How to Increase Success Frequency?

So, I've been delving into lucid dreaming over the past four months or so, treating it like I treat any new skill I learn-- (mostly) daily practice with intent for improvement, research, logging my progress, etc. In the past three months, reading over my logs, I see that I have had between 4 and 6 lucid dreams per month, with July standing currently at 2.

One of my goals is to be able to intentionally go lucid every morning. I've been working with a combination of reality checks, daytime affirmations, WBTB, and mantras. Oh, and daily dream journaling. What I'd like to ask anyone who has achieved the ability to become lucid every time you want: will this routine be effective in increasing LD frequency if I stick with it? Or are there other exercises I can do to really ram home to my subconscious what I'm trying to do? I mean, I've been browsing around the internet and looking at various techniques, but which ones have some of you found are the MOST effective for creating habitual, intentional states of lucidity in a reliable manner?

I am still not quite able to become intentionally lucid at will, but it usually does not take me more than a day or two to have an intentional LD.

Learn differences between dreaming and waking life. These differences show up in dreams, but we can't become lucid from them until we learn that they are differences.

It does not take much to learn a difference between dreaming and waking life. It is just like learning from a mistake. All we have to do is identify the difference and tell ourselves that next time we notice this difference, we will know we are dreaming.

Read through the dreams in the dream journal and identify the differences between waking and dreaming that occurred. Affirm to become lucid next time those same differences are noticed. Analyze future dreams in this way as well.

dolphin. What you say about noticing the differences makes a lot of sense. The problem I have with that is now that I have had a number of LD's since starting in March, most of my NLD's are much less bazar then they used to be and seem much more like "real" life. Not sure why this is the case, but it makes seeing the differences much harder.

Anything that would not likely happen in waking life can be considered a difference between waking and dreaming. It is possible for a dream to seem like waking life, even though what happens during the dream would not likely happen in waking life.

This difference might not be something that is seen; it could also be a difference in the context of the dream. For example, in a dream, we might be in an unfamiliar place for no apparent reason.

Have you noticed whether your dreams tend to be more nonsensical and bizarre than most people's? Do you find that you often zone out and day dream or otherwise find that you are typically absorbed in thought and pay little attention to your surroundings?

Depending on your answer, whether or not you will be able to have a lot of success at realizing you are dreaming specifically because you realize something really strange or crazy happens and you must be dreaming will vary. I happen to have very nonsensical and bizarre dreams and I'm usually completely absorbed in thought, and any DILDs I get usually never happen as a result of realizing something crazy happening must mean I'm dreaming.

Instead, what typically winds up causing me to realize I'm dreaming is somehow recognizing the feeling of being in an altered state. Typically when it happens, I could swear I knew I was dreaming the entire time I was dreaming but for some random reason I decided to consciously acknowledge it. The feeling of being in an altered state is often a confusing one because it's both incredibly subtle but highly distinct. Once I consciously recognize and acknowledge it, there's really no mistaking it. Learning to recognize the feeling has mostly happened on its own without me really trying, but I guess it might be worth noting that I've have many experiences with sleep paralysis and remaining conscious during REM Atonia. Simply having so many experiences in that state has likely caused me to unconsciously/intuitively recognize the state.

I'm a newbie myself, but I think that to have LDs at will, you must have conscious control over it. So instead of increasing the odds of recognizing dreamsigns, you will yourself to be lucid with a strong desire. But of course it's better to do both and that's pretty much what the MILD technique is about.