A reality check is a simply asking the question, “Am I dreaming?”. By asking this question while awake, you can increase the probability you will ask this question while dreaming. As a result, you may have more vivid or lucid dreams.

So often, we have dreams and they just happen. At the end of the dream, we have these vivid memories of bizarre and meaningful events. But they are just memories. It is just a dream that happened and is completed. 

People perform reality checks so that when they are in a dream, they will realize that they are dreaming. This is called lucid dreaming. A lucid dream is a dream in which you are aware that you are dreaming. 

There are many ways to do reality checks. You can look at your hands (which will look funny in a dream), try holding your breath (which you can do infinitely in a dream), or flying (which some people can do in dreams). You can try to read text (which looks strange in a dream) or try flipping a light switch (which may not work in a dream). 

It really doesn’t matter how you do it, the point is to build a habit of asking yourself, “am I dreaming right now?”. If you create a habit of doing this while you are awake, you are more likely to do this when you are dreaming. 

We’ll cover how to do reality checks in a moment, but first a note about lucid dreams.

Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreams are dreaming in which you are aware that you are dreaming. Researchers estimate that up to 55% of people have had at least one lucid dream in their lives. The same researchers estimate that 23% of the people that have had a lucid dream will have a lucid dream at least once per month. 

Lucid dreaming is simply the awareness of dreaming as dreaming is happening. Control of dreams is present is around less than 50% of lucid dreams. But, people report flying, speaking with dream characters, and even reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression as a result of lucid dreaming.

One recent study demonstrated that people who are having a lucid dream can listen to the external waking world and respond to questions. This is quite amazing! We literally have scientific proof of people communicating from inside a dream.

There are techniques to learn how to lucid dream. These have been scientifically shown to be effective at inducing lucid dreams. However, at the beginning of the scientific study people had lucid dreams 5-10% of the time and at the end of the study they had lucid dreams 10-20% of the time. 

Specific Techniques for the Induction of Lucid Dreaming

There are several different types of techniques to induce lucid dreaming. By and large, all of these only increase the probability of having a lucid dream. There is no one technique that will result in a lucid dream 100% of the time. In addition, many people report having to spend a long time trying before achieving a lucid dream.

External Stimuli. There are techniques to induce lucid dreaming through external stimuli such as flashing lights during REM sleep. There are also over the counter drugs one can take to increase the probability of lucid dreaming.

Waking up. This is also frequently called “Wake Back to Bed” or WBTB. In this technique, on s is to wake up in the middle of the night for about 20-30 minutes. Generally REM sleep occurs later in the night. The idea behind this technique is to wake up before this REM-rich period of sleep in order to prepare for having lucid dreams. 

Dream Practices. There are two frequently mentioned practices. The first is the Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreaming (or MILD for short). In this technique, one simply sets the intention of being lucid in the dream by repeating an intention such as, “the next time I’m dreaming I will remember that I’m dreaming. The second is called Sense Induction of Lucid Dreaming (SSILD for short). This involves paying attention to different senses such as vision, hearing, and touch as one falls asleep. DreamWell offers practices for both of these techniques in the app.

Continuation of awareness. There are two techniques that seek to simply continue awareness into the dream state.  In this technique, one simply tries to remain awake as the body is falling asleep. The second is a technique in which a recent dream is kept in mind as the body is falling asleep.

General Techniques for the Induction of Lucid Dreaming

There are general techniques recommended for the induction of lucid dreaming. Very few of these have been scientifically studied. 

Improving dream recall by keeping a dream journal. This makes sense because if you do not remember your dreams, then it will be unlikely that you remember lucid dreams. 

Practicing mindfulness. The definition of mindfulness is difficult and elusive, but generally it is simply paying full attention to your experience. Mindfulness will benefit a number of cognitive functions like attention and memory. This makes sense because if you do not pay attention to your waking experience, you’ll be unlikely to pay attention to your dreaming experience.

Building the habit of seeing if you are in a dream. This is called doing a reality check. The idea is simple. You create the habit of checking if you are in a dream during your waking life. This habit will carry over to your dream life, so that when you are in a dream you will check to see if you are dreaming. Once you realize that you are dreaming, then you will be in a lucid dream.

Reality Checks

Scientific evidence for reality checks

There are a profound amount of resources online about using reality checks to induce dreams ( you can see examples here, here or here:

However, reality checks have not been shown to add additional value in inducing lucid dreams when used in combination with other techniques. Additionally, reality checks have not been shown to be able to reliably produce lucid dreams when used in isolation. Both of these studies used relatively shorter time periods of less than 2 weeks to see the effect of reality checks on lucid dreaming. It was noted that there are several studies showing the effectiveness of reality checks on inducing lucid dreams at longer time periods.

Even if you don’t want to specifically achieve lucid dreaming, reality checks are a good practice to consider. They are moments of mindfulness throughout the day in which you pause and are simply aware. In addition, they allow you to think about dreams throughout the day which probably increases dream recall (though this hasn’t been studied).

Type of reality checks

One of the most popular reality checks is simply trying to push your finger through the palm of your hand. This is possible in dreaming and very easy to do.

Another reality check is to close your lips and mouth and try to inhale. It is possible to inhale through a closed mouth in a dream. Again, this is very easy to do throughout the day. 

Some people try to count the fingers on their hands, some people will try to fly, some people will try to read text. There are countless lists of different types of reality checks (here, here, here) if you want inspiration.

Our favorite reality check

The point of doing a reality check isn’t simply to ask the question, “am I dreaming?” and get to the answer as quickly as possible. 

The point is to spend time really evaluating the question. The more invested you are in reality checks while you are awake, the more invested you will be while you are asleep. The point is to build up the habit of really being invested in determining if you are in a dream.

As a result, my favorite reality check is to ask myself, “how did I get here?”. There are frequently bizarre events and timelines in dreams. They simply just start and then you are in a different context and setting all together. By asking myself “how did I get here?”, I am forcing myself to review recent events in my life. If I am awake, I have a memory and things make sense. If I am in a dream, then the recent events in my life will not make sense.

This is my favorite reality check because it takes time. I’m invested in answering the question. I’m also practicing the skill of reviewing recent events, which will likely help in dream recall for non-lucid dreams. 

When to do reality checks

DreamWell offers notifications to prompt you to do reality checks, which can be turned on from your settings screen. These notifications are sent at random times between your wake and sleep times. These are good times to do reality checks, but it is best to do your reality checks to events that occur in both waking and dreaming life.

For example, it is good to do reality checks when something strange or surprising happens. This is because strange or surprising things often happen in dreams. 

It is also good to do reality checks when anything changes in your waking life. Dreams often change scenery. Characters appear and disappear. So, it is good to build the habit of doing a reality check when you move locations or see someone new.

Practicing Reality Checks

There are many different ways of doing a reality check, so find what works for you. We recommend that you simply ask yourself the question, “how did I get here?”. Simply review your and see if there is anything dreamlike. But people also recommend looking at the hands, trying to push a finger through their palm, flying, reading text, turning on or off light. 

You can do reality checks at any time, but it is best to do things when something strange or surprising happens. This is because strange and surprising things happen in dreams frequently. You can also do a reality check when something changes in your environment, like a new person appearing or going to a different location.

The overall aim of reality checks is to build up the habit of checking to see if you are dreaming. If you build up this habit during your waking life, you will likely check to see if you are dreaming while you are dreaming. As a result, you may have more vivid or lucid dreaming. You may improve your dream recall.