# Lucid Dreaming/Reality Checks/Breathing

* Lucid Dreaming Introduction | Dream Recall | Induction Techniques | Using | Glossary | Appendices | Further Reading
* Reality checks Breathing | Finger Stretching | Hands | Identity | Jumping | Light switches | Memory | Mirrors | Nose | Powers | Reading | Time | Vision

## Presentation

With the breathing reality check, you check if you can breathe underwater or with your fingers tightly sealing your nose. Always remember to concentrate on the act. When you seal your nose, don't release the air pressure when you're done with the test. As well as doing this regularly, you could also do it every time you go swimming.
That being said, if you feel at all uncomfortable, unplug your nose! You don't want to risk suffocating yourself.
NOTE: I have had personal experience with the breathing technique. I have used it numerous times. Only until recently it has worked perfectly fine for inducing lucid dreams; however, within the last two weeks, every time I try to plug my nose and breathe in, it doesn't work even in the dream world! It may be because I do the test so often that my expectation of the result carries into the dream world, therefore giving me the result I expect no matter if I'm dreaming or not. But, I do not see why this would happen since I constantly question the reality of the world around me hoping and expecting to be in a dream. My advice is to have a variety of techniques down in your mind and test two or three of them. Sometimes, my breathing AND hand checks don't work any more! I have found that text and digital clocks are the only solid way to know for sure since I seem to have exhausted the ability to use the techniques relating to my body.

## Examples of this reality check working

* I realised that the situation was getting a bit strange and did the breathing reality check. I found that I could breathe through my nose and immediately searched for a mirror...
* I did the breathing reality check out of routine. Somehow I was uncertain whether I was dreaming - it seemed I hadn't sealed my nose tightly and I could still breathe through it. I pressed tightly and still managed to breathe. I was convinced. I went outside...
* I was pushed down into the water. I almost drowned before I tried to breathe, then I suddenly found I could breathe underwater. As I came up to the surface I realised that I was therefore dreaming.
* While using the WILD technique, I thought it might be time to perform a reality check. As I couldn't decide which one to use, I suddenly felt myself sinking through my bed. Eventually, I fell through and fell into the water. I immediately found out that I was able to breathe through my nose and realised that I was dreaming.

## Examples of this reality check failing

* My first attempt at reality checking; I found myself in a pool, and could breathe; for a moment I was lucid but then I decided that I could breathe because the pool had no chlorine, and I went on without lucidity.
* I did the reality check out of habit and I could not breathe with my nose closed.
* I breathed through a shut nose, and a dream character said that you just thought it worked. I continued on non-lucidly.
* My nose was quite greasy, so I couldn't seal my nose properly... I was breathing, but I thought it was pretty normal, as my nose wasn't shut, so no lucidity came.
* I did the breathing reality check. It didn't work. I said, "that's odd - my reality check failed!" I kept doing it until it worked. Only when I woke up, I realised that I just needed to do a reality check and then I would realise that I was dreaming.
* I was taking a hallucinogenic drug in my dream and my drug guide told me that I should feel as if I'm in a dream, therefore the reality checks should prove true even though I'm not really dreaming. When I woke up I soon realized I actually was.
* I tried breathing underwater at the beach when I thought I was asleep, inhaled a mouthful of water, and had to be rescued by lifeguards.