Staying Calm

I become lucid fairly often when dreaming, but atleast 75% of the time I get excited when I realize it and it wakes me up!

For example, last night I dreamt my friend and I were driving down the interstate and saw two cars that were about to crash head on. Instead of colliding, they passed through eachother. I thought to myself "that's odd." and then realized "oh! I must be dreaming!" In excitement I turned to my friend to tell her I had just realized I was dreaming and that we should get out of this stupid truck and do something more fun... but then started feeling as if I was waking up, stuggled to stay asleep, but did indeed wake up. Blast!

Any suggestions for how to stay asleep when I become lucid, and stop losing good LDs?

There are many ways that might work to help you stay in your lucid dream. Of course, not getting excited will help you not wake up. That usually wears off after a while, but I don't now how many lucid dreams you've had so far.

Rubbing your hands together is usually an effective way to prevent yourself from waking up. You can also try focusing on an object, and/or touch something. The focus of doing this might also help you calm down so that you don't wake up too easily.

I'm sure other people have even more suggestions for you. Good luck! :)

It'a also said that just focussing with your eyes makes lucids more stable. And I'm guessing it would be great practice for making your skill for lucidity better ontop of everything, and making your dream more realistic. As quoted from Luminious (hope you don't mind me doing this):

I'm sure other people have even more suggestions for you. Good luck! :)

well if u wake up, just stay still and go back inot the dream. it will only take seconds, and u can keep practicing various methods

thanks! these sound like great ideas and I will try them out the next time I become lucid. (which is pretty often)

Just taking a few seconds to really focus on the dream does it for me. You want to distract yourself from feeling your body in bed. Use your dream body's sensed. Look around carefully, feel the textures of different objects, rub your hands or arms, look at your hands, touch the ground. Things like that.

Congratulations on the lucids, though. Just having more of them will get you more familiar with the feeling so you don't get shocked awake.