LucidRaider

This is exactly how it works for me! I think many people using this technique are "trying" a bit too much. But what is the difference between trying and knowing? For me trying is when you continue to tell yourself that you are going to have a lucid dream that night in bed. But if you knew that you would have a lucid dream that night, why would you continue to repeat that in your head?

I didn't get this simple fact before I started to look into my own dreams a bit more. First I started to look at what I did differently when I had my lucid dreams, of course I looked in all the wrong places. Was it the food I ate? The things I did? The time I went to sleep?

Well, I tried to completely replicate all of those little things and guess what I got? Absolutely nothing. I was left dumbstruck, if I did everything in the exact same way as I did when I had my lucid dream, why wouldn't I get one then?

Then it struck me, no small thing would make me lucid, because the only thing holding me back was myself. What held me back was my own state of mind. Every single lucid I've had throughout the years have been successful due to my state of mind.

So what was my state of mind like when I had my lucid dreams? Perhaps I thought much about lucid dreaming before bed? Maybe I played some game to make me more alert? Nope, the only thing I did was being careless about lucid dreaming, I didn't focus my strength at becoming lucid. I focused my strength at falling asleep.

So, what did I do when I failed my lucid dreams then? I pressured myself. I continued to think about lucid dreaming at night, trying to induce it by thinking hard about dreaming and by doing that i increased the already high pressure even more. It didn't matter if I fully believed that I was going to lucid dream, by pressuring myself at night I managed to destroy my chances of having lucid dreams.

I wish I would've seen my facial expression when I came to that conclusion. I think it was something in between of looking extremely happy but at the same time extremely dumb. This simple thing had flown past me millions of times and I didn't give it a thought at all. For years I sat and repeated my mantras, tried to fall asleep while aware and thought about lucid dreaming. But the only thing I needed to do was to look into myself and figure lucid dreaming out for myself.

The "method" i use in a nutshell:
1 (optional). I meditate about an hour before bed to make my thoughts more manageable. This makes it easier for me to induce the dreamscapes I want to visit (horray for cool dreamscapes!)
2. I go to bed and sleep. (If you have a hard time feeling careless about lucid dreaming try to think of it as something less important. You could pretend that you have a big test at school tomorrow and you really need to be 100% awake in the morning, so you don't have time to think about lucid dreaming.)
3. I lucid dream

If you choose to meditate you could use that to reinforce the fact that you're going to have lucid dreams tonight (or every night ).

So if anyone feels like they're trying a bit too hard, stop trying. Watch some movies, play some games, read some books or simply chill out. You are going to get your lucid dreams anyway!

(TLDR; I agree with Ctharlhie, don't focus so much on lucid dreaming at night, confidence is key, over-thinking is not.)