Originally posted by Joo52
In short I geuss what I'm asking is

(1) How can I feel as if I'm participating in the dream rather than it feeling like a story that I simply watch. The reality checks that need to be done to experience a LD cannot be done. I just don't feel any sense of ME in the dreams. It's like I'm watching a first person view of me being controlled by somebody else.

(2) How can I make my dreams more clear? They just appear very grainy and hazy. I want to experience more vivid dreams.

(3) How can I fall asleep with the intent to remember my dreams and to experience a LD? What seems to happen is I reenforce the idea for about 3 or 4 minutes and then my mind just goes off on it's own.

(4) I really want to use the Hemi-Sync tapes but they interfere with my falling asleep. I think I am just more sensitive to the sounds and voices because I know if I let my mom have a go with them she would be out cold before the guy said a word.
1) The word that I like most in relation to lucidity training: habits! Yes, habits are, in my opinion, the most effective way of achieving lucidity, all the way up to becoming lucid every time one dreams. This is simply because a habit is part of the subconscious, which means one follows the habitual action both while awake and asleep. Thus, the answer to your question would be: form habits. A habit of analysing your surrounding environment, actions, etc. I believe will bring not only the feeling you seek but lucidity as well.

2) This now pretty much ties in with the above if you wish to analyse my thoughts on this topic. Dreams, I would say, seem hazy because of the lack of attention one may have towards one's senses. Simply put: if you give much priority to your senses in waking life you are more likely to have more vivid dreams. When conceptual thought is interpreted into sensory information, "emulated" if you will, I would say the intensity/precision of the interpretation depends on how much priority one gives to his/her senses.

3) Falling asleep with the intent to become lucid isn't really a practical strategy. I see two variations here: one being forming habits throughout waking life all together (not just before sleep) and the other being the well known WILD (Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming), which you can learn more about here on Dream Views, simply because it involves just what you are interested in: falling asleep consciously through hypnagogic imagery but it's really better to read up on the technique for yourself.

4) Sensitive sleep can be a problem when attempting such methods and the only advice that comes to my mind is to keep the volume very low and destroy any distractions, for example, by wearing an eye band.