Reality Checks:
I do reality checks on a regular basis throughout the day, usually unscheduled. Unfortunately, most of my day is either sitting behind a computer or sitting behind a steering wheel, so there's not much variety of "odd" things to kick off my RCs (or, maybe I'm just thinking too small ...). When I RC, I do the "internal nose pinch," i.e. lifting my tongue to the roof of my mouth to block off my airway. Just like a real nose pinch, it means I can't breathe IWL, but I should be able to breathe in a dream. At the same time, I try to become more aware of myself and my senses: what I'm feeling, what I'm hearing, what I'm seeing. I also think about where I was 5 minutes ago.

Dream Signs:
* HUGE areas (so large I'm not aware of the ceiling or far walls)
* Really uncomfortable situations driving
* Very low light levels and lights that don't work right

Short-Term Goals:
* Have more regular lucid dreams
* Increase lucid awareness
* Fly

Long-Term Goals:
* Learn to WILD consistently / on demand
* Be able to shapeshift and have the shift "stick"
* Combat social anxiety

Lucid/Dream Recall History:
I've kept a DreamViews journal for a while, on and off. My dream journaling usually goes pretty well. I have the occasional dry spell (like last week), but normally as long as I try, I can remember a fair amount. Over the last few months, a friend and I have started trading dreams every morning, and that's really helped my motivation. Finally finding a journaling technique that works well for me has also been a huge help.

Current Technique:
WBTB + MILD. I can't use an alarm in the middle of the night, so I use a large glass of water instead. It usually wakes me up after either 3 or 4.5 hours. When I wake up, I do an RC, jot down some quick dream notes, use the bathroom, then write out the full journal entry (or entries). I use a Bluetooth keyboard with my tablet, so I can lay in bed, head on pillow, and type out my dreams in great detail with my eyes closed. I find that, no matter how hard I try, I can't remember all of the dream details up front; I only remember the details in pieces as I'm exhaustively recording the dream. On average, journaling probably takes about 10 minutes, so I'm awake and semi-active for about 15 minutes total.

Once I'm finished, I try to fix in my mind a dream I want to re-enter, fix an intention to reenter it, recognize it, and become lucid, then fall asleep. More often than not, I don't try to reenter the dream I just left - my dreams aren't usually anything I want to get back into - but instead a pleasant, older, memorable dream.

General info:
I found out about lucid dreaming many years ago, and I've been interesed in it ever since. I dove into it in earnest about 4 years ago, reading everything I could on it. Unfortunately, though I have a lot of "head knowledge" about it, my successes have been few, far between, and really weak.

When I become lucid, it's never been through an RC. It's not that my RCs in my dreams fail; rather, I have no memory of ever RCing in a dream. Instead, I typically just become aware that I'm dreaming. If a DC walked up to me and said "Hey, you're dreaming," it would have had about the same effect as if he'd walked up and said "Hey, the sky's blue." I've never had the "OH WOW I'M LUCID" moment that so many people talk about. Most of the times I've become lucid, I've tried to exert some kind of control over the dream, but my awareness has been so low that it's been more of an instinct than a conscious decision. The obvious answer is to stabalize my dream - but since I don't get that moment of non-lucid to lucid transition, it never even occurs to me that there's anything to stabalize.

As far as I can tell, MILDing hasn't helped at all (so far). Most of my lucids have followed from failed WILD attempts. Due to my incredible lack of awareness and control in my lucids, WILDing is very attractive to me. Unfortunately, every time I've ever tried it I've ended up with fairly bad insomnia. When I fall asleep normally, it's a very, very quick thing. If I'm awake for even 5 minutes after I lay down with the intention to sleep, I know I have insomnia that night, and it's going to take me a long time to get to sleep. When I attempt a WILD, I can easily stay perfectly still for 30 to 45 minutes, and I can keep my thoughts relatively calm - but sleep evades me. Worse, once I give up on the attempt, I can't get the sleep back. It sometimes takes me over an hour after giving up on the WILD before I can get to sleep. Sometimes I just have to give up altogether and go read somewhere to get myself really tired before trying to sleep again.

I normally get between 7-8 hours of sleep each night. A short WBTB doesn't make much difference, but I can't do a long one. I normally try my WILDs on Friday and Saturday nights, when I can afford to lose a little more sleep.