Thread: Where Do I Start?

Hello everyone,
As I look back now, I really forget why or how I got back into Lucid Dreaming. A couple years ago, I was interested in lucid dreaming, I might have even visited this site to get information. I did some of the methods described on this site like reality checks, dream journals, wake back to bed, wild, and mild. I forget how long it was till I had a lucid dream but I had one. I still remeber it clearly, I was riding a motorcycle down my street. I figured out I was dreaming and became overly excited which put an end to the lucid dream. After that, I kind of lost all interest in lucid dreaming. I had the attitude of "been there, done that" and figure I did it once so no need to do it again. I go through these weird phases where I will be obsessed with something for a while and then lose all interest. Recently, for whatever reason I have been wanting to get back into Lucid Dreaming. I now I am looking for a more spiritual side of life and for whatever reason I consider lucid dreaming a spiritual pratice. Right now I am very interested in Lucid Dreaming, but I do not want to lose the interest I have in it. After purchasing the book "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" by Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold, I found this site and it message boards. Yesterday was my first time on the boards and I pretty much spent all day here. After doing some reality checks during the day, I decided to try to get back into the state of lucid dreaming at night (11pm). I had my dream journal all ready and tried to get to bed with some reverse blinking. I did not get to the point of barely keeping my eyes open but I was relax and got tired. I rolled over to my side and got the images you get when you press your eyes in. I guess I focused too much on them and was not able to relax fully. After giving that shot I figured I would go to bed and wake up early to record my dreams. I could not get to sleep, so I am took a sleeping medication I am prescribed called Trazadone to fall asleep. After getting to bed around 11:20pm, I awoken at 4:15 to write in my dream journal. I was not able to recall my any dreams I had. Usually I can remeber one dream I had when waking up or hitting the pillow that following night.After waking up, I decided I did not want to get back to bed so I spent the rest of the morning here on dreamviews. If you read this all the way through, I hope you can tell I am unsure about a few things mainly:
Where do you suggest someone who is looking to get back into lucid dreaming start?
Should I be waking up in the middle of the right to record my dream or do it in the morning?
Should I first build up my dream journal and dream recall before even attempting a lucid dream?
What is the best method to assure that I remeber my dreams?

Well, I look forward to hopefully keeping my interest in lucid dreaming.