thanks heaps for your advice guys. guess what? last night I had my first lucid dream!
my dad was eating chunks out of his hand and I looked at him and said "I know this is a dream, this is completely a dream"
and his hand went back to normal and he just stared at me.
Then I could feel myself waking up from the lucidity so I remembered to try the 'spin around in circles thing' but it didn't work and I woke up