Thanks for the advice. I'll start doing the push-through-the-palm one as well.

BTW, a little fun fact about me: anything involving reading text is not going to work as a reality check for me. I have never had a problem reading text in dreams, both on paper and on a screen. Same goes for looking at clocks; I have successfully comprehended time in my dreams before. It's weird; i dunno what to make of it.