I've been lurking around for a couple years, never bothering to make an account until now. I've had many on-and-off phases when it comes to lucid dreaming, and have had a reasonable amount (probably between 40-50, about 10 from reality checks, 0 Wilds, and the rest MILDs), but a major issue is pretty much all of them have been quite short. I am working on basic stabilization techniques, but one problem that seems to be quite persistent is that pretty much every time I become lucid, the surroundings are dark. I have attempted normal stabilization methods right away, such as spinning, feeling the surroundings, and rubbing hands together/opening and closing them. While this usually prolongs the dreams, it does nothing about the darkness, and when I stop, the dream begins to fade into nothingness. Of course, I attempt to create light within the dream, and when it does work, like getting the ceiling lights to turn on, they immediately begin to fade again. For example, last night I had a lucid where I began in my house, and the lights began to dim, the only way I found to work was grabbing a small lamp (considerably smaller than a normal lamp, with a bulb like a single christmas light), and touching its light to the other darkened ones around. This lit them, but they had darkened again completely in about 3-4 seconds. Eventually the dream just faded completely.

Any advice on how to get lasting, reliable light to be present within a lucid dream?