Is there a reason that our hands remind us we are dreaming or is it based only on telling yourself that they will?
I had my 3rd lucid dream last night but lost lucidity when a negative feeling arose in me and jolted me out of my sleep. I think I’ll try the hand technique next time…
Also, I know this is off topic but has anyone experienced going through a portal quite some time before becoming lucid? Does it have any significance?
It’s almost a fact that your hands never look normal in your dreams. They are often really deformed and sometimes blurry, so if you look at your hand in your dream you will notice that it is totally f**ked up 
ye i almost always have 6 or 7 fingers on each hand xD
Actually my hands look absolutely normal in dreams. When I had my first LD, then my hands were really bizarre, but after that they’ve looked normal.
It’s not related to the odd appearance of your hands (as I said it just 5 posts above 
). By the way, they often look strange in LD’s, yet rarely in prelucid dreams (from my own experience, perhaps not true for everybody).
The technique is based upon focusing dream attention, that is bringing more of your daylife attention into dreams. Moreover, it’s interesting cause you can see your progress through the numbers of hands you see in your ND’s or prelucid dreams. 
Thats wierd… read about the way getting lucid through the concentration on the switch for the light and developed it to concentration on hands… now found this … it existed for a long time… there is an another thought… what I do is the following: I write “are you dreaming ?” on both of my hands and put a cross on back side as a reminder, concentate on the written, if you look at your hands and there is no writing - you are dreaming, if there is a writing, read it again… surprised… it probably changed.
Though I never became lucid through this, but I consider it a strong help to become lucid, combine with WBTB everything… looks like it is the best way…
Rc’s dont work for me at all, I just understand that I am dreaming… coolest thing … Good luck all of you.
The hand method works well for stabilizing dream awareness. Most of the time if you are dreaming, your hands will appear wavy and half-dissolving. However this is more effective if you are already lucid.
For a while I was using a RC method that consisted of pulling your finger to see if it will stretch. One time I was sure I was dreaming, so I performed the finger-pulling reality check. It didn’t stretch, so I decided that it wasn’t a dream after all. When I woke up, I was disappointed that the RC actually failed me and caused me to waste a potential LD.
The link seems to be broken can you post it?
Ive never been able to get the hand method to work for me. I tried it for two weeks with no results.
Yes, it is. But the first poster, Yang, is not here anymore thus she won’t edit her message. Perhaps a mod may restore the broken link?
Anyhow, the “hand method” is a rather good method for inducing LD’s. It’s quite not used nowadays but many years ago, it has even been used in scientific research, by Pr Antonio Zadra in a sleep laboratory in Montreal, Canada.
Moreover looking at your hands in your dreams will show useful for many things: it may be used as a RC, as a lucidity booster or for stabilizing dream awareness as aaudraa says above. So I think it’s an interesting technique for a beginner.
Also, in Carlos Castaneda’s The Art of Dreaming, finding one’s hands in a dream is the first gate in several gates of dreaming that Castaneda has to pass. Just an interesting note on the topic. 