First of all, hello everybody!

I am Ham or Turkey?, a member who a few years ago was relatively active here. I attempted lucid dreaming for several months, and had only a few successful lucid dreams, all very short, and all with very low levels of awareness and control.

The reason I stopped trying, was because of other things in my life, that distracted me from the lucid dreaming attempts, and troubled me a lot. But I will not be discussing those events.

My life, right now, is relatively back on track, and has been for quite a while now. Also, recently I've been recalling a lot more dreams, and this way I have realized that I have an awful lot of nightmares, or unpleasant dreams. I want to get rid of these dreams, and today I remembered lucid dreaming, and this excellent forum that I used to visit. I decided to come here and see what's new and I've read through a few stickied guides, realizing that since I last visited, there has been some slight changes to the suggestions and methods. I'm guessing these changes are for the better. Actually there has been a lot of changes to the site itself and I feel overwhelmed and lost by all the new features, functions and fancy stuff.

I have a few questions for you also:
How often should I do reality checks? Is it even humanly possible to keep thinking whether you're in a dream or not the whole day?
Is there any way I could enhance my dream recall? I remember keeping a dream journal, is that good? Are there any other methods?
How do I know when my REM periods start? Should I just guess and make my clock wake me up at a random time at night?

Answer as you wish, link me to a thread discussing my questions or answer directly, but please don't bash me for not looking at some obvious place that I probably missed. I can't claim to be a very observant person, and I'm also quite tired and about to go to sleep right now.

Also, I am not a native English-speaker, so you may realize that my English is pretty crappy.

Thanks in advance, my good people, and good night. Dare I say sweet dreams?