I know what you mean about the fuzzy, muffled thing... however, I think this is more to do with the way you remember dreams than the experience you have whilst you're actually dreaming. I would hazard the guess that your dreams are actually very sharp, but that you have a hard time remembering all the details. So, if you become lucid during a dream, you can fully appreciate all the detail and take it in and remember it. That's what I think anyway.

I had a dream a month or so ago where I was standing alone in a place I know, in a different country, on a wide plain between a group of mountains, and I became lucid during it (woke up quite quickly afterwards, though, sadly). My memory of that dream is interesting. It seems as though it was quite fuzzy and blurred, and then when I became lucid, everything sort of suddenly snapped into focus and took on an amazing amount of detail and atmosphere. Not only was it realistic, it was almost beyond reality, because I knew that the whole huge landscape was somehow inside my mind. The colours were weirdly sharp and intense and I bent down to touch some twigs and could feel them in my hands. It was an incredible sensation...

Anyway, keep trying and good luck : )