Ignoring lucidity

I had an odd dream last night. It was both a success at lucidity and a complete failure.

I dreamed that my family was at home and there was some danger(like a tornado or something) where I was worried that we wouldn't make it. Suddenly my cat ran up to me. My cat is, irl, recently dead. And I thought "Oh, right. It's a dream. You're actually gone so nothing can happen to you." And then I should have 'woken up' right then. But instead I just thought "Well I don't have to worry about YOU, but there's still danger". My scrambled logic was that anyone still living was still in danger and there fear lasted as long as the dream and was just as real as any scary dream. I understood that it was a dream, even thought about trying to control it, but it controlled me.

How can I become fully lucid if I just passingly notice something like a dead being walking up to me?

Note: This has happened before in various ways. I know I'm dreaming for a second and just follow the same story as the dream, not truly lucid but somewhere thinking that I'm dreaming.

This is what the reality check is for. The dreamsign makes you lucid, or what is sometimes called semi-lucid. The RC engages your critical thinking and prospective memory. By momentarily getting off the "script" of the dream and engaging your mental faculties, you strengthen your lucid state. Then you are able to do more conscious reasoning and decision-making instead of just going along with the dream.

So do to that, you want to create a prospective memory trigger. Remind yourself several times a day and especially before going to sleep that, if you become lucid or have any doubt about reality, you will try the nose-pinch RC.

That happens to me sometimes as well, and I've been LDing for almost ten years.

Reality checks help, definitely. If you are having trouble remembering to do them in your dream, periodically do them in waking life. For example, when something interesting or a little out-of-place happens to me in waking life, I do a finger count RC very quickly. It does help by keeping your brain thinking about RCs, and also about lucid dreaming. Try it out, see if it helps. :)

If you've got a watch with an hour-chime setting (most digital watches do) you can urn that on, and do an RC whenever it beeps. That's helped me :) Whenever my watch beeps, I check the time, double check it, and then count my fingers. I also do it whenever I doubt reality.