"LD" within a non-LD

Last night was my first experience in a few years that resembled lucidity, and it was definitely my most confusing :|

Basically, I was dreaming normally, non-lucidly, when I had a FA. I sat up in bed for a minute or so and was talking to my (DC) brother when I decided to do a reality check. I found that my left hand had 6 fingers... but I don't think it sunk in.

After the reality check failed, instead of trying to change the scene or get up and move around, I decided to throw myself back into bed and go to sleep. I entered the "dream" within the dream, which was the same environment I was in before I had the FA, and was sort of lucid, but I still thought of the dream characters as real people and was showing them the stuff I could do while "lucid". I didn't really feel like I had much conscious control the whole time though.

I guess the dream logic was that if the RC fails, I would go back to bed and immediately get a LD :eh: My best guess is that it was some sort of device that my mind was using to try to trick me out of staying lucid. :roll: Has anyone else had similar experiences?

I haven't personally, but I've heard of others who have. The closest I've been to that is when I tried to WILD in a regular dream but couldn't even manage that. Having been unsuccessful, I got back up and the dream went on as normal without me ever thinking I was already dreaming. That happened twice on '04 and hasn't happened since... granted I haven't put forth the effort I did when I first discovered LDing :)

I've been what I consider "pre-lucid" where I don't state that I'm dreaming, but I know I have at least some control over the dream and am able to more or less make my own decisions. It's just a step below lucid. There's also "semi-lucid" where you know you're dreaming, but it's a tentative feeling and fades fairly quickly with little to no control. Different people categorize dreams differently, but that's just where I stand.