Help getting lucid.

Hi everyone,
Long time lurker, first time dreamer. Im having great trouble getting lucid, even a little bit lucid. I started looking into lucid dreaming about a year or two ago, but at the time i was suffering from extreme insomnia, so that offered it's own unique problems with dreaming. So i stopped until about a month ago, im now sleeping much more regularly, so thought it was a good time to start again.

But, im hitting a few other bumps in the road so to speak. I practice ADA whenever i remember during the day, i tell myself, "know im dreaming" lines during the day as well, and before i sleep at night, and reality checks aplenty. I practice various visualisation and imagination techniques; though i already have good imagination and visual skills, is kind of my job.

So when sleep after the mnemonics and dream visualisation, usually a beach of forest or some similar landscape, i fall asleep into a completely unrelated different scenario. I wake up naturally in the night, 5-7 hours afterwards, and try a WBTB. I lie still on my front, and wait. Then usually nothing.
I have twice expirenced what is referred to here as Sleep Paralysis, the heavy blanket feeling and numbness in my whole body. No sounds, twitching, hallucinations... The first time i focused to much on it and it left, the second time i tried hard to focus on something else, but it left anyway. But most times during the WBTB, i either fall straight alseep, or dont sleep at all for the rest of the night. Also, I have once used a reality check in a dream, but that woke me stragiht up.

That's all. Im getting really frustrated with my lack of progress, though know im still early in the process. Im ceratin i can do it, because back during my insomnia, i had a meditative foray into a dream state; i felt a powerful rush of wind pushing me towards an open door, but got freaked out or something, so i woke from the meditaion. Not even a sleep dream, but a wkaing one, so im convinced i can do it. My only problem is; arogance aside, i'm one of those people that are really good at everything i try, and pick things up really quickly. So these months of nothing is new and rather disheartening.

So what i need help with, i guess, is focussing. I've assume my problem is; when trying to dream, anything and everything my brain thinks of become the main focus for my thoughts. I lose focus on my dream landscape or my anchors, and so fall asleep into a normal dream, or just can't sleep at all because my mind is too active, the not sleeping makes me too tired to try anything the next night. I need advice, please.

Rant over now, and thanks for any help you can offer.

Do you keep a Dream Journal? I know it might be alot of work with it, but when I was new it was when I started to recall my dreams that I begin to have some lucid dreams.
I was just like you doing everything in my power to get lucid dreams I told myself a mantra like "I WILL lucid dream tonight!!" "I am going to lucid dream tonight".
Those autosuggestions sometimes made me lucid. It was not until I started to be INTERESTED in my non-lucid dreams as well that everything turned.

How are you supposed to be aware of a lucid dream if you don't want to be aware of your normal dreams? They are the same dream! So by not being interested in your normal dreams you are pushing away what can actually help you the most. I am not saying that YOu are not interested in them, I am only explaining how I thought about my dreams.
I only wrote down my lucid dreams because I figured that they were funnier to read.

So scratch the goal of WANTING a lucid dream or becoming lucid that's not the mindset you should have. Your goal should be to become more aware of your dreams! Obviously...
So how do you know that you have been aware of your dreams? It's simple really. You just recall them and if you remember them as vivid you know you were sort of aware in the REM.
If you remember having non-lucid dream control like you were in another body without being aware you know that you were really close.

This is why dream recall is important, it's your way of meassuring your awareness. So if you don't have a dream journal.. Get one NOW! ASAP!

If you need help with some dream recall methods I can help you with that as well: http://www.dreamviews.com/f15/if-you...ams-try-93005/

I am not sure why it works, but I know that if I do this method, my dreams get less random and chaotic and more stable and therefore easier to become aware of.
Also keep a pen and a paper by your bed to write down anything you remember of your dreams on your WBTB or occasional awakenings.

Good luck! And feel free to ask if you have any other questions.

Thanks, mastermind. That makes sense to me, gotta sift through the masses to find the few. Ive kept a very occasional dream journal, always naively just figured I'd remember them, and that would be enough... But then forget them, either in part or whole. I shall start keeping a more up to date one and see what happens. If only to remember the details that go in to making them, and for dream signs etc. Thanks.