Lucid Dream or not?

This isn’t the usual flavor of “was this a lucid dream?” In this case I thought it was a dream but now that I look back on it I suspect I could have been awake. Anways, I was having a dream that I was in school and when it was over I woke up rather smoothly. After that I remembered about the DEILD technique and started visualizing the dream scene. I don’t entirely remember the sensation I felt but it basically felt like I got sucked into the dream and I kind of blacked out. After that I was in my bed and right away I did the nose reality check and it worked! However, after I immediately failed at making my bedroom wall explode with mere willpower I did another reality check and apparently I was awake and I was also suffering from slight numbness in my limbs. I see two options here: 1. that I had a lucid dream and transitioned into reality after getting so excited about that, but didn’t really notice because I was obviously in the same bed or 2. that I was just awake the whole time and somehow screwed up the reality test (which doesn’t seem so unheard of considering the mental state you are in after immediately waking up).

Besides my general description, I have one piece of evidence suggesting it was a lucid dream. If I were awake and had screwed up the nose breathing reality check I would have sharply intaken breath but in the “dream” I slowly and steadily inhaled, suggesting that I wasn’t quite in my waking body.

Anyways, what are peoples’ thoughts? Was this a lucid dream? Have you had any experiences similar to this? Suggestions?

Thanks in advance

This alone is strong evidence that you were dreaming. Any unusual sensations are indicators of the transition from dream to reality.

This, on the other hand, is not strong evidence that you were awake. Dream control is not a given, and RCs fail in dreams plenty of times. Actually, your doubt that you were dreaming may have caused your RC to fail, since confidence is everything.

This is more good, strong evidence of a dream. I’ve experienced this sort of thing myself, and I know how it is very different from a proper inhalation.

You can feel SP while dreaming, and I think this could’ve been it. Once more, this is not a good reason to believe that you were awake.

My verdict: You were dreaming, but then you fell asleep in the dream before anything truly weird happened.