History--->
Last summer I started trying to improve my dream recall. It worked quite well; I started remembering atleast 1-2 dreams a night. When school started I was too stressed out to properly advance in terms of attaining lucidity, but I retained my ability to recall a couple dreams a night. Once during the summer, I became lucid (I think, I am now doubting this) as I realized in the dream, that was indeed dreaming, but woke up shortly after. Since then I've only experienced dreams of the regular variety, until now...

The Dream--->
I was in the middle of doing my dream thang, when I saw my brother whom I haven't seen in months, and realized that I must be dreaming. I kept on walking around the mall I was in for some reason, but I remember telling myself, "Hey, you're dreaming! This is all just a dream!". At that point I felt my heart beating quickly, and worried that I'd wake myself up because of my excitement. I then proceeded to do some things that I'd rather not mention, but they were definitely things I'd have wanted to try upon becoming lucid. After a minute or two, I woke up.

The Problem--->
This site says that people are often startled after becoming lucid due to how real everything seems. The thing is, it really didn't seem all that realistic. I was doing things as I mentioned that I'd want to do when lucid, but they weren't vivid in terms of any sense apart from the visual. I remember what all the stuff looked like, even people that I -may- have willed to appear, but I don't remember any smells, sounds etc etc. This made it seem powerfully unrealistic. Come to think of it, the visuals didn't seem that realistic either. In the real world, you see the object/person you're looking at, but you also get a lot of info from what you're not focussing on. Regular dreams (also when you're high) tend to leave you only with a recollection of the exact thing you were looking at. I imagine in a real lucid dream you'd be seeing a lot of other stuff like in the real world, right?

Was this actually a lucid dream? Was it just a regular dream ABOUT becoming lucid without me actually achieving lucidity? That seems just absurd enough to be an accurate representation of my subconscious. I'm the only one cruel enough to play a joke like that on me.