OKay, so I could use a bit of help and encouragement. Now, it's been a little while since I've been to the site and, unsurprisingly, my initial success in inducing lucid dreams dropped off. However, recently I've made a concerted effort to do my RCs and generally get my mind back into the right mode.

My efforts were not in vain. Last night I induced a lucid dream through DILD (which is the only method I've tried so far, but I've had great success with it). The problem is this...the last two times I've attained lucidity, whenever I try to do any of the "cool stuff" I end up waking up.

As some of you may remember from my last post about it, in my frist "real" lucid dream (in which I didn't awaken immediately upon gaining lucidity) when I spoke in the dream, I thought I could hear myself physically speaking in the waking world. This disconcerted me and I woke up.

Last night, after counting my fingers and gaining lucidity, I immediately started rubbing my hands together, since someone here mentioned this is helpful, and told myself "I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming." Then I tried the spinning thing to change scenes. I close my eyes, spin a few times and when I opened my eyes.... Well that's just it. I actually OPENED MY EYES. Thus, I was awake. Not a false awakening, either. I checked.

So it seems that when I become lucid, I get extremely close to wakefulness. Will this change over time as I continue to become experienced as a lucid dreamer? Or is there anything I can do to further ensure I'll not wake up so easily? I'm glad that I'm able to become lucid, but it doesn't do me much good if I keep waking up!