General info:
I found out about lucid dreaming many years ago, and I've been interested in it ever since. I dove into it in earnest about 5 years ago, reading everything I could on it. Unfortunately, though I have a lot of "head knowledge" about it, I've had few successes.

When I become lucid, it's never been through an RC. It's not that my RCs in my dreams fail; rather, I have no memory of ever RCing in a non-lucid dream. Instead, I typically just become aware that I'm dreaming, usually as part of a scene change. In most of my lucids, if a DC walks up to me and says "Hey, you're dreaming," it would have about the same effect as if he'd walked up and said "Hey, the sky is blue." I've never had the "OH WOW I'M LUCID" moment that so many people talk about. Most of the times I've become lucid, I've tried to exert some kind of control over the dream, but my awareness has been so low that it's been more of an instinct than a conscious decision. The obvious answer is to stabilize my dream - but since I don't get that moment of non-lucid to lucid transition, it never even occurs to me that there's anything to stabilize.

As far as I can tell, MILDing hasn't helped at all (so far). Many of my lucids have followed from failed WILD attempts, while others have "just happened." I've done some SSILDing, usually with a MILD as a followup, but I don't know if it's affecting anything. Due to my incredible lack of awareness and control in my lucids, WILDing is very attractive to me. Unfortunately, every time I've ever tried it I've ended up with fairly bad insomnia. When I fall asleep normally, it's a very, very quick thing. If I'm awake for even 5 minutes after I lay down with the intention to sleep, I know I have insomnia that night, and it's going to take me a long time to get to sleep. When I attempt a WILD, I can easily stay perfectly still for 30 to 45 minutes, and I can keep my thoughts relatively calm - but sleep evades me. Worse, once I give up on the attempt, I can't get the sleep back. It sometimes takes me over an hour after giving up on the WILD before I can get to sleep. Sometimes I just have to give up altogether and go read somewhere to get myself really tired before trying to sleep again.

I normally get between 7-8 hours of sleep each night. A short WBTB doesn't make much difference, but I can't do a long one. I normally try my WILDs on Friday and Saturday nights, when I can afford to lose a little more sleep.

Late last year, I finally started having a few more successes: I was probably getting 2-3 lucids a month from about September through November. December was crazy, and my attempts dropped off, and then I became more tired and didn't want to lose the sleep to lucid attempts. I've finally gotten over the tiredness, and I'm hoping to make even more progress this time around.

Reality Checks:
I do reality checks on a regular basis throughout the day, usually unscheduled. Unfortunately, most of my day is either sitting behind a computer or sitting behind a steering wheel, so there's not much variety of "odd" things to kick off my RCs (or, maybe I'm just thinking too small ...). The nose-pinch is my most common RC, followed closely by studying my hand. I'm trying to get more into the habit of questioning how I got to where I am. Occasionally I'll jump or try to stick my finger through my hand.

Dream Signs:
* HUGE areas (so large I'm not aware of the ceiling or far walls)
* Really uncomfortable / awkward situations
* Driving
* Very low light levels and lights that don't work right
* Very recently, gaming

Short-Term Goals:
* Have more regular lucid dreams
* Increase lucid awareness and control
* Fly

Long-Term Goals:
* Be able to shapeshift and have the shift "stick"
* Use LDs to combat social anxiety

Journalling:
I've kept a DreamViews journal for a while, on and off. My dream journalling usually goes pretty well as long as I put the effort into it. I have my tablet near my bed along with a Bluetooth keyboard. When I wake up, I gently roll onto my back, grab my keyboard, close my eyes, and type out as much of the dream as I can remember. In the morning, I download the entry from my tablet, clean it up, and post it.

Current Technique:
WBTB + SSILD + MILD. I can't use an alarm in the middle of the night, so I use a large glass of water instead. It usually wakes me up after either 3 or 4.5 hours. When I wake up, I do an RC, record my dreams, use the bathroom, get a drink of water, and go back to bed. On average, journalling probably takes about 10-15 minutes, so I'm awake and semi-active for about 15-20 minutes total.

Once I'm back in bed, I try to run through some SSILD cycles, then fix in my mind a dream I want to re-enter; fix an intention to re-enter it, recognize it, and become lucid; then fall asleep. More often than not, I don't try to re-enter the dream I just left - my dreams aren't usually anything I want to get back into - but instead a pleasant, older, memorable dream.