Thread: 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.