I think whether reality checks make you more rational largely depends on what sorts of checks you are using. There are many checks that exploit “surface-level” features of dreams—most commonly inconsistencies in clock faces and written text upon second looks—in order to determine whether one is dreaming. These checks are useful for determining whether you’re asleep but generally limited otherwise.
However, there is one somewhat deeper feature of dreams that IMO provides a more useful opportunity both for reality checks and for rationality practice. Dreams, by their very nature, lack a logical underpinning for events. We tend to find ourselves in the middle of a series of events without much explanation for how or why we arrived there.
Thus, one reality check that I find useful both in dreams and waking life is the thought “where am I, and how did I get here?” For instance, right now I am at my computer, typing a LessWrong post. I got here from waking up in my room and walking downstairs. I got to my room from driving my car after a party with friends last night.
Obviously, this type of reasoning can go on and on. The interesting part is that dreams lack this.
For instance, I recently dreamed that I was on an airplane. I thought to myself “How did I get on this airplane?” Realizing I had no memory of getting to the airport, I became lucid. You might wonder how this applies to rationality. The answer is that “Where am I and how did I get here” can easily apply not only to physical reality, but also to your mind and thoughts. Indeed, it is very similar to “What do you think you know, and how do you think you know it—” one of the classic questions of human rationality.
In my experience, internalizing the general form of this principle has been very useful both for dream checking and for improving rationality.
I will second value of asking “why am I thinking about this?” in real life. It hasn’t changed my dreaming patterns, but when I was in the active habit of it I learned a lot about how thoughts were connected in my head and how my thinking was affected by the behavior of others and more generally by my environment.
The similar “why am I feeling this?” was also a very useful exercise for flattening out post-traumatic triggers. I find it likely that continuing the exercise past that point would teach me a lot about how my feelings are affected by my environment, but I haven’t done it.
(Why? Mostly because it frightens me. Why do I feel fear when I think about it? Because I believe/alieve/intuit that valuable aspects of my personality will be put at risk if I become too aware of the specifics of how my emotions are connected to the things around me. Why do I believe/etc. that? I don’t know; certainly I have no meaningful evidence to that effect, nor any good reason to expect it, beyond the general observation that emotions and affective relations to my environment are pretty fundamental to my personality, and that attending to my emotional responses tends to alter them. Why do I believe the changes are more likely to be ones I negatively value than positively? Because these judgments are coming from a part of my psyche that does not seem to have abstracted its value system in any significant way, it values whatever it happens to value and it values valuing whatever it happens to value, la-la-la-la-la-I-can’t hear you. Do I endorse that? No, not really. Then why do I act on the basis of those judgments? Because the alternative frightens me. I do recognize this just got circular, right? I do indeed. Fear is like that sometimes. I also recognize that I’ve just transitioned from asking myself why I feel what I feel to judging myself for feeling that way, even if I word it as a question, which probably isn’t a great thing.)
Great answer, I know this is something I need to do more in life anyway. So I did a little bit of it just now. Sudden increase in levels of curiosity[so virtuous. Wow.]. I’m so curious I even want to know crap like why my housemate sometimes leaves a spoon stuck in the coffee grounds of the compost container. Obviously they used the spoon to move the grounds in there, but why did they leave it stuck there rather than moving it to the cutlery dip in the wash basin? Now that is an extraordinarily minor detail- take that as an indication of just how motivating it is to suspect that you don’t look closely enough at the details of your life to know whether you’re in a shoddy simulation.
I think whether reality checks make you more rational largely depends on what sorts of checks you are using. There are many checks that exploit “surface-level” features of dreams—most commonly inconsistencies in clock faces and written text upon second looks—in order to determine whether one is dreaming. These checks are useful for determining whether you’re asleep but generally limited otherwise.
However, there is one somewhat deeper feature of dreams that IMO provides a more useful opportunity both for reality checks and for rationality practice. Dreams, by their very nature, lack a logical underpinning for events. We tend to find ourselves in the middle of a series of events without much explanation for how or why we arrived there.
Thus, one reality check that I find useful both in dreams and waking life is the thought “where am I, and how did I get here?” For instance, right now I am at my computer, typing a LessWrong post. I got here from waking up in my room and walking downstairs. I got to my room from driving my car after a party with friends last night.
Obviously, this type of reasoning can go on and on. The interesting part is that dreams lack this.
For instance, I recently dreamed that I was on an airplane. I thought to myself “How did I get on this airplane?” Realizing I had no memory of getting to the airport, I became lucid. You might wonder how this applies to rationality. The answer is that “Where am I and how did I get here” can easily apply not only to physical reality, but also to your mind and thoughts. Indeed, it is very similar to “What do you think you know, and how do you think you know it—” one of the classic questions of human rationality.
In my experience, internalizing the general form of this principle has been very useful both for dream checking and for improving rationality.
I will second value of asking “why am I thinking about this?” in real life. It hasn’t changed my dreaming patterns, but when I was in the active habit of it I learned a lot about how thoughts were connected in my head and how my thinking was affected by the behavior of others and more generally by my environment.
The similar “why am I feeling this?” was also a very useful exercise for flattening out post-traumatic triggers. I find it likely that continuing the exercise past that point would teach me a lot about how my feelings are affected by my environment, but I haven’t done it.
(Why?
Mostly because it frightens me.
Why do I feel fear when I think about it?
Because I believe/alieve/intuit that valuable aspects of my personality will be put at risk if I become too aware of the specifics of how my emotions are connected to the things around me.
Why do I believe/etc. that?
I don’t know; certainly I have no meaningful evidence to that effect, nor any good reason to expect it, beyond the general observation that emotions and affective relations to my environment are pretty fundamental to my personality, and that attending to my emotional responses tends to alter them.
Why do I believe the changes are more likely to be ones I negatively value than positively?
Because these judgments are coming from a part of my psyche that does not seem to have abstracted its value system in any significant way, it values whatever it happens to value and it values valuing whatever it happens to value, la-la-la-la-la-I-can’t hear you.
Do I endorse that?
No, not really.
Then why do I act on the basis of those judgments?
Because the alternative frightens me.
I do recognize this just got circular, right?
I do indeed. Fear is like that sometimes. I also recognize that I’ve just transitioned from asking myself why I feel what I feel to judging myself for feeling that way, even if I word it as a question, which probably isn’t a great thing.)
Great answer, I know this is something I need to do more in life anyway. So I did a little bit of it just now. Sudden increase in levels of curiosity[so virtuous. Wow.]. I’m so curious I even want to know crap like why my housemate sometimes leaves a spoon stuck in the coffee grounds of the compost container. Obviously they used the spoon to move the grounds in there, but why did they leave it stuck there rather than moving it to the cutlery dip in the wash basin? Now that is an extraordinarily minor detail- take that as an indication of just how motivating it is to suspect that you don’t look closely enough at the details of your life to know whether you’re in a shoddy simulation.