Why are my dreams ending?

I've been lucid dreaming off and on for the past few years and have been refering to this site, so i finally decided to become a member, so this is my first post

My question is why is it that nothing I seem to do works at prolonging my dreams? I've tried a few common methods to help my predicament but nothing seems to work.

Natually I've made great strides in overcoming premature awakening such as containing my euphoria, but it seems that everytime my lucid dreams start to blacken, nothing I do can completely stop it. I tried looking at my hands, that did help, but i found that moment i stopped looking that blackness returnes and I wake up.

I also have a problem with stray ideas such as pictures that completely overwrite my enviroment, leaving me in a sea of black, not so different from closing my eyes.

Does anyone else have similar problems and how can i solve this? Is it something I can only overcome with more practice?

I suggest rubbing your hands. Really concentrate on that tactile sensation.

If that doesn't work, perhaps you are becoming lucid too late in the dream? If that is the case, you can either take a shot at the WILD method, or persevere with these short LDs (if you do this, they will lengthen naturally as you become lucid earlier).

The "stray ideas" sound a lot like hypnopompia, images and sounds you receive prior to awakening. Lengthening your dreams will postpone this.

Welcome to Dream Views!

Rubbing hands together doesn't work for me, instead i found that touching something else in a dream helps to stabilize it, like touching the walls or ground, feeling the grass etc.

If your dream ends, and you find yourself in a darkness, try not to move for a few moments. it is possible that the dream has ended but you are still in a sleep paralysis.in that case just wait for a few moments and you will have another LD 100%. If not, wait for few moments,try to get up, if can move that means your body is awake.
also do RC because false awakenings are very common.

What works best for me is to just be in LDs like if it was waking life. Just go do what you feel like doing but without over-excitement. I'm like "ok, I'm lucid, let's get down to business, what will I do first?" and I try to keep the feeling like i'm in waking life but with more possibilities. This also increases my feeling of power in the dream.

I prefer the method of waking up and then reentering it. It's called DEILD.

Well, the reason why you are awakening (if it is not because you are becoming too excited) is because your senses aren't immersed well enough into the dream. Therefore, your body knows only to return back to its comfortable, sensual waking state. You must really concentrate hard on immersing all of your senses into the dream. Rub your palms, look around, smell the air, hear the sounds associated with your respective dreamscene, etc. Your thoughts have such a powerful impact on your dreamscence because it has no sensual stabilization whatsoever. I know you've probably heard it a thousand times before, but the key is focusing your senses into the dream, otherwise, where else will your senses end up but back into the waking state?