Thread: My journey

The difficulty with being in a dream is you need to be able to let go of some of the thoughts like waking up. Also, it's pretty important that you do not just focus on one thing within the dream, but focus on the dream as a whole. That is not to say you can't start doing anything, doing reality checks and whatnot, but you should not start thinking about waking up or whatever, 'cause that'll usually happen if you think about it.

What you're experiencing is probably one of the more difficult things to get right in a lucid dream - the state of mind. Have you tried doing visualization? Basically what you can do is: Before you go to bed, visualize yourself in a previous dream (one that you enjoyed preferrably). Now, visualize yourself being lucid in the dream, doing exactly what you want to. Resolve to have a dream tonight in which you will be lucid. Even though this exercise could get you lucid, at first it's not the most important thing. The important thing in this exercise is that you learn to "let go" of all other thoughts and learn to focus on "the dream". If you're not used to meditation or visualization, it can be quite difficult. The first few nights I did it, I had so much difficulty keeping my thoughts on just the dream, but I've slowly gotten better at it. I am no master, but it's certainly helped me retain lucidity in my dreams because I am now able to "let go" and just go with the dream.

As for you waking up, waking up in your first few lucids is pretty normal because it can all seem a bit overwhelming. Don't be disheartened and keep trying, some day it'll just work for you with enough practice

Last but not least, for the first few dreams you can try to just "go with the flow" of the dream, and focus solely on retaining the dreamscape instead of trying to change it. I feel like you may be setting out for too much at once (from a beginners point of view), so maybe try focusing solely on stabilizing the dream and having a prolonged experience, and once you've learnt to do that consistently you can then start doing changes. I'd start with changing one small thing, then slowly working your way out to changing bigger and bigger things. Or you can try the spinning technique (start spinning and imagine yourself in another place), but as I said though, I recommend you do this once you can successfully stabilize the dream and have a prolonged experience.