When I open my eyes lucid dreaming, I wake up, plus other problems.

Hello,

I'm new here to this message board, and apologize in advanced if any of these questions have already been answered. I have done lots of searching online and haven't found anything about some of these problems I have while lucid dreaming. I am still relatively new, having only become lucid probably less than 20 times, and even then most of my LDs have been only semi-lucid or lasting for very short time periods. The biggest problem I often have is that after realizing I'm dreaming and becoming lucid, my vision begins to fade very quickly, along with most other physical sensations. I will often try to open my eyes in the dream, only to end up opening my eyes in the real world where I am sleeping and awaken from my dream. In my last lucid dream, I realized after checking my clock that I was 3 hours late for work, but then thought about how I'm never late, and suddenly realized I must be dreaming. Immediately after this my vision started to fade, so I began rubbing my hands vigorously while shouting "Clarity now". Although it did delay the amount of time it took to lose my vision and sense of touch, ultimately I still ended up without either of these senses. At this point, I tried opening my eyes and did not appear to be in any particular place, as all I could see was white brightness from all around me. However my sense of touch, alongside the ability to speak, was still gone. Shortly after my vision faded again, and the next time I opened my eyes I was awake in my bed (I also did my reality check to make sure it wasn't a false awakening). Has anybody else experienced anything like this? What did you do to maintain your senses? Any advice from other lucid dreamers?

I imagine you have tried this but I read spinning helps a ton

The only problem with spinning is that usually by the time I even think to do it my body has already lost most of it's capacity to move and any attempt to rotate my body is met with lots of physical resistance. I appreciate the quick response though!

Update: I actually just woke up from what feels like a breakthrough lucid dream. It's hard to say for sure, especially since I don't even remember how or when the lucid dream started, but I was in a relatively vivid and controlled LD for what seemed like at least 20 minutes. During this time I pretty much just explored outside and played around in front of a mirror for a little bit. For a brief time, I even got to fly! However, the dream DID end when I decided to fly to another city to visit a friend and once I got outside and tried flying my vision went again, and the act of opening my eyes woke me up. However, this time I did notice that as my vision went, I started to lose control of the dream as well. Do you guys think this may just mean that when this starts to happen my body is actually beginning to wake up? Or do you think I could have prolonged my LD by taking a moment to absorb my surroundings and try to do something like spin or run my hands? Thanks in advanced for any feedback or advice.

I can suggest 2 things to do to maintain your dreams. I do it and sometimes it works:

-Meditate in the dream. When all starts to fade, put yourself into meditation position or just stand still. Breathe slowly, don't think about waking up, think of nothing and just watch. The environment might come back or even you might end up in another scenario.

-Use all of your senses. Curiously, this tip was given to me by a Dream Character. And it makes sense. When all starts to fade, quickly use your senses. Touch something, talk, focus on an object, smell, hear... This will keep you in the dream.

i have experienced the eye thing as you have, i personally find it a mental thing, but its also very physical, for instance you may feel your dream body and your real body at the same time as you try to open your dream eyes??? this is where you probably fucked up, i do find this very hard to explain but ill try.
its hard to put into words, but you have to give up awareness of least one body, primary your physical.
its like a game of tag of war, you may feel the pull of your dream body and the pull of your body in bed, what you have to do is become more aware of your dream body senses, tune into your dream body more then your physical, this may be unrelated but it sometimes works in my regard, i once read in a real old astral projection book;
that the silver cord can pull you back to your body if your not careful, his advice was to get away as far as you can from your physical body, and you wont feel the pull of the cord so much, i kinda carried this over to my lucid dreaming practice and it works, alot of people become lucid in there bedrooms dont they or find them selves there when they wild :) i hope i helped in someway