Hi NyxCC! I really appreciate you taking the time to reply!!! I think I've suffered from all 3 of the reasons you gave for waking upon becoming lucid (and probably all at once at times!! :0 ). I tried to download the podcast without success so I'll just listen to it straight from the site in the next day or two, be interesting anyways to put some voices to the names I've seen alot of before!

I had another lucid last night I'll write up in the next day or two (unfortunately I am working all this week and weekend), during which I made an effort not to get over excited - I actually seemed more lucid in that moment that the practice in real life prior - managing to say outloud 'this is my lucid dream and I control it' ....but it collapsed anyway guess I didn't own it enough! still alittle progress and at least I got lucid - and it was a vibe dream with good incorporation which was cool.

I definitely take your point about having a goal beyond being lucid to keep me engaged with the dream world and your explanation that I am engaging my thoughts in the form of dream objects was really helpful.

I think I am going to give spinning another shot (but in a non-excited/stressed way). Its just trying to practice in real life that I find awkward - I've got massively long monkey arms and whenever I spread them out to spin I seem to bang into things! Plus its hard to practice in public! However I feel I've finally got my foot jamming open the dream door alittle by being able to induce lucids pretty regularily now but I need to open that door fully to see whats really inside.....I've had a few brief looks once or twice but I think a really enjoyable lucid of even just 2 minutes length would be massively motivating for me.

Thanks again for your help NyxCC, its really motivating to get some feedback from someone else! Have a great weekend!!! cheers! :0