Any tips for remaining lucid?

[piilo]

I've just recetly started to actively lucid dream (or at least attempt to lucid dream) and have found that my ideal time for becoming lucid through WILD is in the early-ish morning when I'm naturally drifting between wake and sleep (I'm a student at the university and I often have no early classes). The only problem is that those dreams are extremely fragile. Today morning I woke up and found myself in hypnagogia and had the dream kind of force itself on me - I could see a lamp before my eyes and suddenly woke up in a room, facing the said lamp. I remembered all the techniques I had read about and stared at my hands, rubbed them together, stared at my surroundings, tried to make them appear as clear as possible (those floortiles were really detailed!) and whatnot. Then I headed to complete my LD goal, which is walking on the surface of the moon, listening to the silence and looking at planet Earth. Something I have always wanted to experience. I attempted to exit the room through the window but couldn't get past the glass, so I had to go through the wall, which was surprisingly easy and felt funny. Then I just skyrocketed towards the moon, but my surroundings started to go funky and I lost the dream to complete darkness and woke up. I also had another lucidish dream this morning, it was a DILD, but it was quite murky and I can't remember much about it, only that it didn't last very long, either. What techniques should I attempt to remain lucid longer? Was I just too hasty, or is it because of the time? Should I attempt to wake up in the middle of the night and go lucid, instead of the morning? I'm a complete beginner, so please bear with me. Thank you!

[Alucinor XIII]

Well, a couple different factors will likely affect how long you will be lucid. One of those would be depending on what time in there night you become lucid. Early REM cycles are quite short. Each REM cycle gets successively longer, so if you become lucid in your 6th REM cycle (as opposed to your 3rd), you'll have a much longer time to remain so. Another big thing is awareness. When I started practicing All-Day-Awareness, I not only had more lucids, but they started lasting longer. While you are dreaming, it helps to have a constant thought of "I'm dreaming" running in the background. Cause if you get carried away and forget for just a few moments, you can easily end up in a regular dream, or simply waking up from excitement. Oh, and look into something called DEILD (Dream-Exit Induced Lucid Dreams). The technique focuses on -becoming- lucid from awakening...but heres a neat little trick...If you are ALREADY lucid in a dream, and you feel like you may start to wake up, you can just stay calm and relaxed, and keep your eyes closed. When you do wake up, just remain lying down with your eyes closed and try to imagine the dream scene again. More likely than not, you'll fall right back asleep into the dream and still be lucid!

[Sensei]

I feel like later dreams seem more fragile as well. Dunno why. Maybe someone could shed some light on this. I like getting lucid earlier in the night, but if year lucid early check out this stabilization tech: My Tutorial for extending Lucid Dream Time. Hours of LD. - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

[piilo]

Thank you very much for your replies! I suppose I'll have to work on staying aware. I also never thought of sounds and smells (shows how much research I have done - sorry about that). The visuals in my lucids so far have been beautiful, but I can't ever remember hearing or smelling anything. I've just jumped right into doing what I wanted to do after looking around for a while. The next time I have a lucid dream I'll really have to take my time to observe with all my senses and remind myself that I'm indeed dreaming, and perhaps postpone my more ambitious goals until I can really stabilize a dream and stay aware. I'lll try and set my alarm to wake me up after around 6 hours of sleep and attempt to go lucid (any earlier only results in a headache) while also practising DEILD a bit later into the morning. And come back complaining when nothig works. Kidding. Thanks again. I'll report back on how I'm doing. Any further advice is also welcome!

[Jerad]

I find that if I'm losing focus or waking up, stopping, relaxing, and deep breathing, as well as slowly turning in a circle, helps out. I would advise against dream sex, and stuff like that, at least until you're more experienced. It's an exciting situation, and becoming too excited in a dream will make you lose focus.