Posted on: Nov-8th-2009, 11:15:04 AM |
Level of Lucidity (1-10): 10 | Dream Signs: Clock, Time, Test, Watch, | Mood: Anxious
This is the freakiest thing that's ever happened to me in my lucid dreaming experiences over the last 15 years. One of the standard dream sign tests is the Clock Test. This is a test you do both while awake and dreaming where you look at a clock or your watch, look away, and then look back at the clock. If you're awake, the two times are the same except for a second or two difference when you're looking away. When you're dreaming, the time is very different between glances. For another description of this test by someone else, see this blog.
So this actually happened to me while I was awake. I looked down at the digital watch I've worn every day for the last few years and has been 100% completely reliable, and the pixels in the screen suddenly dissolved into randomly blinking line segments. I stared at this for about 10-20 seconds, looked away, looked back - and it was still all random blinking lines. Then the watch went blank for a few seconds, and finally displayed the time of 10:00:00 PM. This all happened as I was starting at it. At the time it was actually about 5:25 PM.
Wait a second, this is supposed to be a sign that you're dreaming. But WTF???!! I'm actually awake!?
So I got to thinking that the dream sign test is really just a training wheel for recognizing that you're dreaming. You can know you're dreaming just because you know you're dreaming. The same way you know you're awake right now as you're reading this on your computer. The important point is to ask yourself the question often enough that you ask yourself the question in your dreams. To answer the question, you just need to say whether you're dreaming.
Asking yourself this question makes you introspective for a moment as you fully ask yourself this question. It serves to center you and make you more self-conscious and self-aware, because you have to analyze your own internal state, even if for just a moment.
Now I'm really intrigued, because I'm curious how you - yes you, the guy or gal reading this right now - know that you're awake? How do we all know we're awake, without having to do a test like looking at a clock? How? What is it about our state of consciousness that leads us to believe we're awake? Is it continuity with an event stream that started when we woke up this morning? Or what else could it be?
Is there a test you can perform whose outcome will always determine whether you are dreaming or awake? The Clock Test does not meet this criterion because if the times are different, it could still either be a dream or reality. Sure you can do a test like seeing if you can fly, and if you fly, well then you're dreaming. But - and here's the important point - but if you didn't fly, that doesn't tell you anything about whether you're awake or dreaming. I'm looking for a test that figures this out one way or the other in one test, always. What is it? Is there one?
Rating: 3.8/5 (10 votes cast) (376 views)
