It's good that your analyzing it, maybe you just need to hear other people's opinions and views in order to extricate you from your confusion .

I believe that when you preform reality checks when in a dream you will automatically know you are dreaming, however, on some ocasions, you may believe it is real. Therefore, you are right in a way, beginners do need to think about for a while (like myself ).

And you shouldn't just preform reality checks when something weird occurs because weird things do not always occur in dreams.

Sorry that you ran into the wall can't explain why you did, maybe you were just so convinced you were dreaming.

Hope I helped, probibly not, what you were asking confused me I am a beginner so it may be a good idea to read the posts other people write