First off, you're not the first person that that's happened to. Others have found their lucidity lacking after they find out that it's more mainsteam than they thought and that there are "techniques." There's hardly a real wrong or right way to go about becoming lucid, so if you are able to do what you did before, then more power to you. Do you know if there might be something specific that could be holding you back?

As for lengthening the lucidity, with the limited number of LDs I've had, I think that mainly it just comes with practice. It's a matter of finding a way to continually remind yourself that you're lucid and you can try using tricks such as keeping a "lucidity card" in your pocket or something (you can get creatice). Mainly it's just constantly reminding yourself, though. In time, though, you won't have to focus so much on that.

You can also try deciding ahead of time what you would like to try to do in your dreams before you fall asleep. That can cut down greatly on the time it takes up in your dream.

And if you have more questions, we're more than happy to answer them... just as long as it's not the "how do I become lucid?" question. We get that one all the time!

-Amé