*Newbies, this could be an example where YOU have the advantage if you set this straight in your mind before reading about some of the challenges that other people have.

Try to not allow yourself to fall victim to any negative schema or poisoning of your schema. The easiest way to reword that is "Try to not allow yourself to fall victim to any poisoning of your expectations." In other words, don't expect to have trouble with something just because others are saying they have trouble with it.

In my experience, if you are avoiding getting excited but are still waking up too quickly, then you may very well be falling victim to having read too much negative schema! Luckily the point of schema's effect on us was driven home to me early on as I realized the truth in it when I saw how some things were difficult that others found easy, but especially how other things were easy for me despite others mentioning them being difficult! Flying was always easy for me and when I saw that some very good lucid dreamers had or have trouble at times, the concept just clicked for me.

I avoid negative schema like the plague, most commonly when reading forum posts or other people's dream journals (i.e. after reading something that could potentially affect my schema or expectations, I might say to myself "nope..didn't see that" or "that's not fact, it's just one person's experience"...or if it comes to it, even better is resolving it by overcoming the challenge from within the lucid dream!).

I have had lucid dreams end while doing certain things...but I choose to say to myself that it was not because I was doing those things in the LD...my REM period was just over, though I may try to do those things a little differently next time. I have also found ways to stay in dreamland longer even if it seems like the dream is ending...again expectation, or more accurately schema, was key in my opinion. I often have lengthy LD's and I have no doubt that anyone else can too. Some of that comes with practice, but I think the above concept is more crucial. I may be able to add to this if anyone has questions or comments.