I find the best way to be lucid...

is to deny lucidity.

Wait, I'm not crazy. Ok maybe a little, but not about this.

I find that conscious thoughts like, "This is a dream" and "I am dreaming" tend to diminish lucidity, diminish clarity, and are an express ticket out of the dream. This is probably a natural reaction of the brain, although that theory is based upon some squiggles I drew.

Stay with me... the squiggles look nice, but are not the point. Don't look at them.

I have also found that whenever such a thought want to manifest itself, suppressing it and forgetting about leads to longer lucid dreams and doesn't diminish clarity.

Come to think of it, generally suppressing heightened conscious thoughts leads to longer lucidity.

Yes you can be lucid in a dream without being actively conscious (we go most of the day without being "actively" conscious)...

If that makes one iota of sense...