Frustrated But Hopeful

I have had very lucid dreams throughout my life, but they are rare. In the last 20 or so years I've probably had about a total of 15 that I can remember or acknowledge in any way. They're wonderful experiences and I look forward to learning how to cause them more frequently, if not every night.

What I'd like to ask from you, my fellow dreamers, is your advice on narrowing down the most effective tutorials and techniques. I realize this is going to be subjective, but hopefully there is a majority which agrees upon a single method as the most reliable.

So if you'd like to help, all I need ask is: What has worked best for you and how consistently does it work? And how long did it take for it to start working more than 50% of the time?

Thanks in advance for all your help. I look forward to working with everyone.

All of the other posts have been replied to with the exception of my own. I wonder what I said?

Depends, what is your dream recall at? If you're dreaming about 3-5 dreams a night then that's good shape and that helps you right there. I know you've probably already heard the basics about a dream journal to help you improve recall

For attaining lucidity my average lately is only about 30%. Personally I have a few key things that make me do a "reality check". Books with blurry text, people i know that are dead, crazy celebrities, deformed hands, anything odd and I just bite my cheek, it's numb, bam I go lucid. And once there rubbing your hands can help to prolong your dream as well as spinning around in circles. i bet you heard that as well though. All basic things..

Probably didnt help much but that's my 2 cents.

Well, really as you go along trying each of the techniques you could personalize them the way you find effective. For instance, I have a mixture of a MILD, VILD, and WILD. I take an hour nap an hour before bed to jump start REM periods. Everyone does it a little different.

So honestly, I can't pick one, sorry XD.

Both very helpful comments thank you. Ace you actually helped a lot more than you think. I didn't know much of what you said before you said it. I had heard of using a dream journal to help dream recall but I didn't know it had any relationship with actually inducing lucid dreams.

Has anyone experimented with using low volume timed beeps (i.e. mp3 playing in the background ) to cause reality checks?