What does a False Awakening feel like and how do you react to RCs?

I have a minor problem. I'm a little (emphasis on little) freaked out about false awakenings and RCs.

I keep having the feeling that when I finally have a LD, it will be a FA or be followed by a FA.

The problem is, I don't really know what to expect. I'm not entirely sure I have had a FA before, and I don't know what it feels like. I keep thinking that i'll either not notice I had a FA or i'll perform a reality check (probably along the lines of extra fingers or the mirror RC) and i'll be distorted or something and the shock and/or fear will wake me up or turn the dream in to a (lucid) nightmare. And when I fear that it will happen, I know it will happen because i'm a pessimist like that.

TL;DR: What do you do when you do an RC in a FA and how do you react to using mirrors/multiple finger checks as an RC?

Don't be scared of false awakenings at ALL i love false awakenings! When i do a reality check in a false awakening i am not scared at all, i am very very excited. Its just like any other dream, except your dreaming about your room, nothing more. Also, i have never used a mirror as a reality check, but i have seen my self in a mirror in a dream. Looking into a mirror, you can see nothing, yourself with maybe some differences, a blurred out image, or...anything! In my experience i saw myself with a red afro. If your still scared for whatever reason of a false awakening i would suggest turning it into day if you get a false awakening. That way it might seem less frightening :). For me personally, my favorite place to start out in a lucid dream is in my bed, because i like to jump out of my window and see how accurate my neighborhood is to waking life. A fear of a reality check is even less to worry about! If you every do a reality check in a dream, you probably won't be scared at all and will just be like "Hey, I'm dreaming!" and carry on with your lucid dream. In the finger reality check, it is NOT scary at all since the moment you see something different about your hand/fingers, you will know you are dreaming. All what will happen in that reality check is that it may appear you have an extra finger or two. Also, there are much more reality checks than the two you listed, such as plugging your nose and seeing if you can breath through it, and trying to push your index and middle finger through the palm of your hand. Reality checks are used for good and they are not meant to scare you! I think you are being little paranoid and you have nothing to worry about. Good luck! :)

Haha, yeah, it's probably just paranonia. Thanks for clearing that up.

And yes, I know that there are more reality checks. The ones that I practice IRL are the nose-plugging thing and the finger-through-the-hand one. Those two are the ones that seem the most sinister to me, though; it seems like i'd be more likely to get a "hmm, that's really creepy, maybe i'm dreaming?" reaction than a "YES! i'm dreaming" reaction. The mirror test seems like it would be viable to perform during a FA because my entire closet door is a mirror.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have been so worried. Before I learned about LDing I looked in to a mirror during a dream, and the only difference between it and reality was that my hair was significantly longer and it looked like I had been charged with a lot of static electricity.

I'll give you two examples of a false awakening that I had:

1) I needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, but instead of actually waking up, I had a dream that I got up, went to the bathroom, turned on the light, urinated, and crawled back into bed. Then my body realized it still needed to go to the bathroom. So I *actually* woke up.

2) I usually immediately write my dreams in my dream journal notebook which is right to the side of my bed after I wake up. I have *several* false awakenings in which I think I am awake, writing my dreams in my dream journal, but in reality, I am still asleep. All I remember is the fact that I am writing my dream down in my dream journal, but I can't remember the dream I was trying to record!

I did exactly this is my dreams this morning when I had a FA, I got up and recorded my dream but then I woke up for real, luckily I remembered the dream and recorded it :)