What to do if I'm awake with an Reality Check

Hello, fellow dreamers.
I have had my first LD this year in January. In my dream, I saw my hand with 6 fingers, and managed to prolong it for a good while. However, I still don't fully understand this reality check thing.... It is very hard for me to expect to see more than 5 fingers in waking life, or morphed time, for that matter. And when I perform an RC and know that I'm awake, I'm afraid to say that I'm awake, and am unsure of what to say or do. When performing an RC, and I'm awake, what should I acknowledge, and can I say that I'm awake, or will that become a bad habit. Thanks. Ask me additional questions, if I'm not to clear.... -Shawn

Try doing your RC's under the assumtion that you are awake, and not that you are dreaming.

That is how they were originally designed to be done, and in my opinion how they work best. They do call it a "reality check," and not a "dream check," don't they? RC's work by confirming that your still in reality; it's only when they fail (seeing that 6th finger) that you discover you are dreaming.

When you are awake you know that you are awake, no matter what clever things you try to tell yourself, so your RC will be much more sincere if you do it already confident in your wakefulness. If the RC fails then you will still become lucid without ever once having to imagine your surroundings being a dream.

Funny thing here is that it works exactly the same way in a dream, because when you are not lucid you are just as sure that everything around you is real as you are in waking life. So the RC will work just as well if you spontaneously do one during a NLD.

Now, there is nothing wrong with imagining that everything around you is a dream; indeed, doing so is a great exercise for getting your head in the right place for dreaming... just try not to do that imagining during your RC's.