I have a terrible schedule and suck at sleeping

My days don't start in the AM and end in PM. For example, the average person might wake up before midday and go to bed before midnight, but I wake up anywhere from 1-5 PM and go to bed between 3-5 AM. Every night I take two 3mg tablets of Melatonin to help me go to sleep but it doesn't even really seem effective.

I was watching a "how-to" video on lucid dreaming and the guy was talking about tricking your body into sleep paralysis by lying perfectly still in bed for 10-15 minutes and then twitching your muscles to "activate" it. Er... this doesn't work for me at all.

Does this affect my desire to have a lucid dream? I can't WILD at all and can't even do any of the other induction methods. When I'm in my dreams they just feel extremely real-life to me and at no point in it can I choose to question whether or not it's a dream. Argh :(

With that you have about the same sleeping times as I have currently, in my case due to me having a sleep/wake cyclus being longer than 24 hours and the fact I use the night to cool down my room since I have no other means to do so. Still under these not exactly perfect circumstances I achieved my first lucids a few days ago. It took me 3 months of hard work to do so however.

As for sleep paralysis, wraping up my own experience and everything I have heard from others so far, everyone definitely has SP, but it seems it can work totally different for some people. Some might need to lie still a long time, some can move the whole time as long as they have the right state of mind. Tutorials are good but it's up to you to find or even develop something fitting for you.

For some people it's not as easy to have lucid dreams as for others. However it's all about your own mind and if you think you can't do it you might not be able to. Try to have as much confidence in your ability to achieve lucid dreams someday and that day might come sooner than expected. Try different induction techniques and subtypes until you find something that works for you, and from there you can slowly start to get better. Keep yourself in high spirits about lucid dreaming if you're serious and you'll be able to do it.