While most people say that 8 hours is the average amount of time needed, I find that 10 hours works better if I want lucid dreams. I was a lot more successful in achieving lucidity by rearranging my schedule to fit into the extra sleep. Have to wake up the morning? Fine, then I just make sure to go to bed early.

It hasn't been entirely foolproof. It's taken a lot of willpower to shut off the TV and put away the laptop (and the iPhone iPod touch) at 9 PM so I can resist temptation to surf the Web when I should be winding down in preparation for sleep. But when I did, I started having longer dreams, better recall and more lucid dreams.