Hi!
I would be considered a newbie when it comes to LD, but I know that very many people have questions on how to attain lucidity, and are very curious on various ways to achieve this.

I have tried several things over a period of 2-3 months. Some have worked, some have not. I just recently found "my" technique, which I found somewhere on the web. And every time I have tried it with the right conditions, it has worked.

So here is what works for me.

I go to bed as usual, around midnight. I either tell myself that I will wake up when I'm dreaming, or set the alarm on 6 or 7 o'clock. (the last one works best for me) Then I get up, drink some water, visit the bathroom etc, so I'll stay up for about 30 minutes - 1 hour. Then I go back to bed.
I start off with a relaxation technique I've learned earlier which basically does what it says; gets me relaxed and lets my body know that it is time to sleep soon.
When I feel like my mind is starting to drift away and sleep is around the corner, I say my name in my head in a rhythm. Every time I breath out I kind of whisper it (in my head), as if expecting to hear it. And I do this continuously until my body falls asleep. Other thoughts will occur in between the repetitions, but always keep repeating it, and don't give too much focus on the thoughts in between. Just let them come and go as they wish. It may take 15 minutes, it may also take 40 minutes. I would say that it usually takes about 20 minutes though.
When I've entered SP, I experience it as some sort of waves of intensity. A part of my body may hurt more and more, and then get back to not hurting at all. It may get louder and louder around me, and then quite down. I usually wait for three of these waves,
intense-calm-intense-calm-intense-calm
When the third wave hits me and then decrease in intensity, I slowly rock my body from right to left to make sure it's not my physical body that I'm in. When I'm sure of that, I just get out of bed, perform a RC and move on in lucidity land

Some things that I wondered about in the very beginning were these:

Can I move once I'm trying to attain lucidity? - If I start on my back, and after a while it feels like I really really have to move, I usually do, just to spare my mind of that thought which can be really hard to get rid of or ignore. And that hasn't made attaining lucidity any more difficult. I've even switched from lying on my back to lying on my side, and then entered SP in that state. It may take a while longer, but I usually get more tired by every second, and I never stretch out or tense my muscles. Just enough to change position.

How do I know when I've entered SP? - Once I enter SP, there is no questioning about it. It is such an intense feeling that you could not possibly miss it. (at least for me) So if your lying in bed, wondering if your body is sleeping, it probably isn't. You will feel that transition clearly. For me it is like a wave of pressure going from my head to toes, followed by a state of extreme relaxation.

Can I swallow? Move my eyes? open my eyes? - The trick here is to not let that worry you as you try to enter SP. If I swallow I don't even think about it (and I do swallow). If I move my eyes a bit, I don't think about it (but I know that I do move them). It is when you start focusing on these things; "I can't swallow or move a muscle, I can't move my eyes" that it will become difficult not to. If you would happen to open your eyes, just close them and proceed. Just go with the flow, and keep doing whatever techniques you are doing to enter SP and you'll be fine.

Like I said, these things works best for me in the mornings, not in the middle of the night. In the middle of the night I'm just too tired, and sleep in itself is too tempting for me to stay awake.

These things work for me, almost perfectly. Let me know if you have any questions

Best regards