Help Controlling And Achieving Lucid Dreams

My experience with lucid dreaming has been a difficult one.

I was able to lucid dream as far back as I can remember (I guess around 3), but I am always unable to control them, I just realize I'm dreaming. Also, anytime I attempt to purposely induce a lucid dream, it doesn't work, but if I just go to sleep as normal, I will often have them. It's really confusing.

So, what would be a good technique to induce lucid dreaming? Most methods that I have tried, failed.

Also, does anyone have advice to better control my dream when I become lucid? Because they often go like this:

I realize I'm dreaming and think, "oh cool, I finally had a lucid dream", then things go bad (more on that in a minute), OR I'm in the middle of an extremely surreal dream and suddenly become conscious of everything being so over the top, I know I must be dreaming, and become lucid.

Now, when I say "things go bad", every time upon becoming lucid, my dream takes a turn for the worse. It will turn into a scary dream of some sort either with a psycho murderer suddenly appearing in my dream and trying to kill me, zombies chasing me, or a demonic entity attacking me.

I will repeat to myself repeatedly "this is just a dream" or "I'm in complete control" and will attempt to change the dream, but to no avail. So I end up becoming so freaked out by my dream induced "monster" and try to "wake myself up".

It's a never ending cycle that I have tried for years to break and it's beyond frustrating, so any advice on why this is happening or ways to change it will be GREATLY APPRECIATED.

Thanks for reading. :)

Go to sleep as normal to become lucid. That's what works for you!

Your lucid dreams are becoming nightmares because you're fearful. You're only going to have a nightmare if you're scared in your dreams. Find and eliminate the source of fear and the monster will probably go away.

For example, instead of thinking the zombies are chasing you because they want to kill you, try thinking that they are because want to hug you. You're in charge of what they want.

Optimism generally leads to good dream control and pessimism leads to the opposite.

Dolphin, thank you for the advice.

Yes, sleeping as normal does work for me to become lucid because bizarre surroundings helps me realize I'm dreaming, but it does suck to only become lucid about once a month because my dreams are pretty normal, so I have to wait around for something out of the ordinary.

You are absolutely right about me being fearful, because ever since I had my first lucid dream (that I remember, I was 3 mind you), it was very scary and intimidating, so I guess since then once I become lucid, I automatically go into "fear mode" thinking that something terrible will happen. Thank you, I never thought of that before, so I hope that helps me have more control. :)

Last night I had a lucid dream that a murderer was after me and I assured myself he couldn't do me any harm. Finally when he caught up with me, he just walked right past me and the dream began to become pleasant (then I woke up), so I guess that's a start. :)

I am happy with how realistic and balanced my lucid dreams are though, so maybe that will be a bonus when I finally have better control over them.

Anyways, thanks again for the advice!