Laravel 5 access session user

When a user is logged in and I dd the user I get an all the properties of the current user on screen.

$testing = $request->user();

dd($testing);

The user object:

User {#596 ▼
  #table: "users"
  +primaryKey: "id"
  #fillable: array:3 [▶]
  #hidden: array:2 [▶]
  #connection: "mysql"
  #keyType: "int"
  +incrementing: true
  #with: []
  #withCount: []
  #perPage: 15
  +exists: true
  +wasRecentlyCreated: false
  #attributes: array:9 [▶]
  #original: array:9 [▶]
  #changes: []
  #casts: []
  #dates: []
  #dateFormat: null
  #appends: []
  #dispatchesEvents: []
  #observables: []
  #relations: []
  #touches: []
  +timestamps: true
  #visible: []
  #guarded: array:1 [▶]
  #rememberTokenName: "remember_token"
}

How can I access for example the #attributes array from the controller if I want to use any attribute to run user checks in the controller methods?

via Chebli Mohamed