Hello all. I recently discovered lucid dreaming less than 24 hours ago. I have been fascinated, reading about it and quickly finding these forums. I am unbelievably excited for many different reasons and look forward to participating in this community.

I simply have a quick introduction to give a background for a couple questions for anyone willing to help. I do not usually remember my dreams and have not for a while. However, I do have several dreams forever implanted in my memory as vividly as any waking memories, so I have confidence that more can come. In my reading it also seems that dream recall is a trainable and acquired skill in which practice and patience will develop, which is also encouraging. On another note, I am very motivated to develop these skills and begin consistently encountering lucid dreams for various reasons. With that being said to give a bit of information, I have a couple quick questions.

Firstly, other than beginning and keeping a dream journal in the morning and writing down dreams immediately upon waking, is there any other repetition or action that I might do to develop or cause myself to remember dreams over time?

Secondly, how long should I expect for my first LD (assuming I am not any more or less "attuned" than an average person) based off the effort I put into it? (I plan on simply beginning by developing dream recall while making it a habit to do reality checks consistently throughout the day. I plan on being able to DILD before attempting any of the other methods.) And also, how long before I am looking at multiple LDs a week, assuming I am consistent and motivated in my approach?

Another question I have is how long is the typical LD for someone who experiences them consistently? Does it depend upon what time in the REM period one wakes up? What might be considered a long time in an LD? (I'm talking about something that is rare, but repeatable, not the world record.)

I think that is it for now! I really look forward to your helpful responses and appreciate you giving your time to help me out!