Hi,

I'm a beginner at this, I've been practicing the "Looking at your hands before bed" for 2 weeks rather infrequently though, but more recently I've also started doing reality checks throughout my day in combination with telling myself I will lucid dream before I go to bed, and I've had 2 lucid dreams so far.

My first was about a minute long... I had never heard of stabilization techniques before so it just kind of blacked out into an FA and then blacked out into RL. For my second, I tried rubbing my hands together as soon as I became lucid for about a second. Then I tried doing some math "4 + 3 = 7" and after I did this I heard a loud thunderclap, it blacked out and I woke up. Argh! So frustrating! Also, I figure I may have gotten too excited trying to remember all the stabilization techniques I had learned and directing my attention away from the dream.

For next time I figure I'll try to rub my hands for longer and AVOID DOING MATH lol. Does that sound reasonable? How do you extend your dreams? Does it shorten if things are blurry, i.e. does things have to be crystal clear before it's stabilized?