Did I dream of lucid dreaming, or was I lucid?

I see there are a few threads about this that are similar but I'm a newbie to this so would like some clarification if possible.

So I had just got back from watching inception (naturally) it finished just before midnight so before I went to bed I read up on it on wikipedia. Then naturally I read up on lucid dreaming. Now I'm not sure if I tried to implement a reality check before I went to sleep.

Now I think I can remember in my dream asking myself if this is a dream and I can remember pulling at hairs on my leg (great reality check I know) to see if I was actually dreaming. Now I'm not sure if this reality check would actually work, but then I think I suddenly realised I was dreaming and I starting changing things. The details are fuzzy but I can definitely remember things I was thinking about appearing, then I 'woke up' I did the reality check the pulling hair thing but nothing happened so I presumed I was awake. But then I actually woke up so it appears I had a false awakening.

Hope that isn't to confusing, reading this forum I'm trying to learn the terms etc to put back what happened into something you guys can understand. So I figure my reality check isn't actually a good one (I don't think I consciously made this check before sleeping I think I maybe made it up while dreaming, can that happen?) then this 'false' reality check made me question whether I was dreaming which may have made me conclude I was actually dreaming?

I say this because the reality check failed on the false awakening, which could be due to the fact I 'woke up' in my room so I was convinced I wasn't dreaming as nothing outrageous etc was happening.

Anyhow does it sound like I had a lucid dream then got excited which produced a false awakening? Or maybe I simply dreamed I became lucid?

What is that Reality Check supposed to do? I assume you do it to see if you feel pain? If so, then it probably won't work because you can feel pain in dreams. Either way, use this Reality Check instead; pinch your nose shut and try to breathe through it. If you're dreaming, you'll be able to breathe through your nose even if it's pinched shut.


If you knew you were dreaming, then it was a lucid dream. There are various levels of lucidity though, and it's possible to be lucid while still following the plot or rules of the dream even though you know it's just a dream. That's why when you become lucid, you really need to recognize that everything is in your mind, under your control, and you don't have to follow any rules of the dream.

I can not recall if I decided to do this as a reality check before I went to sleep but I don't think so. Is it possible that while dreaming for some reason (maybe that I was reading up about lucid dreaming and my mind was still going over the movie just before I went to bed) that I decided to preform a reality check and even though the one I came up with would fail, it happened to make me question whether I was dreaming or not and so I somehow figured out that I was dreaming? I realised that reality check fails, as during the false awakening I can remember trying it and I failed to figure out I was dreaming. Pretty confusing altogether, but I will use my new reality check (which just happens to be the one you suggested) from now on. Pretty happy though as it seems I was close or at least my mind is thinking about becoming lucid. Will try to remember more vividly what happens next time.

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