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Just yesterday I read how Tyrion tries to figure out if he's sleeping by pinching himself. And this seems to be a commonly held truth which often comes back in tales.

But I'm not so certain. So can you tell if you're dreaming by pinching yourself? Are there any other tricks to figure out if you're dreaming or awake?

Carra
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    Anecdotal: if you don't know whether or not you're dreaming, it is because you are dreaming but the thought haven't struck you. Once you realize that you're dreaming (a phenomenon called lucid dream), it's very obvious: you'll note how everything is incoherent and lacking in detail. When sleeping, you will most likely be in sleep paralysis, and sometimes you can pick that up as a tell as well. I don't know that anybody has ever honestly entertained the idea that they might be dreaming, when they weren't, save, perhaps, for hallucinations, in which case I don't see how a pinch would help. – David Hedlund Aug 10 '11 at 07:26
  • possible duplicate of [Is it impossible for a human to feel pain in a dream?](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2278/is-it-impossible-for-a-human-to-feel-pain-in-a-dream) – Suma Aug 10 '11 at 08:07
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    Negative, from personal experience. I recently had a dream wherein I wondered if I was dreaming. I did the pinch and concluded I was awake. Some time thereafter, I woke up... :-) – Brian Knoblauch Aug 10 '11 at 13:58
  • I have heard if you try to turn on a light while in a dream, it will not come on, similar way to tell if you are dreaming. – Moab Aug 12 '11 at 00:54
  • As far as I know, there is exactly one researcher (Stephen LaBerge) who has done systematic studies on lucid dreaming and reality checking. As far as I know, none of these studies have been independently repeated. [PubMed is pretty silent](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=%22Laberge%20SP%22), too. – Konrad Rudolph Sep 10 '11 at 10:30
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    One little known but very effective trick to know if you're dreaming is to read something, look away and read it again. In the real world you'd see the same words again. In a dream it's highly unlikely that you'd see the exact same words again and you'd most probably see some other words. – slebetman Jul 13 '15 at 07:44
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    From my experience with lucid dreaming I would say that yes in theory you could, in practice it's not a good method. When asleep your brain accept strange things easily, and will convince you that there is nothing unusual about not feeling pain when you pinch yourself. In addition, by the time you're lucid enough to control your dream and pinch yourself you already have already done the hard part of gaining lucidity. After that all you need to do is confirm what you already figured out, which is easier done by doing something you know you can't do while awake, like flying. – dsollen Jul 15 '15 at 16:20
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    None of these methods will work reliably, given the fact that in dream states (or hallucinations) your brain can rewrite what you perceive as normal. I often have dream states where I will confuse intellectual concepts for reality (like trying to lift off the floor the "idea" of democracy), or be confused on if I was looking at a cat, or at the "idea" of a cat. Basically, if you ever wonder if you are in a dream, then you are, but that thought can be rarely triggered. – Graham Aug 10 '15 at 19:15
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    Find something to read, or write something down, cover it up and look at it again after a few seconds. You will have great difficulty in trying to have text remain consistent and unchanging in a dream. Clocks, cell phones, computers should be similarly difficult to get to behave consistent. –  May 02 '16 at 13:18
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    I have a trick I use to tell if I'm in a dream: I'll take off my shirt, and then if I'm still wearing the shirt, I'm dreaming. However, there have been times when I've tried this, noted I was still wearing a shirt, and then thought to myself "strange, that usually only happens when I'm dreaming." Dream logic took for granted that I was awake, even when presented with contrary evidence. – DaaaahWhoosh Jun 02 '17 at 20:07
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    @DaaaahWhoosh So... what happens if you *aren't* dreaming? "Congratulations, Mr/Ms Whoosh, you are clearly the best candidate, so we are prepared to offer you the job right now. Wait, why are you taking off your shirt?" – user56reinstatemonica8 Jun 02 '17 at 22:42
  • @DavidHedlund - Anecdotal: the first childhood dream I am consciously aware of having/remembering, was one where was dreaming, woke up from that dream, went outside to my driveway, and, while I was riding around in circles on my tricycle, said to my older sibling "at least I know I'm not dreaming now!" - at which point I woke up. – PoloHoleSet Jun 06 '17 at 21:26
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    I can recall, at about age 20 (ie, 40-odd years ago) being in a dream and deciding to open my eyes and wake up. Which I did (open my eyes, that is). I was still dreaming. – Daniel R Hicks Nov 05 '17 at 00:04
  • @DavidHedlund says "*Once you realize that you're dreaming (a phenomenon called lucid dream), it's very obvious: you'll note how everything is incoherent and lacking in detail.*", but I have the exact opposite experience. I almost always know I'm dreaming, and I visualize everything in very fine detail. In fact, I often wonder, while dreaming, how my brain can generate so much detail spontaneously and in real time. (Just to complicate things though, I have aphantasia, and can't visualize anything at all when I'm awake.) – Ray Butterworth Jul 01 '22 at 01:36
  • @DavidHedlundn There are many levels of lucid dreaming, it's not all dream or all conscious. Usually before you reach fully lucid dreaming you are in an in-between state, one where you have a vague sense that you may be dreaming, but all the illogical inconsistencies are not obvious (speaking as someone who is a quasi-lucid dreamer). Pinching never worked for me, nor does trying to recognize the inconsistencies of the world. My goto test has always been to try flying. It's also impossible to read words/numbers in dreams some use that as a test, but half-lucid me never thinks to try it. – dsollen Jul 17 '22 at 16:28

1 Answers1

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No.

According to A Cartesian Introduction to Philosophy (1986):

This shows, by the way, why it's so pointless for you to pinch yourself to see if you're awake. You may dream that you are pinching yourself, and you may dream that you are finding yourself to be awake. Of course, if you are just dreaming that you are doing this, you are mistaken. In light of these considerations, it would appear that Descartes' suggestion may be right. Perhaps there is no criterion by which I can determine whether or not I am awake.

See also Philosophy: An Introduction (1964) for a similar analysis.

DavePhD
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    Sure, we can conjecture that we can dream we are feeling pinching pain. We can conjecture that we can dream that we can read lucid sentences on a page. In practice, I can't ever recall dreaming about being in physical pain (Fear, discomfort and disablement? Yes. Pain? No.), and I can tell I am in a dream when I try to read words, and the words dance about without forming sentences. (I imagine there are physiological reasons for these limitations, but that is just more conjecture.) On Skeptics.SE, empirical data beats philosophical conjecturing. – Oddthinking Jul 01 '17 at 08:21
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    @Oddthinking Annecdotal but I remember once while dreaming that I was reading a book out loud. And while in dream state the sentence made sense. But after waking still with the sentence in my head, it was just jibberish words pasted after each other. – Lyrion Jul 03 '17 at 12:22
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    @Oddthinking I have experienced physical pain in dreams. Usually, maybe always, a body part starts hurting while sleeping, then in the dream somebody is doing something bad to that body part, and when I wake up that body part is really hurting. – DavePhD Jul 03 '17 at 13:41
  • @Oddthinking and apparently we have a separate question for that: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2278/is-it-impossible-for-a-human-to-feel-pain-in-a-dream?noredirect=1&lq=1 – DavePhD Jul 03 '17 at 13:42
  • @Oddthinking and you deleted someone's answer that said "During a vivid dream, I dreamt my boyfriend pinched my ass (HARD)...I had an intense pain for about 10 seconds ...." so anecdotally someone says they experience pain of being pinched in a dream. – DavePhD Jul 03 '17 at 13:46
  • @DavePhD: Awesome. So my personal experiences are not universal. I learnt something. Good to know. Where does that leave us with this answer? – Oddthinking Jul 03 '17 at 15:53
  • @Oddthinking probably leaves us at the question corresponding to a long recognized philosophical problem that can't be experimentally tested, mainly because there is no experimental way to evaluate the content of dreams. The best we can do is ask people about their memories which they believe originated from dreams. – DavePhD Jul 03 '17 at 16:41
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    -1: This is not a scientifically-grounded answer. There is an entire recreational community founded on the notion that [you can semi-reliably tell whether you are dreaming](https://google.com/search?q=lucid+dreaming+reality+check). Maybe they're all massively mistaken, but a good answer would cite sleep studies and other empirical evidence to confirm or refute that claim rather than some philosopher's blind assertion to the contrary. – Kevin Nov 05 '17 at 00:22