So I have some questions about lucid dreaming that I haven't been able to find answers for, so I would like others' opinions. Feel free to answer just the ones you know about or wish to.

1. In the past, before I knew anything about lucid dreaming, on two widely separated occasions I had two (maybe semi-) lucid dreams - where I realized I was dreaming while in the dream, but managed to stave off waking up for maybe 10-15 seconds. In both cases it was the same method to stay in the dream - walking around and not thinking too hard about it. In addition to these two cases, every several weeks or so I have a dream where I realize I am dreaming, but wake up practically instantly. I hope to be ready with dream stabilization next time this happens, and reality checks to make it happen more often, but my question is, do these past occurrences mean it will be easier to learn lucid dreaming?

2. Just as learning to stick contact lenses in your eye gets easier and easier the more you do it, does getting and maintaining lucidity get easier and easier the more you do it?

3. Binaural beats and isochronic tones - are they useful and helpful to you?

4. Self-hypnosis and meditation - how necessary?

5. Sleep paralysis (of the WILD method) quite honestly freaks me out. I picture lying in bed stuck there for several minutes feeling crushed while creepy voices and shadowy entities are around me, but I am somehow supposed to not panic and keep relaxing. Please tell me what it is really like.

6. I've heard of a method of saying "1, I am dreaming, 2, I am dreaming, 3, I am dreaming..." while you fall asleep - how effective is this?

7. I'd be interested in a phone (Google Play) app (perhaps an alarm app) that would just vibrate maybe once or twice only, and I could set it to do so every so often. (maybe every 90 minutes during the day, and then sometime during REM sleep.) My idea is to do a reality check every time I hear the buzzing, and then I should hear it in my dream (either the actual phone heard in the dream or a dream phone) and then do a reality check and achieve lucidity. Do you know of a free app that can do this? (I tried to use my phone's built in clock app for this already, but it doesn't work, as it buzzes over and over for a full minute and wakes me up. It almost worked, as I heard the buzzing in a dream before I figured out what it was, so my theory is that once or twice should be enough to get me thinking without crashing the dream.)

Thanks for any help!