Testing theories with WILD attempts... rambling ahead

Last night was a night of (almost) results, but now I need some kind of pointer to help get to the other side of the spectrum of awake and dreaming.

As I lay in bed, music flows in my awareness. I was aware of the hynagogic imagery as I often believe I am, however I had an advantage last night that I'm hoping I can reuse every time.
Not sure if anyone knows about this, but there's a Laser Tag facility I go to sometimes, called Laser Quest. As most LT places one might expect, it's very dark, dimly lit to humans by ultraviolet lighting and there's a vapor-like substance, like a fog machine. Additionally, the players wear a vest that has flashing lights which are meant to be shot at, helpfully these lights cut through the fog and darkness.

I once read from an article somewhere that the mind functions its visual system's core with contrast, leading me to theorize that the deepest memories are stored in pure color, and in double-theory, if one "lets through" the basic color map of a scene, it could be low level enough to bypass the conscious vision and eventually absorb the user in a dream.

Yesterday I had played at LaserQuest for a few rounds and the imagery was loaded well in my memory, which these two above pieces seem to begin to fit into a formula. True, as I laid in bed with my eyes comfortably closed, I set an unconscious checker along the hypnagogia lighting. It wasn't perceived long before I started noticing my efforts coming to effect. The large areas of faint light began to take form as faint fog, certain parts became layouts from the LQ map I was at, and above all, human silhouettes stood out, with the lights of their packs beaming as I had expected it to the moment they were focused on. The only downside to my experience is I couldn't figure out how to hold the state long enough for it to sink in. The actual change from physical to mental couldn't be stabilized and cut back to hypnagogic blur before I could get farther.

Does anyone who managed to pull through my rambling enough have much of an idea on how to stop the dream initiation before it cuts so prematurely?