How do you know you're not dreaming?

[BlueTitSmilingAtMe]

I've had dreams where I've dreamt I've woken up, sometimes multiple times, and then realized I was still dreaming, sometimes multiple times. And then I've woken up for real. But did I? Or am I still dreaming? Are you? How do you know one way or the other?

Nah, we are being controlled by people playing The Sims game.

I had to Google it as well.

Or ... I dreamt I had to Google it and so did you. OR I dreamt I had to Google it and also dreamt that you told me you had to Google it. OR you dreamt you had to Google it and dreamt me up as being someone who googled it.

And you dreamt the answer, and the question, and everything else you've ever thought including things you don't understand.

That'll be why I spend so much time staring at a wall then...

"*Nah, we are being controlled by people playing The Sims game."
*
Well I wish my player would use motherlode or some other money cheat instead of being a sadistic bugger

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Ah, I love this Poe poem!

Oooh.

It certainly slips through our fingers. So yes is not real.

I have been asking myself that since I was about 11 years old OP, unfortunately I haven't come up with a definitive answer yet.

What I do know is that now I am a disabled pensioner, my dream life is often far more interesting than my real life - if I have got them the right way round. I frequently get fed up if I have to wake up to pee, and if someone wakes me from an interesting dream I find it hard not to moan at them!

Maybe preferring my dream life to my actual life (same qualification as before) is a way for my brain at least, to make my progression to death more palatable to me?

Looking forward to going to sleep, rather than going out to do something nice (it takes such energy to go out, which stresses me, and then it takes me ages to recover afterwards), doesn't seem particularly healthy to me, unless it is in preparation? But I am only in my 60's and I do want to live long enough to see Grandchildren grow up.

I saw on an episode of Scooby Doo once (so obviously it's true) that if you try to read in a dream the words will be all jumbled and you'll know you're asleep. I don't know if that's always true or if it's because I had a visual memory of it but every time I've tried it in a dream to see if I'm dreaming or not the words are jumbled in just the way they were in the cartoon. So, kind of helpful for me at least!

Yes - also I find if in a dream I'm asking some sort of question I don't know the answer to, then none is forthcoming - I usually wake up a bit annoyed or disappointed at that point which is how I remember that. Obviously a dream can never tell us something we don't already know.

Yes, this and the dream about neglecting animals like PP.

I hate those ones, classic stress dreams. They always feel so desperate. It's like I know I should be doing something, feeding the baby/animal, caring for them, but in my dream it keeps slipping my mind, and I feel so guilty.

I also have dreams.about needing to phone 999 but not being able to find the 9 on my phone, or getting distracted and then remembering, repeatedly.

I taught myself to lucid dream and can check whether I'm dreaming or not by performing a reality check. Mine is seeing whether I can push a finger through my palm. Pretty sure this is foolproof as it will always go through when I'm asleep and then I know I'm dreaming.

The trick is to do it occasionally when awake, not just mindlessly but really considering your surroundings and the possibility that it could go through. Then what happens is you sometimes do it in a dream.

I have the same as well, OP. I've always been a mad dreamer. I can wake myself up if I'm scared. If a dream is boring I'll just go, 'OK, i've had enough of this dream now' and change the dream. I used to be able to control my dreams really well - not so much now I'm older though, I've just realised. I used to be able to watch myself in my dreams and dictate what happens - quite frequently as well. Writing this has made me realise that it's not happened for a while.

I remember studying for a course and telling the lecturer about it and them saying that it was quite rare to be able to do this. I was surprised back then as I thought it was something that most people did.