Reality checks didn't work

Hi, I would like to share some things that happened in the dream I had last night.
In the dream I was with my girlfriend in some kind of shopping mall. She was telling me all the time that she was dreaming and that I was too. She said things like: look what I can do as this is only a dream.
I realized y should do a reality check just to be sure and get lucid. I tried jumping and floating but nothing strange happened. I tried looking at my iPhone screen, looking away and looking back again (this reality check usually works very well for me) but everything seemed normal. In the meanwhile my girlfriend was doing cool stuff and telling me: You see, it's just a dream, I just changed the object I was holding and you didn't even notice.
I even imagined my girlfriend sinking into the ground and disappearing and it happened. Then she reappeared coming out of an elevator and telling me what she had just experienced. It was very strange. I knew it could only be a dream but it was as if I believed it was her dream and she was the one being lucid. Therefore, I couldn't do what I wanted to in the dream.
I knew I was dreaming and for the first time this didn't make me wake up. But as my reality checks didn't work, I think I might not have been lucid enough or even not at all. It was as if I had just been a passive observer of the lucid dream she was having.

Has somebody experienced something similar sometime? Would you say it was a lucid dream? Would you say that the fact of me imagining my girlfriend sinking into the ground and then reappearing and then watching it happen is a proof that I was lucid and could control what was happening? Why didn't it make me completely lucid although I perfectly knew it was a dream?
Finally, could anybody tell me why my reality checks wouldn't work or at least wouldn't make me lucid enough?

PD: I just remembered, that at some point I flew from one point to another point just to make sure it was a dream (it might have happened in another dream I had during the night though) and it worked but it didn't make me really lucid.

Thanks! I hope my experience hasn't been too boring^^

Use a different reality check, one that works every time (99%) The nose reality check when you try to breath while holding your nose closed

I always do 3 reality checks: checking my hands, pushing my finger through my palm, and breathing through closed nose. What are the odds of neither of them working?

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I knew it could only be a dream but it was as if I believed it was her dream and she was the one being lucid. Therefore, I couldn't do what I wanted to in the dream.

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Remember that anyone in a dream- is a dream character, projections made by you, you cant be someone elses projection, though I do understand when we are in a dream we are not as clued up as we are when awake, and all logic flys out the window, its just practise :) also use a more reliable reality check like the others have pointed out, just to be sure. I wouldnt worry too much, we all get those times when the dream is screaming out for us to become lucid, but we still dont quite get there. You'll have better luck next time.

It sounds like you knew you were dreaming on some level. I normally have the opposite experience. Those sneaky dream characters are always trying to convince me I am NOT dreaming.

Thanks for your answers
@Robot_Butler: yeah, I knew I was dreaming although my reality checks wouldn't work. But as I assumed it was not my dream (I still don't know why I came to that conclusion) I couldn't control it, except for the moment when I imagined my girlfriend sinking into the ground and it really happened, I'm not sure if that can be seen as some kind of control. And usually I have the same experience as you do, my dream characters and even my own mind try to convince me I'm in waking life or at least they try to distract me from asking myself whether I'm dreaming or not but this time it was the opposite lol.

@ShadowOfSelf Now, remembering the dream, I know that she was only a DC as you said^^ But as you already mentioned my logic wasn't quite that accurate during the dream, even though I knew everything that was happening was just a dream. But for some reason, my mind told me it was her lucid dream (maybe because she was the one telling me it was a dream and doing things that made me aware of the strange things happening around me) and I was some kind of guest and maybe that's the reason why I didn't get 100% lucid. Thanks for the advice of using another reality check, I'll try to get into the habit of doing another one. I hope it won't be too difficult, as the reading or watching a phone screen or digital alarm screen happens spontaneously in my dreams, even before I want to test if I'm dreaming. That's the reason why I often use that kind of reality checks, because they usually work as dream signs for me and I just have to repeat them intentionally just to be sure.

So, anyway, thanks to everybody. I will try some other reality checks next time I am not sure if I'm dreaming.

Sounds like you're very close. You where doing reality checks in a dream, your dream characters where telling you that you where dreaming - these are great things :) . Keep at it

try holding your nose and mouth and trying to breathe, this check has never failed me

Yeah my personal favorite is pinching the nose technique. I was pretty convinced I was dreaming, but I wanted to make absolutely sure. When I went to nose the nose technique my hand got stuck on my nose. I threw myself over a bar trying to get it off. It finally did, was pretty epic. I wish you good luck, just do whatever you do is best. That is pretty neat saying a DC not being dumb for once. (in your dream you described)

:D

When you were looking at your iPhone, what have you been looking at?

In the mall, you can do a great RC by looking at different shop signs, reading them, then re-reading them. To make it even more effective, "dare" the shop title to change into something similar.

It's pretty cool that your dream characters actually help you. Mine were always trying to deceive me and tell me stuff that made no sense once recalled in the waking world.

When you do a reality check in your waking life, you have to do it with the belief that "This reality will work, somehow somewhere in an alternate dimension (ie. dream) this reality check will confirm to me that I am indeed dreaming". If you mindlessly perform reality checks while awake, expecting them to fail, then what do you think has a good chance of happening in your dream? The reality check that is.

I would try a different reality check such as breathing in through the plugged nose, and when you do it, even when you are awake and you're sure its not a dream, believe that breathing in with your nose plugged is possible, so that when you do it in a dream, you will not convince your subconscious mind to make it impossible. The finger through palm technique is pretty hit and miss, sometimes it works sometimes not, and reading is also not guaranteed to be a reality check, as i have had dreams where I can read quite clearly.

I hope you understand what I'm trying to get to, and to encourage you a bit, you should be confident in the fact that you are getting close to lucidity, and that the more you keep practicing techniques such as awareness, the closer you will get until eventually you will be fully lucid.

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Originally Posted by lawilahd

When you do a reality check in your waking life, you have to do it with the belief that "This reality will work, somehow somewhere in an alternate dimension (ie. dream) this reality check will confirm to me that I am indeed dreaming". If you mindlessly perform reality checks while awake, expecting them to fail, then what do you think has a good chance of happening in your dream? The reality check that is.

I would try a different reality check such as breathing in through the plugged nose, and when you do it, even when you are awake and you're sure its not a dream, believe that breathing in with your nose plugged is possible, so that when you do it in a dream, you will not convince your subconscious mind to make it impossible. The finger through palm technique is pretty hit and miss, sometimes it works sometimes not, and reading is also not guaranteed to be a reality check, as i have had dreams where I can read quite clearly.

I hope you understand what I'm trying to get to, and to encourage you a bit, you should be confident in the fact that you are getting close to lucidity, and that the more you keep practicing techniques such as awareness, the closer you will get until eventually you will be fully lucid.

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I'd like to add that there's 1 reality check that may be performed even in the dimmest mental state. This is the digital clock RC. It doesn't matter what you believe. It simply does not work. The brain is uncapable of maintaining an orderly appearance of a sequence of digits.

@Ev, what I was looking at when looking at my iPhone was the first screen that appears when you click on the "ON"button. I was looking for any incongruences that would not be there in waking life. Probably there were some but I wasn't aware enough to notice it. Usually what I see is exactly what you mean: the digital clock being incapable of maintaining the same appearance when looking away and looking at it again. As I don't wear a digital clock, this "reality check" has worked for me quite often without the need of voluntarily doing a RC because during the day I have gotten into the habit of examining my iPhone's screen.

@lawilahd I absolutely agree with you. That's why when I do RC's during waking life (i.e every time I take an elevator) I imagine myself doing them in a dream and watching them work. But you may be right when you say that I'm not convinced enough about the fact of myself being able to breathe through my plugged nose. Therefore I'm probably convincing my subconscious that it is impossible, just as you said. Also, I have not tried getting into the habit of doing that particular RC during waking life. Usually I just look at my hands asking myself if they look normal and imagining how they would possibly look strange in a dream, thus making me lucid.
When I do the reading RC in a dream, sometimes I am able to read pretty clearly what's written. If that happens I try to look away and back to see if the text has changed.
About what you mentioned concerning the belief of being able to do things that wouldn't be possible in waking life I would like to know if you could give me some advice. It's pretty tough for me to believe the physical laws don't exist in a dream, , especially when I become semi conscious or conscious, which means the logical part of my brain gets more activated, as I am so habituated to their existence in waking life...

As I mentioned, I've got used to making RC's when taking an elevator (as elevators seem to be an anxiety causing element in my dreams, working as a dream sign). However, when I remember my dreams and remember being in an elevator, I notice that 99% of the time I don't notice it's the sign that warns me to do a RC... Therefore, I almost never do RC's in an elevator in my dreams. What's the point of doing them in a particular situation during waking life if it doesn't increase the probability of me doing them in a dream? Maybe I just need some more time, so that it completely carries into my subconscious. What do you think?

Thanks for all your answers!