Brief LD in which a reality check did not work.

I had a brief lucid dream last night. I had a sort of false awakening (it was early morning in my dream) and looked outside a window. I saw snow, which is weird (it seemed weird in my dream), because I have never seen snow in October where I live. My family commented on the snow as well. I saw some footprints or some vehicle tracks, and noticed that the snow was weirdly deep. I wanted to know what the date was so I could remember the unusual event. I looked at my digital watch and saw that the month was "8"--August, which would make the snowfall even weirder. I thought "wait a minute, it isn't August" and guess that I might be dreaming. I tried a nose-pinch RC, but I could not breath through my pinched nose. I tried it at least twice and I could not breath either time.

In the past, nose-pinch RCs have occasionally caused me to have lucid dreams (more often than other RCs, at least). Last night's dream was kinda weird, because I knew what I was doing, and I expected the RC to work (I expected to breath), but it didn't. While I was dreaming, I reminded myself that reality checks are not 100% reliable, and I stayed lucid for some time. I knew/assumed I was dreaming, because recognized that two things were weird: it was snowing in early autumn, and I had apparently time-traveled back to August. I did not do any fun things like controlling my dream, and I lost lucidity at some point before waking up for real.

I experience this a lot as well. Still, it's a good sign that you're RCing, even if they fail, as that's a sign of increasing awareness. And a very good sign that you remained lucid even when your RC failed. A back up RC is a great idea. I always practice 2 now, every time I RC in waking life, because of this issue.