The nose-pinch test is based on sound logic, and so the only trick one's brain can pull on you performing this test is to explain away why you can breathe through a plucked nose, right?
Well I had a dream a while back in wich I was lucid and did the test anyways - and couldn't for the life of me breathe through my pinched nose. I was very confused about this, especially since I still had no doubt that I was in a dream at that point. My clarity faded later on, but that had nothing to do with it.
Two explanations that won't do are a stuffed nose (I didn't have one before going to bed or after waking up) or sleepwalking (the last time I'm aware of doing that was over 10 years ago).
Do any of you guys have an Idea what in the world happened there? Let me know your thoughts!
I had a dreaming experience last night very similar to this. I was non-lucid, however. The nose-pinch failed (I could not breathe through it) even though I was dreaming. I had a succession of moments with these very obvious references to lucidity, which would normally prompt me to reality check and end up having a DILD. However, as I said, the nose-pinch test did not work,
When the test failed, the scene would change and I would end up in a new scene / situation, with an equally obvious reference to lucidity or an oddity prompting me to RC. It was like the dream kept presenting me with opportunities for a DILD but it kept failing haha. (One of these included watching Jeopardy and there was a question about lucid dreams!). There were 3 or 4 scene changes and references / oddities. Each time it changed, my memory of the previous scene was whipped and I forgot about it, and the check, which I performed each time, only some vague thoughts and fragments remaining. Each one did not work. I only remembered them after I woke up. One time I was sure I was dreaming, did the nose pinch, and could not breath..."oh well, I guess I am awake..." WRONG LOL.
Usually the nose pinch works wonders for me. I have had 10 DILDs since April 1st, all around 8 induced by the nose-pinch. Theories I have are
1) it's just the nature of it- sometimes it don't work. Dreams are annoying lol
2) Maybe I had some congestion?
3) Maybe "going through the motions" while RCing during the day builds an expectation it isn't going to work?
At least I remembered to RC in the first place! This was my closest non-lucid ever.
I think there will always be occasions in which any reality check fails. I've had occasional dreams where I tried really hard to prove I was dreaming but just couldn't get the reality checks to work. Most of the time the RCs I do in dreams work fine, or at worst I can get a dreaming result eventually after a bit of struggling, but every once in a while you just get bad luck and have to accept it and try again next time.
It's a good idea to be prepared to try alternative reality tests for those occasions. Often when one doesn't happen to want to cooperate, a different type of test will work.