The conscious is not going to ask the question, when the majority of control is done by the sub-conscious. But the conscious is the one who has to ask the question for the conscious to "trigger" as you say. Nice one alfalfa, i think you are onto something bigger here, there are probably better ways to activate conscious awareness in dreams and i am interested to read more from you.

My experience of being more consciously aware in a dream stems back to moments of intense fear, now this makes me wonder, does the subconscious which holds the fear, ring an alarm bell to the conscious so that it can be aware of the fear and take necessary rational precautions against it?

Lets face it guys, too much of our "selves" is made up of the unknown stuff, the uncontrolled stuff, and its this part which bothers me most. Naturally i want to be the one in control, but it just doesn't seem to be the case.