Annoying dream "crashes"

[Hwen]

Recently, I've had more lucid dreams than ever before, multiple nights in a row. But the thing is, they're terribly terribly short. this is what has generally been happening to me: 1: I question reality and do an RC. 2: I breathe for a bit, feel some stuff, crawl around, try to convince myself the dream won't crash. 3: I set my intention to find a blue box and a man with a bow tie around the corner. 4: I find the blue box and man with the bow tie, and think that, finally, I might be able to have a nice, long, albeit nerdy lucid. 5: The dream ends without warning before I can get to the TARDIS. I think of it as 'crashing' What am I doing wrong?

[Mystycal]

I'd say try approaching it slowly, still maintaining a solid connection with your surroundings, paying attention to the details of the TARDIS and the ground under your feet. Who knows, maybe the Doctor himself could help you out? Maybe you're just getting too excited by the prospect of a really cool LD. So take it slow. And I would advise not taking your eyes off the TARDIS or it could dematerialise within a fraction of a second. That's just how annoying some dreams can be sometimes. :/

[dms111]

What am I doing wrong? 2: I breathe for a bit, feel some stuff, crawl around, try to convince myself the dream won't crash. You're thinking about the dream "crashing" right as the dream is just beginning. Just like repeatedly telling yourself "I will not think about a pink elephant I will not think about a pink ..." is counterproductive. You need to keep the idea of the dream ending prematurely totally out of your head. Set long goals for your lucid dreams. Think about acting out these goals in their entirety during the day. If a dream ends before you want it to just shrug it off and tell yourself it ended because you wanted it to.

[Sivason]

Hi. This is a very very common even with long time dreamers. It happens so often the forum has hundreds of threads on it. The term you need is Stabilization. Generally a good LDer would use a technique that helps prolong the dream. An example is everytime you get lucid, you examine your hands and move the figers. Other people may yell very loud or pat down there dream body like they are cold. That helps the 'stablize' themselves in the dream. One time is not enough, you repeat your technique as needed in the dream. Ask around for ideas you could use to stablize dreams. One of mine is to find both hands and see them respond to my thoughts. The use the hands to find my elbow and knees. That is usually enough for me. I may repeat if the dream becomes distorted or after five minutes. So find a tutorial on stablization in the forum, and be that much closer to awesome marathon lds.