I've had a few short lucid dreams, and dreams where I have questioned my reality and done a successful reality check. In all of those dreams, I woke up almost instantly.
In April I had a dream where I did a reality check and was able to breathe my nose. I thought at this point I could be dreaming but wasn't fully convinced. I did the reality check twice, both times able to breathe, and then woke up straight away. I had another dream where I noticed something strange and began to reality check but I woke up before I could finish.
In my lucid dreams prior to that, I have the realisation and then a few seconds later I'm awake.
Is it normal for a reality check or a heightened level of awareness to just wake me up before I can even think about the fact I could be in a dream?
When you're lucid you're becoming conscious in an unconscious and subconscious world so you are literally.. becoming conscious 😂 too much brain activity is waking you up faster than you need to. Most likely you'll wake up soon but you can try to stabilize and hang in the lucid state a little longer if you try not to "think" too much. Once you recognize you're lucid try to just be an observer and keep in mind that feelings and subconscious suggestion narrorate the dream. Instead of "thinking" or attempting to manipulate with thought from that point, try to "feel" things manifesting.
Thanks for all the replies. I had another lucid dream last night :) This time I was sure I was dreaming. I still didn't get to do the reality check but it lasted a few seconds longer than normal. I did wake up very excited.
It's very common for beginners to wake up instantly from the sheer shock and excitement of realising that they are in fact dreaming -- this happened to me in my first "true" lucid dream. I refer to it this way because this was the first time I actually managed to perform a reality test before waking up.
Some time before I had that one, I had a dream which reminds me of what you describe here: I made a discovery that was so outrageously unlikely that I immediately started hearing my own voice screaming at me inside my head: "This is a dream! THIS IS A DREAM!!!". I reached to pinch my nose... but before I could do so, I woke up. It was very strange, as for a few seconds, I felt as if I was somewhere "in-between" the dream and the waking world -- I could still "see" the mental image of my hand in front of my face, but I could feel my physical body lying in my bed.
My theory on what happened in the latter instance is that the REM cycle I was currently in was close to complete, and I was about to wake up naturally -- and so my critical faculties were starting to return, which is probably why I realised that I was in a dream before even having performed a test.