Hey whoevereadsthis,

Im pretty excited about finding out that "Lucid Dreaming" is fairly common, and I might ramble a bit but I will try to moderate myself and provide a structured reading here, in my first post.
I found this site a few days ago after trying off-and-on over the years to research and understand this type of "dreaming." I didn’t come here trying to find out how to do it, but what other people have done with it. I have not been able to read through all of the literature and forum discussions on this site but I did spend several hours reading, enough to feel comfortable speaking. This seems like a pretty open minded group willing have some open, constructive dialogue. If there is a common acronym or classification for what I experience, I would appreciate any input.
At first when I started to realize that I was in a dream, I would wake up. Later, I started to try to relax when I realized I was dreaming, before long I was able to stay there for a while. When I started staying there, I would run around like a fool and just have a blast with no regard for anything I was doing, after all is just a dream right? I remember a lot of dreams but I remember in detail equal to real-life the dreams that I was conscious of and playing in. I was never any sort of character, or personality other than myself.
Eventually it was no longer about just adventuring. I got used to it. Now the reckless actions I had in my dreams were having repercussions. Not like they would in real-life, but I felt I was causing real harm. I figured it was some stupid brain sub-conscious thing. Anyways that made me try to figure out if I was in my head, or somewhere else. It gets kinda weird from there and I quit doing it for several years. Its not really a topic many people get so I kept pretty much to myself about it. I ran into a girl a couple years ago that said she knew what I was talking about and we agreed to try it that night; she didnt, I did. Since then I have abandoned it again. I found this site and a renewed interest a couple nights ago. I was going to post then and say I was going to try but there is a waiting period on new members to post. Anyways I tried after all this time and was able to do it again. It wasnt super-controlled or long lasting but I was defiantly conscious and had a good run at staying there.
Ok. Long post, but before you call me crazy I just want to say that this is a summary of almost a decade of this and im sure I missed the logical parts. My first questions for the readers: Does anyone know if there is any credible science on this? Have any of you done something similar? Can any of you go into "lucidity" at will any given night?