Thanks for the warm welcome everyone. It really means a lot.

That sounds like good advice about reality checks. Maybe I'm being a bit too...passive with my reality checks. Usually they're just a glance at the hand, or a double check of a clock, or the spelling of a label, and that's it. Maybe I need to step back a bit more, not just glance at an object but examine it. Question it...question myself. What about it's appearance/characteristics indicate I am awake? Know what I mean? As for night time affirmations, yeah, I think ShockWave hit the nail on the head, it is probably a self confidence issue. I've never really been a self confident person, I could use some work on that. Does meditation help?