Quote Originally Posted by dave1701 View Post
Last night something I knew was very strange and unbelievable happened in my dream. I thought: "This is either a dream, or some sort of magic is going on here". So I did a reality check. I looked at my hand, it looked fine, so I continued on. When I woke up I was surprised my my stupidity. What gives?
The way reality checks work is confirming a suspicion.
You've become lucid before, so you probably know that you question if you are dreaming first, the reality check then is used to confirm this and therefore increases awareness. So it depends on how aware you were in the first place, which possibly wasn't enough in this case. Another reason why it may not have worked is because of the way you perform reality checks in real life.
A bad habit is not questioning reality before reality checking, it becomes routine to you that the reality check isn't going to work, and this rubs off in the dream.
It could be either, so take alook at how you reality check/how aware you were and try to determine which it is.

If you have any other questions just ask!