I saw a few similar threads and read through them, but the last was 2011.

I've been interested in lucid dreaming for about a year and a half now. A few months in I was reliably remembering dreams, and I've been able to control my own actions in them for quite some time. But for several months now I seem to have plateaued, they only last a minute or so and I cannot control anything in the dreams besides myself. The reason, and this has taken me a long time to realize because my dream world is being so tricky, is that I have very convincing false awakenings and I am having a hard time learning not to fall for them.

I've tried mantras "I'm dreaming now" or "Am I dreaming now", dream signs, ect. But whatever I check seems to work in the false awakening as a reality check that I am awake. It is only much later when I'm actually awake that I realize something was out of place. For example last night:

I'm on a bridge of stone that is just a foot or so wide with no rails, it's night and the bridge is miles long over a deep canyon. Ok, I'm dreaming I realize. I step off the bridge and fly, which I can do easily. There is a full bright moon, a beautiful rocky valley beneath me. To stay in the dream I focus on all my senses, I can feel the cool night air as I fly, see the Forrest and mountains stretching into the distance, smell the fresh air, hear the wind, its not a loud place. I keep focusing on my senses but reminding myself it's a dream. Then while having a look around I turn my head back and I smack into something, "I didn't control that, what was that? Don't get confused" and I'm awake. Ok so I've been teaching myself to do reality checks, I look around the room, theres my alarm clock, I can read the numbers, my wife is there, pattern on the sheets looks right, out the window is my normal view. I try to put my finger through my hand, nothing happens, I try to will the lights to turn on, nothing. Everything seems to check out, I'm awake.

The next morning when I'm actually a awake; wait a second, that was a false awakening, the room had no door or closet. How did I miss that? Also there was wind, indoors, with the window shut. I tried all the checks and failed to notice these things.

I'm going to read about it more, I'll update if I find something that works.