I know there have been a ton of posts on this but I am having a very hard time staying asleep when I become lucid. I cant understand what makes me wake up so fast. I have tried every technique that I know and it will work until I stop doing it.

Then, after a few seconds, everything fades to black and I am just lying in bed with my eyes closed, not wanting to accept that fact that I have awaken. I have only once been able to go back to sleep and jump right into lucidity and that was great but that one only lasted about 3 seconds.

I tend to get bored very quickly and want to explore my surroundings or do a predetermined task. I find that my lucid dreaming mind is very similar to being intoxicated in waking life. I tend to act more on impulse and do not have much concentration. Perhaps concentration is the key to longer lucid dreams?

What frustrates me so much is that my first lucid was very long and vivid. The dream lasted so long that I was afraid of oversleeping and being late for work. I was actually trying to wake up and the dream turned into a FA.

Someone has suggested that if you become lucid late in the REM cycle your LD's will tend be shorter than if you become lucid at the beginning of a REM. Maybe I should try WBTB method more often and try wake between REM cycles. I have not had much success with WBTB and it is very irritating to wake up in the middle of the night. I tend to say to heck with it all I just want to sleep because I have to get up for work in X-amount of hours.

I guess my lucid dreams will become longer with practice but when I only have 2 or 3 LD's in a month, progress seems very slow. Any input will be greatly appreciated.