you pass by a mirror, and check for anything out of the ordinary. Even if nothing strange happens, getting in the mindset of questioning reality even when things seem normal will bring you much closer to having frequent lucid dreams.

Jumping 

Jumping in dreams is reportedly different for most people than jumping in real life. Often times it will either feel different than traditional gravity (low gravity, floating away, not being able to jump as high as you think you should, etc). Also, if you jump with the intent to try to fly or float, you may very well do so in a dream — thus easily proving that you are dreaming.

In my experience, this isn’t as effective as some of the other methods listed here because it won’t always work, and it can be undesirable or embarrassing to constantly jump in real life, depending on the setting. You wouldn’t want to be constantly doing this at work or school, for example.

That being said, the best method is the one that works for you, so we’ve gone ahead and included it. If you suspect you are dreaming and have the freedom of trying to fly then go ahead and give it a try, and you might be surprised to find yourself in a dream.

Changing Text

Similar to the clock method, reading words in dreams can be highly difficult and inconsistent. Most people report a high degree of blurriness and inconsistent or changing text in dreams. 

If you’re trying to read something and it is either blurry or the letters/symbols are changing while you try to read them, it is a good indicator that you may be dreaming and that it’s time to seriously question whether or not you are awake. Likewise, anytime you are reading something you can do a double-take or triple-take to test reality by seeing if the text changes.

Using Dream Signs

Throughout your lucid dreaming journey, you should get in the habit of writing down your dreams. Once you have a decent amount of dreams cataloged, you can go back through them and look for patterns that are unique to you. These recurring elements are called dream signs, and can be used to make your daily reality checks more efficient.

For instance, let’s say that you are flipping through your dream journal and notice that you are frequently having dreams that take place at the grocery store. Now, having identified this as a dream sign, you can take that into account and make sure that you conduct a reality check every time that you are at the store. By doing so, you have just drastically increased your chances of conducting a successful reality check in your dreams since you will be conditioned to conduct reality tests when you’re at the store.

Sometimes dream signs will be something that wouldn’t occur in reality (like seeing a unicorn, for example). If your most prominent dream signs are things that can only happen in dreams, then instead make a mental affirmation of them before going to sleep. In the case of your dream sign being a unicorn, you could say to yourself “If I see a unicorn I will realize I’m dreaming” each night before going to bed.

Beyond the Reality Test

Now you should have a good idea of what signs to look for in dreams to indicate that you might be dreaming. While any inconsistencies with reality will do, these methods are extremely helpful to get in the habit of using. Just conducting reality tests can lead you to a form of Dream Initiated Lucid Dreaming (DILD), where you suddenly realize that you are already in a dream, and we believe this to be the most painless way to have your first few lucid dreams.

Once you have had your first few lucid dreams, or if you just want to try other initiation techniques, we encourage you to try some of the bolder techniques and find the ones that work well for you. You can find a list of lucid dream initiation techniques here. 

Make sure to check back for updates or leave a comment if you have a method that you use that we haven’t included here.