Hey all, I'm new to the forum but not really to lucid dreaming. I've had plenty before, lucid in the sense that I'm aware I'm dreaming and I have active control over what I'm doing and how I'm interacting with the characters but no control over the 'physical' dream world itself i.e., I can say and do what I want within reason of reality but I can't, for example, fly at will or make things materialize. I'm now flipping through the dream control section (namely that 16 page thread) but I had a question about eyes:

I usually open and close my eyes regularly and freely in lucid dreams and have no problem but from time to time I close them and I know in my head that if I open them, I will wake up. My original theory was that I'd already woken up and just hadn't really realized it yet, but just last night (a few hours ago) I had 2 fantastic lucid dreams that both ended in this way, except I could hear all the goings-on around me in the lucid dream until I opened my eyes, and then I was completely awake. Any ideas regarding this discrepancy and possibly how can I work to get around this?

Thanks! This forum looks great, I'm really excited to be here.