This is probably more spiritual than many people are accustomed to, but I've found that Robert Monroe's gateway series to be very effective at promoting dream recall. I've had some very vivid dreams since I started the tapes, which are aimed at developing full astral awareness...

That said, pretty much any binaural sound, along the lines of bwgen and the like really works well for me. Theres a trick to feeling the beats and synchronising to them, kind of like looking at a magic eye picture, the first time its hard to see whats supposed to be happening but it gets better with practice I find.

A friend of mine has been experimenting with Wild Devine, which he thinks is great - with all those wires feeding information about skin conductivity and heart rate to the computer. Not my cup of tea though...

Ultimately I think these aids should be used to get a feel for the lucid states, but I do think its possible to get 'hooked' on them, and become unable to get lucid without them.