I agree. I've woken myself up many times trying new and exciting shit. Although I've never woken up and been disappointed, just a little "damn" and then "hell yeah, I went lucid!" Curios is right about it taking experience to master stuff, I'm sure you know that paperdoll, you're a smart girl.

There's really nothing anyone can say to anyone else about how to "get it right." It's all up to you and how you learn and what works for you. A bunch of techniques work for a bunch of people, but everyone has a little different view.

I've been taking a systematic approach to all this and it seems to have worked well for me. I don't just "go with the flow" or "open my mind." My mind is already open. It's so open I'm just waiting to explore the space I've created the next time I go lucid.

Now that I think about it, if someone said that "opening his mind" helped him stay lucid longer, I would reevaluate how open my mind was. What I want above all my lucid goals is longer, more frequent lucid dreams.