Am I at fault? What am I doing wrong?

After a long haitus, I've started once again to try and have a LD, I've been at it for just over a month, but I've pretty much been doing what I always do.

I've been trying to have DILDs and MILDs. I reality check during the day and my recall is good. I keep a DJ and write at least two dreams per night.

Most of the time, I fall asleep while repeating "I am aware that I am dreaming", I set an alarm to wake up 4.5-5 later. Once I've woken up, I stay awake for about 5 mins then fall back asleep while repeating the same mantra.

But I still haven't had a LD :( I was wondering am I doing something wrong? I don't want to say that "x technique doesn't work"... Is my mantra bad, am I waking up at the wrong time? :?

You are doing everything correctly but it may be that you aren't putting in enough effort. A friend of mine would spend two hours per day writing, 'When I'm dreaming I will realise that I'm dreaming'

It took a month to produce a lucid dream and his MILD's were infrequent afterwards. Also writing them has a stronger impact on the subconscious than saying them.

Another good exercise to do last thing at night is to mentally play out your dreams from your dream journal and when something in the dream is inconsistent with waking reality question that inconsistency and ask yourself if you are dreaming. Your subconscious will get the idea sooner or later.

Try visualizing as you are drifting off to sleep. Think about the last dream you can vividly recall and visualize the scene. Good luck to you! :shadewink:

Have you tried all day awareness, self awareness is extremely important in lucid dreaming and most people mistake it for reality checks.
Good Luck :D

I think you're stressing yourself out. Try not to focus too hard you strain yourself. Stress is usually one of the main factors that hinders people from lucid dreaming, so just try to relax about it :)