Quote Originally Posted by FriendlyFace View Post
It seems the more lucid I am the more focus it takes to stay in the dream. I assume that's normal yeah? The more "awake" you are the harder it is to stay asleep?
I think it may be that, just backwards: like, you are approaching the time that you would naturally wake up anyway, which results in more awareness in the lucid. But that's why it's handy that you were able to DEILD ( = "dive back" into the dream that one time you mentioned). Still, if it happens close to when you naturally wake up, then the price can be a shortened experience.

An obvious solution would be to try to have lucid dreams earlier in your sleep cycle, while learning to increase the awareness with various methods. That way you have both: high lucid level, longer dream. One way to go about this is to WBTB. Basically set your alarm for 5 hours after you fall asleep. Then when you wake up, instead of just peeing and going back to bed and immediately passing out, you stay up for a bit doing stuff to elevate your awareness. Then you can WILD, or do like you've been doing and have a spontaneous DILD. The latter for you would probably be pretty damn attainable, since you mentioned that you were able to become lucid once because you remembered while in the new dream that you had just woken up from a lucid dream a little bit ago (I do that alot, it's great!).

Anyway, I just hit you with a ton of stuff, but definitely think about it. And congratulations big time on your lucid streak!!! You know, instead of defaulting to the flying when you get lucid, why not attempt one of the Tasks of the Month next time? It's a great way to bump up your mind for a couple reasons, 1.) it forces you to recall a task that you have pre-memorized from waking life, and 2.) it gives you a single task (whether basic or advanced) to focus on, which helps keep your mind sharp and aware in the lucid. They're really fun and we do them every month. Anyway, here they are: Task of the Month