I almost do my RC and then ....

so here's a funny thing that's happening a lot to me.

I recognise a something in a a dream as being a bit unusual, and then think : "OK, I know i'm not dreaming [!], but this is a great chance do the nosepinch anyway because I'm working my lucidity training routine" - and then something always happens in the dream to stop me following through! Last night I was standing in front of a counter of really weird food, and was about to nosepinch but the other people in the queue were so impatient and told me to hurry up, so I got flustered and the RC didn't happen. Once I even walked through a wall in a railway station, and was about to nosepinch when I thought: "I'll miss my train if i hang around doing reality checks!!"

I'm thinking .... maybe put a litte more determination into my daytime RCs? Or maybe just writing about it here will make me more focused on folloiwng through in my dreams!

Most of my dreams have been DILDs, and although they were indirectly caused by RCs, I haven't always gotten lucid from a RC directly. Sometimes I only did a RC to confirm, but I already knew I was dreaming a second before.

I think the key to getting your RC to work, it to really try to question whether it is a dream instead of just doing the reality check. Look at your surroundings, pay attention to your senses, be present in the moment instead of just being in your head. Look around - do you notice anything unusual? Don't just automatically say no, really think. Did you buy a new piece of furniture that wasn't there before? Really question how it got there. Where were you 10 minutes/2 hours before? How did you get here?

The awareness is what usually makes me lucid, not so much the reality check. The reality check just helps me really solidify and confirm my suspicion that I am dreaming.

Before, I had reality checks indicate that it is a dream but I didn't become lucid because the dream came up with an (illogical) explanation. It was all because I was doing RCs automatically instead of really focusing on them.

I hope I was able to help!

That's interesting - so you're already sure you're dreaming by the time you do the RC ?

Sounds like I could work on holding back a bit on the nosepinch, and giving my brain a little more time to reach the conclusion that I'm in a dream.

I'm not always sure, but I do suspect that it is a dream before the RC most of the time. And yeah, I think it should help if you try to figure out if it's a dream a few seconds before the RC, I usually look around the room and try to be really aware of my surroundings, trying to notice something suspicious. Good luck!