trouble telling if i was dreaming or awake

hi my fellow lucid dreamers just wanted to get some feed back on this. so i had this dream were i was in the car with my parents i realized due to the situation that i couldnt be in the car and at the place we were so i knew instantly i was dreaming i did reality check, looked at my hands...but they seemed perfectly normal then i told my parents i was dreaming they wouldnt believe and told me im losing it. i told them i would prove it by making the car fly ( it didnt work) then i was pissed and wanted to fly out the car but hit my head on the roof...i was sooo confused asking my self if i was dreaming or not. i did reality check with nose i couldntr breath so i thought it was real life i tried to wake up but couldnt. i was so emberrased and confused it looked soooo real (most vivid LD i ever had) i felt like a dumbass but then i woke up and felt like a even more dumbass....can anyone explain to me why the reality checks werent working? is it because my dream was so vivid?

How lucid were you, on a scale of one to ten? It may be because you weren't aware enough. Or, it may simply be because those reality checks are ineffective with you; try a digital clock check next time you think you're dreaming. Or, ask yourself how you got to where you currently are. People often fail to retrace their steps in dreams.

I once had a very vivid dream where one of my reality checks failed (the finger-counting one), but I kept doing them until I confirmed the dream. I had to do three others.

But remember that you don't necessarily need a reality check to know you're dreaming. You became lucid basically on an epiphany, right? You don't always need to do a reality check, especially if you're in a place such as outer space or some strange city. You can just walk (or fly) away.

i would say a 10( only because as i was trying to prove to my dream parents that i was dreaming everything was failing, like the law of physics applied in my dream) thats why i was starting to be skeptical if i was really dreaming, it was toooo vivid (glad i didnt get stabbed or something) i knew right away i was dreaming i had full control of everything i really litterally just started at my hands even examined if they were odd they werent also with my breathing i really couldnt breath. and checking my hands is my most realiable reality check ( cause usually i sprout mini fingers like a tree on my regular fingers, i know its weird) and yeh i realize i became lucid because i was in holland on a trip but a few days ago my parents cancelled it due to expensive tickets so i knew right away not possible and i knew a 100% i was in bed and how i went to bed ( its weird thou once i realized i was lucid i almost woke up, didnt really use that fact for my advantage)

Maybe it was only a one-time thing. If a dream's very vivid, it can be almost like reality.

...I sprout mini fingers on my hands, too! :P

it would be a shame thou if its a one time thing...because just imagine all the stuff you can do in such a vivid dream! i need to master it lol. and really you too? i thought it was only me lol =P