Short but sweet -first time

To be honest, I believed this was all just new age claptrap, however since I joined I've been experimenting for the hell of it.

A couple of days ago I suddenly felt all confident that it would be successful.
I went to bed imagining what I might do.

I feel like I've woken up and I'm still lying in my bed until I perform a nose RC.
BOOM!
"I can breathe!."
The room changes for no reason whatsoever.

Being over-excited at the stuff I can do, I shout "I'm Dreaming!".
I quickly do a run up and start flapping my arms. I start to lift off from the ground but for some reason I kept focussing on the sky, the colour must have caused me to lose it.
Just after that I become too conscious and felt woken up.
I could hear the ambient sounds of the TV I had left on and all the reality checks passed.

It was short but it's filled me with more determination than ever.
I'm never normally a person who remembers their dreams and I've not bothered to keep a DJ but after that experience I can remember almost every dream I have in a night, although they're not lucid.

Even my real-life memory has improved to significant proportions.
I must say thanks to everyone who contributed to the tutorials and all that jazz.
Great work. :D

Can anyone offer anymore practical tips I can use to get a little more success and realism?

Right Here: http://www.dreamviews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32885

Thanks but I'm thinking more along the lines of whether going to bed early or late works, or whether exercising beforehand works and so on.

My idea for gaining control, is to just simply do nose RC's all the time and tie it into the process in my mind that:
"If this fails I'm dreaming."

Thats quite a huge quesiton. That's what this whole forum is for. I'd personally reccomend clicking the picture in my signature and reading that. But there's a lot of good tips in the tutorial section and throughout this site. Look around and ask questions.

Congrats on the lucid dream.