Thread: Reality checks failing

I was in a bad dream and I refused to believe that could be reality and from that moment on I was lucid. I tried to wake up but without a success (but I was not convinced I was dreaming) so I decided to look for what I thought were most reliable signs.

I was at dentist in a dream so I was already in a lot of pain. I grabbed the nearest thing - it was user manual for a some dentist machine and the everything made sense and letters were steady (never read and dentist equipment manuals so it wasn't something I could remember or a photographic-memory image which I do not posses).
I run into a shopping mall and everything had unbelievably many details. Running around, I have found a clock shop and once inside, I looked at various digital wrist watches but all the lines were steady and all of them had time 1:50 (when I was a kid playing with lucidity the wrist watch was all scrambled and even the lines were floating)
Then, I run into a hairdresser shop (barbers... if that is the name) and flipped the switch while looking at the lightbulbs which went off. I apologized to confused barber in the half dark while turning the switch back ON. Again the switch was working!
I went out and concentrated real hard to wake up, slapped myself several times feeling pain... and got stuck for about 10 second with the image of pavement tiles and some black spots when and finally felt laying in bed... few more seconds in black and I woke up.

DO these reality checks work always for you? Which RC is most reliable? What is the fail safe method for waking up? Why did that happen and why is so hard to wake up? I am not on any drugs or similar.