This is something that has happened to me on occasion, most often late in the morning when I am in a very light sleep. I will realize I'm dreaming, but only because something in my surroundings has awakened my body. My awareness will be divided between my sleeping body and my dreaming mind. The dream will instantly begin to fade away, and I am unable to find my way back into it completely. Here is an excerpt from my DJ in which this recently happened:

"...I become lucid. The background fades to black, and I am looking at the table and my hands on it as if through a filmy plastic. I attempt to stabilize the dream by focusing on my hands, and feeling the surface of the table, as well as reinforcing the fact in my mind that I am lucid dreaming. This meets with no success. I allow lucidity to slip away after getting frustrated."

When I become lucid normally, there is a moment where I say "I'm dreaming", and I go about my lucid dream completely engrossed in the dream state, with no awareness of my physical body.

However, in the sort of dreams I've mentioned above, no amount of techniques for stabilizing the dream seem to work. Has anyone else experienced such difficulty, and found a way to overcome it? These are perfect opportunities for becoming lucid, and it is very frustrating to miss out on them.