Nose pinch considered harmful?

Let me start by saying nose pinch works 100% for me. Whenever I have done it in a dream, it always indicates dream. I do not recall any dreams where I did a nose pinch that indicated not dreaming.

I have saved a few good LDs where I started doubting, with the nose pinch. Nose pinch has helped cement lucidity in a few LDs right at the beginning. Mostly, however, I get lucid by awareness peaking and just realizing all of a sudden I'm dreaming. I don't think I did an RC in a dream until the 7th LD or so, which I just did when already lucid because I was curious what my dream hands looked like.

Developing a "nose pinch reflex" has been a big part of my training. I think it has been useful in a few cases. But maybe subconsciously I'm relying on it too much now? Maybe "nose pinch and continue" is training me to let go of peaked awareness too soon?

It's so easy, so fast, so clear, and it takes no thought or consideration. Maybe instead of a nose pinch reflex, I should work instead on an awareness reflex, focusing on awareness alone to evaluate my state, holding peaked awareness longer? It is the mental awareness and constant activity of the critical faculty (is this a waking situation/state?) that many associate with very frequent lucid dreamers (many of who established this as a way to detect/predict nightmares).

In my daytime practice, I'm working hard to cultivate a continuous sense of skepticism about my state: I try never to assume I'm awake, ever. I consider my surroundings critically all through the day.

Maybe I'll keep the nose pinch, but only employ it *after* thoroughly mentally evaluating my state/environment, and holding longer to peaked awareness.

The thing about the nose pinch and any other physical RC is that you need to think about what it means everytime time you do it, because if you dont it will become a meaningless habit and wont work sometimes, it happened to me a lot of times because I let that RCs turns into a habit, now it works all the time again because I think about the RC when I do it. And you should use more than one RC, the ideal is three RCs.

But the RC is just to be sure, you should always train to be aware that you are dreaming before the RC, like you are doing, that's is the only way to master awareness and it will avoid that you lose lucidity during lucid dreams

Thanks. But I should have added that I never do nose pinch "meaninglessly," and like I said, it has *never* failed in any dream, I have never nose pinched and just gone on non-lucid. So that's not the point. I'm aware of the danger of non-thinking RCs. My point was meant to be more subtle than that. I meant to communicate it's like I'm giving nose pinch the "final word" on whether I'm dreaming, and I think that could actually be harmful to lucidity by keeping the need for more awareness slightly suppressed.

I've only once actually become lucid by doing the nose-pinch RC, but I have done it after becoming lucid. I had another LD where I realised I could breathe under water which gave the same affirmation. I think I understand - are you saying that once you've done the RC you "relax" in terms of awareness because you know you are lucid? I can relate to that. I'm trying to stabilise by engaging, so anything that causes a dip in awareness could be seen as detrimental.
I tend to do the look at my hands RC now, but I'm thinking of giving that up as a goal and just engaging with my dream environment for now, until I get some length to my LDs.