Originally Posted by
Sageous
I think that the defining moment of this experience was that false awakening, Tiktaalik.
If you had been truly lucid at that time, then you would have pretty quickly noticed that you were not in the same place you were in when you fell asleep. From there your dreaming mind provided exactly what you expected/hoped for: a successful WILD. Another hint is that one of the nice things about DEILD transitions is that they don't tend to include the hypnagogic/hypnopompic imagery that can accompany a WILD transition. This would be especially the case if you were only briefly awake and still very close to your last LD. The cool part is that the imagery was accurate enough to keep your mind in the right place to ultimately have a successful DILD, so all was not lost!
Never underestimate the power of your unconscious/dreaming mind to provide you imagery that seems perfectly real, Tiktaalik, as that is its job. Because that imagery is so effective, learning to identify false lucids during the dream can be difficult, and frustrating upon waking up. But identifying them is a good idea: if you can build their possibility into your mindset, you should be able to avoid misidentifying them as a genuine lucid event. This matters because if they happen often -- and you misidentify them often -- then the false lucid theme will become hardened as a source your dreaming mind taps for imagery (it is, after all, what you really desire experiencing, right?), and you might ultimately develop a habit of dreaming about being lucid. This habit might lead you to believe them to be true LD's to a point where you no longer get to experience actually being lucid, but think you often are, and the rewards of true lucidity are consistently missed.
I know this all might sound silly to you, but it does happen, a lot more often than folks might know.