I've known about lucid dreaming for a while and even heard about spinning and such. I've become lucid in my dreams many times, but the longest I was able to maintain control was about 30 seconds. It usually lasts less time than that.

I describe the feeling of losing control like swimming upstream until getting tired and letting myself drift again. Controlling dreams is serious effort.

I think the problem is with HOW I dream. Everything is in 3rd person. I see myself as a character in a TV show or a movie. I don't know if I've ever had a dream that felt real enough that later I had to remind myself that it was a dream an not reality. In other words, my dreams are so fake that it's easy to tell after I'm awake.

Has anyone else ever had this kind of issue?