staying calm and controlling your dream

I have a few seconds if not minutes when I realize I'm dreaming before I'm in complete darkness. The problem I believe I'm facing is I'm too excited, my heart rate is through the roof, I believe that's causing my premature dreams to end. I can't seem to calm my self soon enough before the dream completely fades into darkness. Do you guys have any tricks you use to keep yourself calm immediately when you realize you're in a dream? I've done the whole spin your body, scream clarity, imagine clarity with no luck.

Also, when everything fades into darkness I'm still conscious to some degree, It feels like I'm falling through space at a high speed with no control, eventually I'll loose consciousness and wake up. Is there anyway out of that stage and if you can push back into the dream realm?

"I have a few seconds if not minutes when I realise I'm dreaming before I'm in complete darkness. The problem I believe I'm facing is I'm too excited"

This did happen to me quite a lot in the earlier days of my lucid dream career, I never applied any specific remedy it simply got better naturally as I got used to the novelty of the experience.

Later in my career I had this problem a few times while attempting WILDs as well, the anticipation made my heart beat much faster than usual, a bit like waiting in line for or being on a roller coaster.

I have found that meditation right before the attempt made me more 'objective' and so I was able to carry out the procedure without exiting myself with anticipation. Crowley Put it this way "Pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect".

I would suggest practising some type of meditation technique, in formal practice you can develop this 'objective' perspective. Given enough time the practice renovates the neural hardware which is responsible for upholding this state and thus it becomes easier to generate, it becomes a ingrained habit of the brain. As one makes progress this 'objective' state can be accessed by the simple intention to do so, including of course in the lucid dream state.

Besides all this I think that just through frequent exposure to the experience the subconscious mind gets used to lucid dreaming as a comfortable and safe event. Overall as time went on for me my reaction to the situation became progressively more relaxed by itself, this applies to both DILDs and WILDs.

I used to have trouble with dc in the sense that whenever I became lucid for a period of time, everything faded to darkness. I'm not sure that this will be helpful but this is what I did. When was lucid, I would exit the room I was in (if I'm outside I'd enter a room) I wouldn't spawn any DCs as that would subtract attention away. If I left a room, it would lead to another room, one with more light. I would walk through each room leading to the next. Classrooms to bedrooms to locker rooms to throne rooms to offices to boat cabins to spaceships, each with more lights than the last until it got ridiculous.

By the last room, the floor would be littered with lamps, ceiling covered with chandeliers and walls with every other kind of lights. By the time I was ready, I would enter a room (or outside) with people. I found that running this scenario in my head both helped me with my light problem and helped me stay calm as I was focusing on moving onto the next room.

This also helped a ton with dream control as because you were running and cycling through every room imaginable, you can leave into any world or setting you want. You could walk out to meet any person on any place on earth or otherwise. It was easy for me to do but I'm not sure it will be as helpful advice for others.