RC didn't work in my dream?

I've got a question..or a problem aha. Okay so I literally just woke from a nap like 10 minutes ago and recorded the dream but there's one thing that kind of confused me. My dream literally went from paradise, to an action movie scene then to a nightmare(a nightmare was wasn't really scary) more like a zombie movie scene haha. But at one point in this zombie scene, I thought to myself, this is crazy.. This can't be real.. This is a dream, I must be dreaming. So I go over to a mirror and try to push myself through it or something but nothing happens really.. And at this point I'm pretty scared because If that didnt work, then I guess I'm not dreaming right? So my dream progresses and I try to question reality again...you know, before I end up DYING LOL. I try the finger through palm push, nothing. And my dream progressed until I woke up and was like hell yeah that was crazy!!

What I'm wondering is why didn't these reality checks help me realize this was NOT reality? What I'm thinking is they didnt work because I did them out of fright. I literally did those checks to try and escape from that situation, i guess. Is this the case? Or maybe I didn't realize those checks were actually doing something I just didnt see. Well...lucid dream or not it was definitely an emotional roller coaster I would definitely get back on ahah.

Has this happened to anyone?

wow awesome experience! unfortunately i haven't had my lucid dream yet :P, so i can't say.. but i'm sure it was deffinetly an amazing dream, i imagine the thought "wait, what if this is not a dream??" lol you must have been quite crazed by that thought, weren't you? xD

Yeah!! When the first reality check didnt work I thought to myself "wow this must be real then.." I thought that might've been then end and once I woke up I couldn't help but grin because it was a dream that I haven't experienced. Overall it was a great experience but if only I was able to take advantage of the dream, it would've been much better. I, myself haven't had any lucid dreams yet but I think that might have been borderline lucid! Haha good luck to the both of us in future attempts :D

Thanks! and for sure good luck to us! :D
you know what, i will add you as a friend, so when you write about your first one, i will see it too xP

Yeah, reality checks aren't perfect, sometimes they don't work in dream like they supposed to.
Though, when you do reality checks in waking life, do you expect to be really dreaming and do you expect reality check to show that? If not, do so, that will do a bit of passive control in dream, which is based on expectations, and will increase chance of reality check working greatly. Also don't forget that the point of reality checks is not an action, but the increase of awareness, like, right before doing reality check in waking life, stop, take a look around and completely believe that you are dreaming right now, then do an reality check. :peek:
Also put emotions into reality check when you do it in waking life, like "Wow, am i dreaming?", emotions are important for the reality check and will help to become lucid with the right mindset. ;)
Good luck!

make sure to do more than one reality check if you have the awareness to do so. i've had reality checks fail before as well even the ones i consider tried and true like nose plug technique.

Pushing yourself thorough a mirror isn't really a reliable reality-check. The mirror might behave as you would expect it to in real life - solid. Try the nose-plug RC (hold your nose and see if you can breathe through it) or the hand (count your fingers, there's never the right amount). They're tried and tested, and rarely give false positives.

I think that was a lucid dream and that you just were not able to stabilize the lucidity but you obviously kept questioning it, right everyone? You should definitely be proud to have had some level of success! The finger count method didn't work for me, but perhaps because it was a false awakening but I knew I was dreaming instantly and wasn't really counting my fingers but just examining my hand as in Nina's technique and took off flying. I love those zombie dreams and even if not lucid for some reason I am not scared...I often wonder why that is?

Thanks everyone ill def put more effort into realty checks. Yeah, lucid or not zombie dreams are just fun regardless!! Haha I think I'm getting closer to achieving lucidity I guess I need to focus on stabilizing. But thanks for the input everyone