Ok, Here is a very simple method that I use. It helps me have lots of DILDs, maybe 3 to 5 a week that are any good and a handful of small 1 minute or less ones. As I am relaxing and getting about half way to sleep, just when I feel any sign of driftiness, I do a trick with my breathing.
You want this process to be rythmic and hypnotising. As I breath in I think to myself (internal dialog, like talking to yourself, not just thinking) "I AM". On my exhalation I think the word "Dreaming" So I fall asleep to a meditative chant, of "I Am Dreaming" timed to the rythm of my natural breaths.
It takes me anywhere from a few, to hundreds of breath cycles, to be so far gone I can not focus on anything. Then I sleep. I have now said "I Am Dreaming" to myself tens of thousands of times over the 23 years I have been lucid dreaming. It is now only natural that that thought pop into my head any time something strange happens.
Hope that is an idea some of you can have some success with.
I have varied the words to keep me from being board or to create different effects. If I find I keep forgeting to stabelize I may switch to "Look At",,,"Your Hands" or something like that for a few days.