New to the forums, and to LD

[Sotik]

Hey guys and gals, I am new to the forums and to the whole Lucid Dream concept . I got turned onto Lucid Dreaming by a site I go to when I have nothing better to do, and they had a user submitted clip on how to achieve Lucid Dreams. Now at first I thought it sounded too good to be true, but not being one to just dismiss something with out research first I did in fact do research and became very interested in the whole concept of Lucid Dreaming. So that was a few days ago and since then I have been following the steps I have found which leads me to my question. Am I doing it right? I notice that a lot of the guides I found were fairly common, keep a notebook next to your bed and write any dreams you have in it in present tents, look at your hands a lot during the day and debate with yourself if you are dreaming, have an object you look at, try to tell your brain you want to have a lucid dream before you fall asleep and so on. Now while I keep a note book next to my bed however, ever since I have tried to have Lucid Dreams, my dreams seem to become real blurry. I could vividly remember a lot of my dreams before I tried to get into Lucid Dream, however now all my dreams seem to be a blur. So with the Dream Recall method I have also I have been trying the WILD method. Which is where I have my biggest problem. Now when I try the WILD method I will give myself a little speech aloud saying I want to have a Lucid Dream, I want to be self aware and to have control. I will then focus on a fantasy landscape that I would love to visit. When I do that what happens is I will start to see little blur swirly things, and my eyes will start to water really badly. But if I keep focusing I will start to actually see the landscape I am thinking off but the next thing I know is I will find myself fighting with myself to have a Lucid Dream and then I just wake up about an hour later. So it is at this point I give up and just fall asleep and I have my dreams that are all blurry. Like last night I had a dream and all I remember is there was a woman that was pregnant. I don't recall where we were, or who she was. I know there were other people in the dream, but I can not remember who they were. Which is odd because as I said before I have had very vivid dreams and I can still remember dreams I had from last year. I have also had dreams in the past where I did indeed become aware I was dreaming, but I couldn't control them. It was more like I was watching a TV show and I didn't like the dream so I woke myself up. I am not sure if that is considered a Lucid Dream though. Sorry this ended up so long. If anyone has any tips or idea's on what I am doing please let me know. P.S. Also I have written a A on the palm of my hand, every time I see it I will stop and debate with myself if I am dreaming or not, and I will pinch myself to see if I feel pain and if I do then I conclude I indeed awake. Is this a good habit to get into?