First lucid dream in a second dream layer + reality check reminder

[birdcage]

I've been trying to have a lucid dream for a while and I think I finally did. Firstly: me and my friend decided that we needed something to remind ourselves to do reality checks, we settled for a henna writing on our hands - here's a picture. It says ''How relative is your reality?'' in latvian. The first night/morning with it on I stay over at my friend's place and we both go to sleep. Now onto the dream: proceeded like one of my usual dreams where I'm running somewhere and there's action going on. Then suddenly I'm going through the rooms of some castle, apparently hiding from someone. I wasn't alone, there was an unfamiliar girl with me. We settled in a room and I drew back the curtains slightly to see what's outside - there, in the sky, I saw a red dragon. That's the moment when I got suspicious, you don't see many dragons around, do you (unless you're high most of the time)? I did my usual reality check - pinched my nose and tried to breathe through it. And I could breathe! That's when I realised I'm dreaming. I got excited and closed my eyes, so everything went gray for a moment. I jumped and started floating. Now this is where I am fairly sure that it was a lucid dream, because of the vivid feeling, not just a dream about having a lucid dream. I couldn't open my eyes again and everything started feeling heavy, a bit like the feeling when you forcefully try to pull yourself into an awake state. I finally managed to open my eyes and the heavy feeling lifted off (this is where I assume I woke up from the second dream layer), I was in my friend's room, floating above the bed we were both sleeping in at the time, but there was only one person there - the girl I was with in the castle. Kind of like an OBE feeling, I guess. At the time, for a second it felt like it was my body there before logic kicked in and said ''no, you don't look like that!'' Then I think something woke me up in the real world, either my friend moving or some noise, or the dream could've shifted into a regular one and I no longer remember that part, either way even if the latter, it wasn't for long. So here I am, left with some questions to myself: Was it really a lucid dream and was it so unstable because of the layers? Were they dream layers, even? Although my gut feeling certainly says so since I've experienced them before.

[NrElAx]

If you were conscious in the dream, then it was a lucid dream. And the layer thing you stated sounds like a false awakening. If you were lucid in one dream and then woke up in, lets say your room, and you found out you were still dreaming, then it was a false awakening. There is no "layers" in lucid dreams like there was in inception. They're all still the same dream. Like I said, if you wake up again in your room and you think you woke up, but really its another dream, then its a false awakening.