New to lucid dreaming, or am I?

Hey all,

Just joined today because lately I've had the urge to get back into trying to perform a successful LD. I bought the book "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" by Stephen LaBerge awhile back, read some of the techniques and made a dream journal, but stopped, because of my frustration with the difficulty of getting a successful LD.

I used to also practice astral projection, which strangely the two techniques I used between WILD + WBTB and astral projection are very very similar.

Anywho, I meditate probably once a week, I'll sit down burn some frankincense, put in binaural beats and try to relax and get in touch with myself, but this time (ten minutes ago) I tried to view the hypnagogic imagery and try to manipulate it, but to no avail. It was sort of this purple color that overtook my whole vison, and then would shrink to a circle all the way to the middle, and then it would start over, start everywhere and melt into a small circle over and over. I'm not sure I remember where hypnagogic imagery plays into lucid dreaming, but I tried to practice visualization and it just didn't work, I guess I need more practice.

I would also like to note that I have a lot of trouble sleeping, as well as anxiety almost all of the time. I want to use lucid dreaming to figure out why I have anxiety, and also amongst other things such as flying, for pure enjoyment purposes, but mostly to better myself so that I can break free of this anxiety like shell and go out to help people in this world.

Thanks guys, any kind of feedback is much appreciated :)

Also I forgot to ask, what do you guys think would best prepare me for getting lucid? I suppose it would be to have better sleep, My mind just has so much chatter all the time and I can't get quiet. My ears also have a little ringing. I have been thinking of trying calea Z to help.