more random thoughts....
tried the system again, but perhaps not the best night to have tried, had half a bottle of bubbly with my wife before bed, so tired, and missed the vibe to wake me up so woke up later, hadn't turned the sound up enough to hear the audio, did rc's though to the vibe but much less alert and felt groggy and slow doing them. Had 2 dreams, 1 where I did think - 'this is weird, I thought all those bugs were dead...' but didn't take it further and then had to get up.

I often have NLD's where I think something is weird or alittle odd but don't make the connection to dreaming. HOWEVER that night in the travel inn I KNEW after a while if anything were odd it was most likely a dream - hence getting lucid 3 x in one night. And looking back at this journal, in the earlier part (before I took my 6mth sabbatical away!) I got lucid 5/10x in the 'vibe nites' without feeling the vibe.

Looking at it all together the following seems to make sense:
1. going to bed earlier increases the chance of me getting lucid, as the wbtb is earlier, I feel more refreshed and excited I have more 'time to play with' and everything to play for.
2. sometimes staying away after the wbtb alarm has helped - ie trying to wild for a while, or the rare occ I get up to the loo and risk the wrath of wifey! But this isn't essential as long as I am relatively awake and excited before returning to sleep.
3. The repeat awakening/sleep disturbance is KEY to getting lucid, esp if I've had an earlier wbtb and have some time to play with (see 1!) and aren't too groggy and tired (hence the earlier bed time). This is what fundamentally seems to help me cross the threshold from saying 'that weird' in a NLD and continuing on oblivious to my true sleeping state to going fully lucid - ie going 'that's weird.....hold on - its a dream!'. That tiny difference and tiny progression in logic that = lucidity.
4. hopefully this shift in my focus to just 'feeling the vibe' to the above 'get excited and get more aware and recognize the dream' might bear more fruit.