I think that the thing that hinders you the most is that you don't truly believe you have control over your dreams. It's not about a particular stabilization / RC technique, but rather just to be aware enough to KNOW that you can change whatever you want in a dream...
About that particular reoccurring nightmare - reoccurring nightmares are a fairly common thing and happen to most of us. They tend to stop on their own, and the more value you assign to them in waking life, the more persistent they will be. My suggestion is to just understand that it's a dream. Just like any other it's fueled by random thoughts and memories from waking life, so there is nothing to worry about... If you're lucid during one of these dreams / nightmares, try to get more lucid and just get out of that scene into a new one... There are countless ways to "change" a dream, and you should find the one that works for you - consider teleportation, falling asleep (in the dream), going through a mirror / TV / computer screen, etc...
About dreams being black and empty when you WILD into them (which is essentially what you're doing) - it's possible that you're just out of REM, but don't worry about that... Try to visualize a scene, or if something is already there, try to interact with the dream and set your presence in it (like rubbing hands, touching stuff, dropping stuff, etc.) - this will force your brain to add detail to the dream.
You can also just wait a bit between awakenings, if you're really waking in the end of REM, but since there is no way to know that for sure - I personally would rather wait a bit within the empty dream until the next REM... But again, it's up to your judgment. I suggest to always try to create / enhance a scene - never assume you simply can't do it because it's the end of REM, because if you assume that, you wouldn't be able to do it, even if it's not NREM... It's all about KNOWING that you can do it (even if it didn't work once or twice before).
Finally, about DCs being uncooperative - again, it's pretty common... I think it's because we assume them to be. We assume that our brain doesn't want us to be lucid, and thus uses these DCs to trick us or hinder our progress. In truth, I think that our brain doesn't care too much about sending DCs with bad attitude. You must have had non-lucids where a DC initiated a conversation about LDing or something like that. So, basically on their own, WITHOUT OUR BIAS, I think the a dream character has exactly that same probability to be bad as it has to be good (let's say, 50% of them are nice, 50% are rude). Thing is, we usually assume them to be uncooperative because negative experiences are more memorable to the human brain than positive ones (it's a survival mechanism) - so we tend to remember more instances of uncooperative DCs. This is a bias, and this bias only increases the likelihood of uncooperative DCs - as I said, what you assume is what's going to happen in a dream. So if this bias makes you assume that the next DC is going to be uncooperative - it more likely will be. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy...
Our expectations / assumptions are what shapes the dream the most. Expecting a vague, nightmarish, dream with uncooperative DCs, will result in such a dream. Expecting having a fun, vivid, experience will increase the probability of it happening if you expect this in waking life, and by expecting this from within a dream (for that you need to be lucid) you can force it to happen.
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