Can't imagine myself waking up.

You know the feeling when you wake up from a deep sleep? Your eyes tightly shut, your mind very sealed. As if your mind is coming out of hibernation.

Well , this strong sensation of not being there in my dreams because i'm so far asleep makes me wonder if thats the reason i can't DILD. Even if my dream-self did a RC, I doubt it could be a strong enough signal to awaken my sleeping mind...

Do you ever seen a picture of a sleeping baby mouse? To me the idea of sleep is too strongly associated with being unconscious that I'm doubting I can ever do DILD. I need some serious help in the right direction, I feel like i've read everything there is to read about lucid dreaming but stil can't get over this hurdle. If I must be 'doing' more than 'thinking' in my waking life, then what must i be doing? IS repeatedly doing RC's the only way? If so, how many? And how must i feel when i perform them? Must I imagine myself gaining energy to combat this deep sleepiness?

I hope you understand what i'm getting at, tried my best. Thanks guys.

First off, you can't remember a dream if you weren't conscious during it. If you're remembering your dreams, you're conscious enough.

Don't regard non-lucids as failures; learn from them! Learn where you are mentally during your dreams. You can be mentally anywhere during your dreams and still become lucid from this awareness long as you associate it with dreaming. You don't need to dream of different things, including doing RCs.

By learning where you are mentally during your dreams, you can start to associate this mental awareness with dreaming. Over time, you can associate your failures with dreaming in order to become lucid from them when the same failures come up again. That's the power of self-awareness.

But how? its easy to use the word association but how to form these associations, im so depressed..

To form a dream association you first have to know what you're thinking about during your dreams. To find out what you're thinking during dreams, you reimagine dreams and recall what you were thinking during dream. Once you do this enough, you'll likely find patterns in your thinking.

Once you find a pattern, you tell yourself before going to bed, "when I think XXX, I'll do a reality check." This way, when that thought comes up again in your dream, you are more likely to do a reality check.