Horrible habit

I have a very bad habit of setting up a dreamlike standard within my dreams, and then performing an RC. I had one where I was in the future and there was a machine that allowed you to lucid dream essentially. It started and I said if it was really good it would fake my RC, so I held my nose and breathed normally, saying yes this dream machine works well.

Irratating, but not the worst I've done.

Most recently, I performed a task in my dream, then realised that nothing had actually been done, so I looked at my palm, noticing a strange blemish that shouldn't be there, I focused on it and a hole appeared in my hand, which I used as a dream stabiliser, I walked through my house looking through my hand to keep stabilisation, really excited that I was having my first lucid dream at this point, I began deciding what I wanted to do, and just as I was about to charge headlong into a wall and to go through it, I woke up inside my dream. Evidently I had fallen asleep performing the first task, which is why it didn't seem to happen.

Attaingin false dream lucidity after falling asleep within a dream!!! It is some testament to the strength of this experience, that when I actually woke up I was genuinly confused about if I was awake or not and had to perform reality checks to discover the truth of it. Enough to make anyone's head spin, but as far as I'm concerned a massive problem with becoming lucid for real.

I have, of late, not been practicing any waking skills to attain lucidity. My sleep patterns being fairly regular, but not very long, means that I think my best chance at getting lucid is through the dream itself, but how can I do this if everytime I perform an RC the dream has already established that it will work and sou take no notice of it.
Any tips?

This is positive not negative??, the fact that you are thinking of lucidity gives you so much more opportunity than other. Just keep trying and really get into journalling and reflecting on what went wrong, if you write it down often you remember not to do it in the next dream. Good luck :)

Thanks for your reply! Dutchraptor. It doesn't feel like a good thing, it's very frustrating, but I suppose I'd never thought of it like that before, that it is better to fail while relating to lucidity, that fail normally. Shows my brain has it at the forefront, no?
As I said, I haven't really been practicing any awareness or lucid techniques thoroughly for a while, but hoping to do so over the holidays. Will hopefully get back to having more regular lucid fails, and then onwards to true lucid dreams:)

On a side note, is it important to keep a physical journal, I do mentally journal and think/talk them through in the morning, which seems fairly successfully with regards to remembering them. But is it better to write them down, free up any extra brain power for more important things?

Well generally yes, it is the quickest and most succesfull method. Having it written down seems to leave a lasting impression in your brain. When you give yourself the opportunity to try having to remember it your brain can come up with all kinds of excuses not to, but hen you force yourself to write it down, you do it and it's there forever.
To me it's more about identifying emotions and moments of awareness in the dream, the actual content does not have to be elaborated on as long as you go over what went wrong and where you should have turned lucid.

Ok thanks. I'll invest in a journal over the weekend and give it a go:) Here's hoping it helps.