My name is Matt and and I have started Lucid Dreaming 3 days ago. My first night I remembered 3 dreams. The next night i did not remember one. Last night I did not remember any dreams but something weird happened. I tried meditation right before going to sleep, and once druing the day. When I got into bed, after about 10-15min my body became more and more paralyzed. Then I started feeling some twitches and some hipnagogic images flashed. I was expecting to go into a Lucid Dream, or at least have one that night, since I thought thats what would happen since I was awake up until falling asleep, but I could not fall asleep for the next 2 hours...

Finally I unparalyzed myself and went to the bathroom, did a reality check(turned on a light) and went back to sleep, and fell asleep about 30min later.

Now, my dad who has been doing lucid dreaming for years said that this mightve been a Lucid Dream and I didnt even realize it. Idk, but it felt like I never fell asleep, maybe thats wuts supposed to happen. My question is this: What are some effective reality checks that I can do to see if i am dreaming or not, and since it is east for me not not fall asleep before i become paralyzed and hypnagogic images, how can I enter a lucid dream directly from that?