I'll start with the research. In the experiment, 2 groups of students were asked to learn boring material. They were supposed to do it in a room with terrible learning conditions. Loud and funny clips were played in the background to distract them and they were to receive little money for participating in the experiment. Second group studied under the same conditions as first one, but nevertheless performed much better on the knowledge test and reported to the researchers that television distracted them much less. The researchers told this second group only one sentence before learning. "Don't see this as learning material that you will later be tested on. See it as an opportunity to improve your memory and concentration." They thus changed their so-called dominant motivator. They changed the reason why the students got involved in the assignment.
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1041608011001749
I have also found some interesting notes in my notebook. However I can’t find a source of these statements but I reflect to this and I bet that a lot of you too. The greater the delay element, the less motivation we will have towards a goal. Each waiting day lowers the value of the prize in our eyes.
When we do reality checks only to build a habit and get lucidity in the future, we will come across lack of motivation after some time. When I do reality checks I don’t focus primarily on increasing my chances of lucidity but I aim at improving my memory (I try to remember what I was doing this day or day before or 3 days ago etc...) {by the way it is a very good motivator in case of keeping dream diary}, critical thinking (I doubt whether my surrounding is real or not) {improving critical thinking causes me to thing whether something is good for me or not and to make better decisions}, I am increasing my willpower (look at the end what I mean, because it is a bit complicated), and I am currently trying to create a new technique based on reality checks. There may be another reasons why you do reality checks, I showed you mine. The point is to change your so called deep motivator on a one that will give you motivation to do reality checks.
Willpower:
Studies have shown that almost every regularly trained act of self-discipline usually increases the amount of willpower after 2 weeks. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2855143/
Smokers who, before quitting smoking, engaged in small activities that increased their willpower, such as avoiding eating sweets, later abstained longer than those who tried to quit without such preparation. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2946169/
All of it is from a polish course, based on scientific researches, about motivation. Let me know what you think about it and how it worked for you! Especially you Daniel.
This is all really interesting : ) I will definitely be taking a look at those links you posted. I was just thinking about reality checks actually and how important our motivation is when doing them. Recently I had a non-lucid dream where I was moving into a new house. I'm sitting in my old house and I thought that I should do a few reality checks bc I'm probably going to be dreaming of this old house in the future. I didn't become lucid though, bc the motivation behind WHY I did those reality checks was not to see if I was dreaming (it was to prepare my mind for future dreams of this house). This is why I'm slightly critical of LaBerge's exercise where you do a reality check everytime you come across one of your "target" items for that day. I don't think it's a good habit to get into doing reality checks just bc you see a random item that has nothing to do with your dreams. At that point, you are not really reality checking to see if you are dreaming (bc why would you think you are dreaming from seeing, say, a red car lol), you are doing them simply bc that's what you are supposed to do when you see a "target." I feel it's important we save reality checks for times only when we believe we are dreaming. If we are doing them constantly for any other reason besides seeing if we are dreaming, then I feel this is a good way to get burnt out and start not taking them as seriously.
Thank you for sharing this with us!