What Does DR Mean in Shifting? Shifting Terms A to Z

What does DR mean in shifting? It stands for desired reality, the world or life a shifter hopes to wake up in, and CR is current reality, the life you are living right now. Those two letters open a whole dictionary of shifting words, but you only need five for a first try, and every other term here is optional.

If your search turned up ledgers and invoices, that is a different DR and CR, the debit and credit of bookkeeping.

Each term below gets a line or two and a link to the page on our site that covers it properly. If shifting itself is new to you, begin with our guide to what reality shifting is, and read whether reality shifting is dangerous before your first try.

What Does DR Mean in Shifting?

Your DR is your destination.

It can be a story world like Hogwarts or the Marvel universe, a life as a trainee at a K-pop company, or your own life with a few things changed. If you have not chosen one yet, browse our desired reality ideas.

Nobody can trace who first said “DR”. The word grew up in shifting groups on Amino, Tumblr, Reddit and TikTok, passed from one post to the next.

When the psychologist Eli Somer and his colleagues studied shifting posts, they used DR and CR exactly as shifters do. In their 2021 paper, they also noted that some shifters seemed convinced their DR was just as real as their CR, with people in it who had feelings and memories of their own.

You may also see IR, short for intended reality. A terminology post on r/realityshifting calls IR a synonym for DR, chosen because you intend to go there.

The Five Words a First Try Needs

You already know DR. Learn these four as well and you can read almost any shifting post or script.

1. CR, current reality. The life you are living today, bed, timetable and all. It is also the place you come back to, which is why so many scripts mention it by name.
2. Script. The page you write before a try, describing your DR from top to bottom. Somer’s team found scripts listing characters, the languages people speak and even the perfume someone wears, along with notes on how time passes and how to return to the CR. Our shifting script template gives you the sections to fill in.
3. Safe word. Your scripted exit: a word or phrase that, once said in your DR, means you are heading back to your CR. Somer’s team saw this line scripted often. Some people script a small gesture instead, a safe action, which one helper in an r/shiftingrealities thread described as anything you do or say to leave your DR and return to your CR. Pick a word you would never say by accident, and see how to choose a shifting safe word.
4. WR, waiting room. A stopover some shifters make before the DR, often a quiet room or garden of their own design. It is optional, and our guide to the waiting room in shifting explains how it works.

If you keep only one of these four, keep the safe word.

We think a short script with a clear way home is a better first try than a long one with a waiting room, because knowing the way back lets you relax on the way in.

Everything else on this page is extra. Plenty of shifters never use a clone, a time ratio or a waiting room, and they shift (or try to) just the same.

More Shifting Words, A to Z

Here is everything else you are likely to meet in captions, comments and scripts, in alphabetical order. The four short forms borrowed from sleep, and the words that need extra care, have their own sections after this list.

○ A to C

• Affirmations. Short lines in the present tense that you repeat to yourself. Somer and his colleagues give “I am in my desired reality and I can feel it” as a typical one, and our list of shifting affirmations has many more.
• Angel numbers. Repeating numbers like 111 or 444 that you might spot on a clock or a receipt. Some shifters, the 2021 study by Somer’s team reports, say they see the same number sequences just before they enter another reality. Read what angel numbers are said to mean if you keep noticing them.
• Better CR. Your own life with some things changed for the better, sometimes written “better CR DR”. You keep your home and your people, and better CR shifting shows how shifters script it.
• Clone. Somer’s team describes the clone as a piece of your consciousness that shifters say stays behind in your CR body, looking, thinking and talking just like you. But plenty of shifters reject the idea and say there is only one you. Both views are set out in the clone section of our permashifting guide.

○ D to L

• Gateway tapes. Guided audio sessions you may see shifters play to relax before an attempt. If you have seen claims about a “CIA document” on shifting, our page on the Gateway tapes explains what that paper really is.
• Group shifting. You and one or more friends shifting to the same DR with matching scripts, hoping to meet there. Read about group shifting before you plan one with friends.
• Law of assumption. An idea borrowed from manifestation: you assume you are already in your DR and act as if it were so. Our law of assumption shifting guide explains how shifters use it.

○ M to R

• Method. A routine for trying to shift, like the Raven, Pillow or Heartbeat method. Some are done awake and some as you fall asleep, so browse the reality shifting methods for beginners and pick one that suits you.
• Mini shift. A short, strange visit that ends almost as soon as it starts, which is how shifters use the word, though it has no single agreed meaning. Most stories happen on the edge of sleep, and our page on the mini shift goes through the different things people mean by it.
• No method. Shifting by deciding you are there, with no routine at all. If methods feel like homework, read about no method shifting.
• OR, original reality. Close to CR, but used once you believe you are already in your DR and want to talk about the life you came from. That is how the r/realityshifting terminology post puts it. You will hear it most from people who say they have shifted before.

○ S to W

• Shift, shifter, shifting. The attempt, the person who makes it and the practice itself, sometimes shortened to RS for reality shifting. When you read “I shifted”, the writer means they believe they reached their DR.
• Shifting back. Coming home to your CR on purpose, with your safe word or simply by waking up. It is not respawning (more on that word below), and how to come back from shifting covers it in full.
• ShiftTok. The shifting side of TikTok, and probably where you first met these words.
• Subliminals. Recordings that tuck affirmations about your DR under music or other sound, sometimes sped up, as Somer’s team describes them. We know of no study that has tested whether they help anyone shift. Our guide to the best subliminals for shifting covers how to listen safely.
• Symbol. Two small circles joined by a line, which shifters read as your CR, your DR and you in between. See the reality shifting symbol for where it came from.
• Symptoms. Feelings people describe as they try to shift, and Somer’s team found many reports of numbness, tingling, heaviness and floating. Plenty of people feel these on an ordinary night as they drift off, and reality shifting symptoms goes through each one. Chest pain, a pounding heart or trouble breathing are never shifting signs, so stop and get a doctor to check you.
• Time ratio (TR). A rule you script for how much time passes in your CR while you are in your DR. The r/realityshifting terminology post gives 1 minute in your CR for 1 week in your DR as an example. It is a choice you write down, not something anyone has measured, and our time ratio guide helps you pick one.
• Void. A word used in two ways. For many shifters it is a deep, calm state where the body fades from your attention, a gateway they use to reach their DR, as in the void method. Others describe it as a place of pure blackness and stillness that you pass through, a belief nobody has been able to show is true.

Short Forms Borrowed From Sleep: LD, AP, SP and HS

These four come from sleep and dream talk, and you will meet them most on sleep methods. One of them means something completely different outside shifting.

• LD, lucid dreaming. Knowing you are dreaming while the dream is still going on. The r/realityshifting terminology post says you can shift from a lucid dream using various methods, and our lucid dream method is one way shifters try it.
• AP, astral projection. The belief that your awareness can leave your body and travel on its own. It is a separate practice from shifting, and you do not need it to try a shift.
• HS, hypnagogic state. The drowsy stretch between waking and sleep, when your thoughts loosen and pictures drift in on their own. Many sleep methods ask you to hold your focus on your DR through it.

SP needs more room, because it means two things. In shifting, it is sleep paralysis, which the r/realityshifting post describes as the time when your body is asleep, your mind is awake and hallucinations can happen. In manifestation posts, SP usually means “specific person”, someone the writer hopes to attract.

So check which crowd wrote a post before you decide what it is about.

If sleep paralysis keeps happening to you, or leaves you scared of going to bed, tell a parent or another adult you trust and mention it to a doctor.

Words to Be Careful With

Most shifting words you can use freely. These four cause real mix-ups, and the first needs a word of care.

○ Respawning

Respawning means being reborn into your DR for good, starting that life from the beginning and never coming back to this one. Some older pages use the word for what we now call permashifting, and how permashifting and respawning differ sorts out the two.

Coming back to your CR is called shifting back, and it is a different thing altogether.

Business Insider reported that respawning is backed by a small fringe of shifters, and that believers describe two routes to it, one of them physical death. To be completely clear, death is not a doorway to your DR, and no method, audio or script changes that.

If respawning appeals because this life feels too heavy right now, that feeling deserves real help, not a script. Saul Rosenthal, a psychologist in Boston, told Business Insider that people trying to respawn are “telling us something about what’s wrong with their lives”, and that we should help them find what they need “in this life”.

Please tell someone today, whether that is a parent, a friend or a school counselor. If you are in danger right now, phone your local emergency number. You can also call or text the 988 Lifeline in the US, free and at any hour. In the UK, call Samaritans on 116 123 from any phone. In India, dial Tele MANAS on 14416 to reach a trained counselor.

○ Permashifting

Permashifting is the plan to move to your DR for good and stay there as you are, memories and all. It is a belief, and nobody has ever shown it can happen. Our permashifting guide explains why people want it and why we always keep a way home.

○ Getting “Stuck”

You will find posts insisting you can get stuck in your DR, and others promising you never can. But neither side can prove its claim, so read both as beliefs. A simple script with a safe word near the top is the habit we would keep either way.

○ The Lifa App

Shifters write the Lifa app into their scripts, to use once they reach their DR, and Somer’s team calls it an imaginary app, not a CR one. If you come across an app with that name in a real app store, it is a different thing. Nothing on your phone here can do what the scripted one does in shifters’ stories.

Your DR, in Your Own Words

Shifters made up every one of these words for each other, and you are free to use as many or as few as you like. If the short forms feel clumsy, write your first script in plain sentences instead. Your DR, shifters would tell you, does not mind what you call it.

Happy shifting!

Shifting Terms FAQ