How "good" can I get with practice?

[luigidorf]

Hi there. I'm new here but I've been interested in lucid dreaming for over a year. Last summer I kept a dream journal and had a few lucid experiences. I'm considering getting really serious with LDing and journaling, but I want to make sure it's worth it. You see, I'm about to enter college and I expect both free time and sleep to be quite hard to come by. Anyways my main problem is the quality of my dreams. I think I might have a natural ability when it comes to attaining lucidity as I had a couple DILDs as soon as I started researching lucid dreaming, without any experience. That said, when I am dreaming, whether or not I am lucid, my dreams don't seem very vivid or realistic at all. Moreover, I can never succeed in doing anything in my dreams. It's like the classic example of running away from something and falling down constantly, but it's applied to everything I do (including trying to think straight). I'm beginning to think constant failure might even be a dream sign... Can I overcome these problems with practice? More importantly, regardless of my situation, how easy and convenient can lucid dreaming get with practice? Without an innate ability, is it possible to regularly have vivid lucid dreams without any real world preparation? Thanks, Luigidorf