Quote Originally Posted by dolphin View Post
Dream signs are how we tell the difference between dream and reality.
Just to add on to this bit above, I would also say that the intention you're setting - in particular by doing RCs during waking life - and the focus you have on that intention, play a big role in becoming aware that you're dreaming. Most of my adult LDs have been from RCs, but many times I've done RCs in dreams only to conclude in the dream that it was the "normal" state of things, because the context reinforced that notion somehow, even when one time my hand was green and a finger short - the implication being that I simply do not carry over enough focus into the dream-state (which is a consequence of constant fatigue and poor sleep, in my case).

By contrast, my childhood LDs, which were frequent but many times only semi-lucid, never involved RCs at all (which I didn't even know about back then), and the entire awareness of the dream was purely coming from focus on what you can consider dream signs, as by dolphin's definition, which is pretty good. I should write that down somewhere...