#reality check

The game treats the Miis like they’re real people and makes zero mention ever that they are not, and only ever refers to them and their POV as if they are real and you are their caretaker! While playing this honestly messed with my head pretty badly at times and made me worry a lot on if I was hurting real people/not doing enough for real people while I was playing!

I cannot imagine how much worse this would be for someone who’s unmedicated, non-dormant, or experiencing breakthrough symptoms! Do please be careful and PLEASE remember to have a way to reality check yourself while playing the game!!!

"I often talk about reality checking and going along with it when helping someone deal with delusions, but I felt as if I didn’t really make it clear to what I meant when I said it.

Recently I saw a post similar to “how to sneakily give your delusional friend a reality check when they told you not to” and honestly, that’ll just make us lose trust for you. Because we can tell when you do that."

I work in finance in a department that is all men plus me, a woman. I work very closely with them.

Half of them are taken, have a girlfriend or a beautiful wife with children. I know they treat their partners very well, are super romantic and thoughtful by the way they treat them at business events, BUT:

The moment the women leave and we’re back to everyday life in the office, it’s boy locker room talk.

And I’m in the middle of it.

Your boyfriend let me scroll through his FYP on TikTok and Explore page on IG to prove his point that every man’s feed is full of næked women and soft p**n. Even though he’s not liking the posts, he stays long enough on them for the algorithm to learn that he likes that content.

Your partner is getting a hard øn just by the photo of an outlook contact by the hot colleague from the legal department and is constantly raving about how hot she is.

Your man to whom you said yes to is started smoking just to go on smoke break together with the hot young assistant of his boss.

She’s very new to the office world because she can’t nail the business casual dress code yet but her taken boss doesn’t say anything against her baby pink frilly skirt that ends just under her butt cheeks.

Who are their female partners? I can tell you; I talked to them.

A college student in her masters program.

A doctor in training.

An entrepreneur who started her own business and has been the bread winner for 3 years.

A woman who gave her boyfriend or my boss three sweaters for me because I forgot to pack something warm for the group business trip.

A woman who left all her friends and family behind to move 500 km to be with her broke ass partner.

"the problem that i found is when i was doing these reality checks, it was almost kind of training my brain to like, look for not dreaming, like training my brain... it felt like i was training my brain not to dream. like... it was weird... ...so when i'm in the day and i'm saying, am i dreaming? like my brain kind of automatically goes to, i'm not dreaming. i know i'm not dreaming. and i even remember one time i was in a dream and i went to do a reality check, and as i did the reality check, like i told myself, this is not a dream because i was doingthat all the day or like every single day. i told myself, this is not a dream, and the reality check failed. like i used to try and push my hand, my finger through my hand, it didn't work. and then i woke up in this reality. i was like, whoa, but that was a dream..."

these words really shook me up. admit it, you did reality checks too, didn't you? If you answered yes, here's how to do it right:

"then obviously as time went on, i learned that, yeah, you meant every time you do a reality check, you're meant to actually like really test it. but what i found helped even more was this technique that i actually got from a lucid dreaming book. and i'll share this book in a moment in this book, it speaks about whatever you are doing in your day to day, actually look at it, like, right now i'm recording this video. i'm going to tell myself ,this is a dream. i tell myself this is a dream. i look around and i actually feel like, i imagine that this is a dream. like i look at the things more clearly. i feel the reality as if it's a dream. what i want you to do to increase this presence is throughout your day, tell yourself in whatever situation you're in, this is a dream. try it even now, as you're watching this video, i'm going to pause for a second, look around and say, this is a dream. as you're looking around, feel as if it is a dream. feel that, like imagine you are in actually in a dream and feel that feeling do this throughout the day. i'm going tell you, aim to do this at least 20 times in the day. like just random moments to tell yourself, this is a dream and feel that feeling as if it's a dream. this will start to build your presence in the day because you're looking for these moments to tell yourself it's a dream. but not only that, the cool thing about this is you're training your mind to actually feel as if you're in a dream. now, when you're next in a dream and you actually do it, you will actually see the dream. you will actually feel the dream. you will actually do these reality checks when you do them and it will actually not fail. it will actually pass because you will feel the dream more than you normally do"

that's not all. the author says that after checking reality, you should do what you wanted or planned to do in your lucid dream

"...and at least one time in the day, you're going to take a random situation and you're going to imagine that you're in a dream now. so you're going to tell yourself, this is a dream, but the only difference now you're going to take it one step further is if this actually was a dream. what would you do to achieve that one thing that you wanted to achieve..."

personally, i would advise you, after checking reality, to imagine how you shift or enter the void. that's how I would do it:

— i would choose three colors. and throughout the day, when i saw those colors, i would start doing reality checks — i tell myself it's a dream. i look around with complete calm. i am not surprised, i am not happy, i am not panicking. it's as if it's normal for me to wake up every night in my sleep. i know that i have mastered lucid dreaming, so why should i rush anywhere? — "to enter the void state: (in your dream) take a deep breath, close your eyes, and affirm that [you are "now" in your void state] until you feel yourself there" — "to shift realities from ld: take a deep breath, close your eyes. focus on your dr and affirm that [you are waking up in your dr]. try to wake up with the certainty that you will do so in your dr, imagining yourself there"

"Why can't two boys just be friends? Why do you have to make everything gay!?"

Whenever I hear this argument or some variation of it, I think back to my two cousins, one a girl and the other a boy. (He was from my dad's side of the family; she was from my mom's.) They were maybe six years old at the time, and they were innocently talking and playing and giving each other math and spelling-bee quizzes. ALL my family were giggling, saying they were going to be boyfriend and girlfriend.

I also think back to all the times I see young girls being judged on their physical beauty and told they're going to have a handsome boy when they grow up because they're so pretty.

From childhood, boys and girls have their sexuality assumed for them. Their SEXUALITY and romantic possibility are talked about openly in front of their face. They're made to look at themselves sexually before they even want to.

So when people yell at Byler fans saying "Why do you have to make everything gay?" I want to scream at them:

"Why do you have to make everything straight!?"

Why do you insist on sexualizing children to be heterosexual even before they're ready to start thinking of themselves in those terms?

Why do you have no problem with Mike kissing El in season 1 right after she asks him if he's like her "brother"?

Why do you idealize their relationship when they were children, while simultaneously trying to shame Byler fans for trying to "sexualize children" even though these are fictional characters and the actors who play Mike and Will are already adults?

Why do you shame any thought or possibility of homosexual romance, while imposing heterosexual norms on everyone?

It reminds me of people who say "You can be gay of course... just don't shove it in our faces (by holding forth that you're gay, kissing in public, etc.)." When no one bats an eye when straight people do the same thing. They might claim they're not homophobic, but actual equal treatment of LGBT+ people they don't accept.

It's Straight Privilege in action: the norms and standards that straight people enjoy quietly do not to apply to us.

This hypocrisy even distorts how Milkvans view Mike and El. We're told that if Mike and Will get together, that would mean Mike "used El" and El would never be able to forgive him.

Not only does this disregard that people can have amicable break-ups and still be close friends: it also shows that the idea of a platonic loving relationship between a Mike and El is beyond their comprehension. To them, the only loving relationships boys and girls can have with each other are romantic ones.

(Now, before anyone objects: sure many people accept Robin and Steve, but that's because Robin is canonically gay. We all know that before she came out many of us (me included!) were shipping those two as a couple!)

If someone ships Mike and El WITHOUT her confronting him about his poor treatment of her in early s4, without there being an honest conversation about that, this definitely raises an eyebrow from me. The "love confession" didn't address this: his fear of losing her did NOT explain his failing to comfort her or failing to say he loved her. Theoretically it's possible for these two to repair things. (And if Milkvan is endgame I hope that they do by addressing this!) But for some Milkvan shippers the need to address Mike's behavior doesn't even enter their minds because they're idealizing their relationship. In other words, THEY are imposing their idea of a relationship on these two, much in the same way my family was imposing their own ideas on my two cousins without regard to the people involved.

So if anyone asks "Why can't two boys just be friends? Why do you have to make everything gay?" it's purely hypocritical and dishonest. No, we just want THIS relationship between Mike and Will (which is clearly being built up as romantic) to be gay out of a sea of heterosexual relationships on TV.

No. THEY are the ones who rule out a boy and girl just being friends. THEY are the ones who insist on imposing romance on a boy and girl when they're not ready. THEY are the ones who insist on "everything" being one way.