How to stay lucid?

Whenever I realise I am dreaming, I say to myself "this is a dream" so I can fully realise I am dreaming, and take advantage of my new-found situation. However, whenever I say "I am dreaming" (or something along those lines) / realise I am dreaming, I can feel myself being pulled out of the dream and waking up. The only way I have found to combat this by saying "I am not dreaming" which invariably ends up with me losing lucidity, putting me back at square one.
Any advice on how to stop this? I have read that just going about your business as you were before you realised you were dreaming helps, but what is the point in that? You might as well not have even become lucid in the first place.
I have also heard many people saying that this problem can be due to over excitement, yet whenever it occurs I treat the situation like I have been there a thousand times before, keeping over-excitement to a minimum.

I would be extremely grateful towards anyone who may have an answer to my very annoying problem :) thanks.

How many times did this happened? It's not uncommon for some first lucid dreams to be so short, it will improve with practice and also you could have been already about to wake up and REM was ending, it's where we have higher awareness so we get lucid more easily in that period sometimes. Also never say "I am not dreaming", as you already experienced, it's like refusing lucidity. :-?
Though if it's happened exactly at the moment you were saying that... maybe you are overthinking it or worrying about waking up? I had problems with dream length in May and was thinking how to fix that, but the way i managed to fix it is that i stopped trying to fix it and just went with it, and bam, my lucid dreams became longer once again. I hope that helps. :)
Also you can try stabilization techniques, many people have success improving their dream stability with them: http://www.dreamviews.com/articles/9...-tutorial.html :peek:

I've had it happen many times, FusRoMoose. It's almost like trying to bend your pinky finger without bending your ring finger at the same time.

The dream can quickly become muted when your body thinks it is time to wake up; you see, it will effectively put an end to your dream cycle when it ceases to fulfill a useful purpose, and becoming lucid (realizing that you are dreaming) can trigger that response. Don't get too excited or pay too much attention to what is happening. Continue to carry out dream-related activities, allow them to develop—it will help to stabilize the dream—and lightly acknowledge the reality of the situation.

I hope this advice helps.

Thanks you guys. People like you are the reason the dream views communtiy is so great. It is also good to know that I am not the only one out there who is experiencing this.
The article is very helpful. I will be refering to it in the coming nights. :)