Reality checks failing

I was in a bad dream and I refused to believe that could be reality and from that moment on I was lucid. I tried to wake up but without a success (but I was not convinced I was dreaming) so I decided to look for what I thought were most reliable signs.

I was at dentist in a dream so I was already in a lot of pain. I grabbed the nearest thing - it was user manual for a some dentist machine and the everything made sense and letters were steady (never read and dentist equipment manuals so it wasn't something I could remember or a photographic-memory image which I do not posses).
I run into a shopping mall and everything had unbelievably many details. Running around, I have found a clock shop and once inside, I looked at various digital wrist watches but all the lines were steady and all of them had time 1:50 (when I was a kid playing with lucidity the wrist watch was all scrambled and even the lines were floating)
Then, I run into a hairdresser shop (barbers... if that is the name) and flipped the switch while looking at the lightbulbs which went off. I apologized to confused barber in the half dark while turning the switch back ON. Again the switch was working!
I went out and concentrated real hard to wake up, slapped myself several times feeling pain... and got stuck for about 10 second with the image of pavement tiles and some black spots when and finally felt laying in bed... few more seconds in black and I woke up.

DO these reality checks work always for you? Which RC is most reliable? What is the fail safe method for waking up? Why did that happen and why is so hard to wake up? I am not on any drugs or similar.

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/3703/dreamv.jpg

My RC's have yet to fail me. Use nose-pinch RC and also try to fly. Maybe they failed because you were too scared?
To wake yourself up you could close your eyes and dont think about anything, remove your dream from your thoughts and you SHOULD wake up..

RCs fail sometimes; it's just a fact of dream-life. Even the nose pinch RC, the most reliable, easy to perform RC in the standard tool-kit, can give a false reading every once in awhile.

Your best bet, if you're fairly certain you're dreaming, yet your RCs tell you otherwise, is to practice some kind of control. I can understand if that might be hard without much experience, but give it a try, you might surprise yourself. Personally, I like to jump out of nearby windows and hope for the best, which, thankfully, hasn't killed me yet.

Now, waking up is a different matter entirely. The method I use to induce a complete wake-up (with no FAs) is fairly personalized, so I can't expect you to be able to replicate it, but a general purpose technique you might want to look into is focusing all your attention inward, on your waking body, and ignoring the world around you. That should cause things to crumble away, but this method could land you in an FA, so watch out for those.

I did try to fly but only briefly. Yes silver2k, I was in a sort of panic ... maybe the brain works better in that state :?
hehe, Mzzkc the jumping out of the window is not something I would try... what if someone would drug me in real lift and I had a thought I was dreaming :)
I will try nose pinch RC next time, reading about it the first time now.
Thanks!

The most effective means of doing reality checks for me is to have a regimented checklist first thing I reailise that I am dreaming if I require RC's (sometimes I dont) I proceed with my favourite ones: levitate ( no need to fly scares me too lol just try to hover) check your hands and your dream body you will find this the easist to control just will your fingers to grow longer and they usually do. This alongside with the text check something with text in dreams is that whilst you may look at it (as you have done) and it can appear incredibly reailistic and constant if you look away and look back 75% of the time the text will have changed. Do it again and this increases to 90%. Basically though the best possible reaility check method is awareness in your everyday life. You must be able to spot the minute differences between the dream and physical reailitys if you are to embrace lucidity in your dreams, its all well and good to do RC's but if there is no awareness behind them you may find yourself doing them mindlessly within a dream without going lucid :(. i.e. every now and then alongside your daily RC's look around smell listen take it all in inspect your environment question it if you do this in waking life you will do this in the dream world. Good luck hope this helps :)