I've been lucid dreaming for well over 20 years, but it has been a LONG time since I have had a lucid dreams over a few minutes. I have focused heavily on dream stabilization. As soon as my dream starts I rub my hands together and start observing and touching objects around me. To rule out getting too excited I have been simply engaging with dream characters in conversation rather than doing anything exciting. I recently had an extremely vivid lucid dream and began talking to a dream character. After about two minutes I found myself in bed without warning. This seems to be a pattern lately. The dreams don't even fade out where I have time to re-stabilize, spin, etc. I wonder if there is a distinction between dreams that fade out and one where you just find yourself instantly in your bed?? I try to induce a DEILD at this point but sometimes I am too awake. I wonder if maybe i am having lucid dreams at the end of my sleep cycle or if perhaps there is no distinction between dreams that fade out and ones that don't. I am not sure if this is a lack of dream control or what I am missing. I really want to get back to having long lucid dreams. I would be happy with even a 10 minute dream. I used to have epic lucid dreams that were an hour long when I was younger.

I don't know if I am disrupting the dream plot by engaging in too much conversation or what the secret is. I see people having regular 30-60 minute dreams and I wonder why i haven't been able to do the same even though I feel completely calm and focus on stabilizing.