Hello, fellow lucid dreamers!

I've been lucid dreaming occasionally for several years now. 'Occasionally' means one lucid dream about every two or three months, and lucid dreams were usually very short, longest probably spawned 10-15 minutes, no more. I did intentionally fly and control my dreams from time to time (like polymorphing angry looking monster into a beautiful girl), but it was not always successful. Also, all of my lucid dreams were dream-induced, and frankly I kind of thought WILD was either just a fantasy, or the ability few people possess that cannot be learned. So I probably got a lot to learn. I've been reading this website a lot lately. As I was inspired by success some people have achieved, I'm now trying to gain some control of lucid dreaming. First of all I want to have lucid dreams come more often and last longer.

For the last few days, probably starting with Wednesday, I'm going for the lucid dream with all I have: dream journal, regular reality checks and WILD attempts every night at 5 AM. So far, I *maybe* had one successful, but very short, WILD. However, I was relatively good at recalling regular dreams I had these days. Still I got a couple of questions, so I decided to register to ask them away (I'm usually a forum lurker):

1. Whenever I try WILD, I usually get to the hypnagogics, but the moment I realize I see HI, I wake back up. Is it natural? Can I overcome it with persistent practice?

2. The one time I *probably* succeeded, I clearly lost my intent to stay awake in the process. I don't remember entering sleep paralysis. Not that time, not ever. But I vaguely remember when I got into a dream I remembered that I'm supposed to be dreaming right about now, and that made me lucid. Was it really a WILD or a DILD?

3. One night I had this strange thing couple of times: I was quite relaxed, I think, but suddenly I wanted to breath more often, and my heart was beating faster. First time it happened I tried stabilizing my breath and it all went to 'normal' - mind awake, body awake. I didn't move an inch, and soon it was back. Then I went with the flow, and it only intensified, heart was beating like crazy, I got very faint HI, but no sounds, and then I guess I couldn't take it anymore and woke up fully, heartbeat and breathing going back to normal, and HI disappeared. By the way, that night I ultimately failed to fall asleep, so two hours reserved for lucid dreaming went into nothing and in the morning I was infuriated. What the hell was that? And how do you breath during WILD? Do you control it until the very moment you enter dreamworld or do you just let go?

4. Whenever I keep my mind awake and let my body relax, I cannot fall asleep. Actually, two of my attempts at WILD ended in me just lying still for an hour, then failing to get even some normal sleep. If I forget to keep mind awake, guess what, I fall into normal sleep. How do you keep your mind awake, but in a way it won't prevent the body from falling asleep?

5. I can only fall asleep on my back during the nap, but almost never during the night. I usually relax on my back, then turn over, because on my back I wake up from HI even if I'm not trying for LD. Is it normal?