I had a very long nerveous dream and I was about to miss my flight (in the dream). I was running along the street to the airport, but something felt strange. The sky was dark-pink, like in some of my other dreams and I saw an animated character. I kept running and did a RC at the same time: I closed my right eye and looked at my nose with the left eye. At first I couldn’t see the nose, but when I turned my head and got it in a different lighting, I could see my nose and it’s outlines clearly. So I thought “Ok, it’s allright. Those animated mice are normal, it’s all normal,” and the dream continued. This took place on about the 20th minute of my dream or so.
Maybe I’m practicing RC’s IRL too much? Maybe I have lost the self-confidence and instead rely on the checks? It’s really weird for me. 
One thing that might help is, when you are awake and do reality checks, always expect to discover that you’re dreaming. Believe that you’re not going to see your nose if you use that RC. Also, that isn’t the most reliable RC, you should do a couple RC’s at a time, or at least a more reliable one. It’s not that you’re doing too many.
When you practice your RC, you should practice them ten or so times a day, spread out at different time intervals, and you should practice more than one at each time, around 3 or so maybe. Some other good RC’s are counting the fingers on your hands (always works for me 
), hold your nose and try to breathe through it, or look at a clock, then look away, then look back at it, and if it has changed you’ll know you are dreaming.
Good luck and sweat dreams 
MiTcHy
try to punch yourself in the face next time (but just if youre really sure its not reality) :o
The same thing happened to me just this night, in my first LD!
I had smashed up a perfectly good guitar and was crying really bad, and thought that it MUST be a dream. It was more out of desperation than an RC. I looked for text and checked to see if it changed. I looked away, closed my eyes, looked again and again and it was always the same. After doing it for about 30 seconds, I noticed the text was not, changing its letters, but only the position of the whole text on the… umm… radiator… 
So it was pretty difficult.
I most ofen look at my hand meny times too see someting strange
a good one that always works for me is plugging my nose and trying to breath through it. of course you have to belive that it is possible to do all the time.
Hi Santa,
Sometimes RC’s don’t work. That’s perfectly normal. They are not 100% safe. You have to choose the RC’s which works the best for you.
Just notice too that some RC’s may not work, but they make you lucid though. So a good RC is not necessarily a RC which works, but a RC that makes you lucid.
im not sure if this counts i dreamt that i was in a really trashy apartment with my mom becaus my dad had died and i thought i really don’t wont this to be true then i either woke up in my room or drempt i woke up in my room then returnd to the dream this happened like five times