Help me understand this!

So yesterday I stumble upon a friend's photo on Facebook.
He's a great friend of mine that's working In England. I haven't seen him or thought about him in a really long time. Spent two minutes browsing his photos on Facebook.
Also yesterday I remembered a couple of Russian ladies I met on new year's eve. Spent five seconds thinking about them.

Today I had a huuuge non Lucid Dream about my friend and these two chicks (amongst other things).

Almost all of my non LDs there's stuff happening that's similar to something that just happened in waking life.

The thing is..
I've been using mantras for a while now.
I've been using RCs for a while now.
I've been trying to build awareness/self-awareness for a while now.

Every single time I've been Lucid was due to an apparently random "I'm dreaming" moment (Maybe this awareness building is slowly doing something after all) and not because a random RC.

How come that in all these months I have reality checked once in my dreams and only to confirm that I was indeed dreaming after a spontaneous Lucid awareness?
Maybe I'm not doing it (RC) right I guess.
But nevertheless, how come that in all of my dreams there's something related to something that I thought, said, or did in waking life except RCing?!

Cheers.

Hi, fellow countryman

About you becoming randomly lucid, this also happens to me, regardless of using mantras or RC's. I guess it's because of the intention. Using mantras or RCs just to see if you become lucid, it's not enough. You have to truly want to become lucid and take advantage of the techniques you're using to imagine the dream you want.

As for the subject of your dreams, this is normal. I believe that our brains browse through our memories (recent and past) to make up a dream. It can happen for example you wanting for days to dream about flying and when you have a LD you dream about the restaurant you were 2 years ago.

dreams are partially based on day residue, so it's normal.
Those lucids must be because of self-awareness. It must have leaked into your dreams as it should have. Also, do self-awareness without normal environmental awareness, since they tend to hinder each other. Intention and expectation helped leak that self-awareness , and it is easier to leak than RCs, since it tends to become second nature,