^^Same. As soon as I wake up on school days, I have to start getting ready, eating breakfast etc. If I don't, I'll be late for school. I will try to start a dream journal now, at least for the weekends and days off school.

I just read this whole thread oops. It reminded me how interested I used to be in lucid dreaming... I've never had one, though. I'd try the unnatural method, but the hearing voices thing terrifies me, so I'm not doing that.
Interesting fact: I haven't had a nightmare in years. The last time I remember having one was about 9 or 10 years ago. Every other dream I've had since (at least that I remembered after waking up) has been pleasant, or just a little weird, but nothing that was terrifying. I've noticed that a lot of my dreams take place at school, usually at my middle school...which is strange because I'm in high school. Also, whenever my dreams take place at home, it's typically my old house. I guess I can use those facts to help tell me that I'm dreaming.

Well, a few days ago, I realised that I was dreaming, but I woke myself up

I did what I call DEWILD (Dream exit wake induced lucid dreaming)

1) set your alarm clock for 6 hours after you fall asleep EG, 11pm to 5pm
2) when you wake up due to the alarm, turn it off + try to remember you dream.
3) After remembering your dream (Or at least parts of it) Lie on your back very still with your arms and legs spread out
4) concentrate on your breathing, or if you sleep with some sort of sound (A radio for example),
listen to that. Ignore the voices/sounds that may be heard.
Let the sleep come upon you.
5) Before anything else, in the dream, perform 2 reality checks, such as trying to make your hair blue and putting your fingers through your hand (My favourite combination)
6) If you are dreaming, relax, and rub your hands together to keep the dream in focus.
7) Follow step 6 whenever you feel you as losing the dream and you want to stay there longer.
8) Enjoy your lucid dream!

I forgot about step 6, so I lost the dream...

"The problem with trying to keep a dream journal is that I'd only be able to do it on days that I don't have school because I never wake up early enough. "

Buy a voice recorder--this is what I plan to do. Maybe wake up 5 minutes earlier than usual (set an alarm of course) and just, talk out your dream.

Alternatively when you wake up write down keywords on a piece of scrap paper that make you remember your dream--the important details, no grammar rules needed (e.g. cats, UFO w/ Eri for a dream I had a couple weeks ago where I became lucid by seeing two of my same cat and ended up blowing up UFOs with my friend Erika ). Then when you get home from school, re-read your keywords and then properly write down the dream in full detail.
^above tip is good for WILDing as well, when you need to stay sleepy.

I used to have them a couple of times a month but now I've lost them

I think I only had 1 ever by accident. But my bro claims he had a few including one where he could fly like superman, which sounds awesome.

I'm also worried by the prospect of some creepy old woman appearing next to my bed when I'm trying to lucid dream

Why???

lol because apparently in the middle stage before you actually get to the lucid dream you hallucinate weird stuff, or so i'm told.

I mean during where you're still awake, but your body thinks it's asleep because you have been in the same position for so long, and when this happens your body paralyses itself because it think's you're asleep, and this is when hallucinations happen.

Ohhhh

"I'm also worried by the prospect of some creepy old woman appearing next to my bed when I'm trying to lucid dream"

it's actually not to do with Lucid dreaming at all this.

This is sleep paralysis, which the odds can be increased by having WILDs.
Sleep paralysis is when your body is woken up but you are still experiencing dreams, and you are aware of your surroundings, but since your body is dreaming, you hallucinate, such as an old lady next to your bed and climbing on your chest to make it hard to breathe (It actually is nothing, it's just to do with the fact that you breathing is decreased during sleep and dreams). There are also reports of other hallucinations due to sleep paralysis, but this is the most common. It is not understood why, but somehow trying to dream WILDly increases your odds of being sleep paralysed

Sleep paralysis can happen to anyone, it's just it is more common in Lucid dreamers, as WILD is the most commonly used method.

You may well experience hallucinations of an old lady, but your explanation sounds like Sleep paralysis.

#ramblypost

Yeah but what I'm saying is that there is wayyyyyyyyyy greater correlation between lucid dreaming and being awake with sleep-paralysis occurring than between not attempting lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis occurring with you being awake. (btw I know what sleep paralysis is, it's an automated mechanism the body uses upon falling asleep mainly to prevent you harming yourself while sleeping, btw sleep-paralysis occurs whenever you are sleeping, the difference comes from whether you are awake when it happens or not)

As you say "it's just it is more common in Lucid dreamers", this is what I'm saying. There is a far greater risk of weird hallucinations occurring due to sleep paralysis when you are trying to have a lucid dream. which I don't particularly want to happen to me.

Actually the other day i dreamt I turned on my side to see Hypno there staring at me xD, then i woke up extremely freaked out

"I'm trying to lucid dream"

This implies that you are trying to sleep, not that you are half-awake after a dream.

It obviously implies that because to dream you must be asleep xD, but what I actually mean is that I'm trying to initially make my body think I am asleep when I am still awake, which is when AWARE self-paralysis occurs, from which lucid dreaming usually follows.

Also going back to my last post, AWARE self paralysis does have a lot to do with lucid dreaming because lucid dreaming is in a sense being awake/fully aware of when you're dreaming, essentially an equivalent of being awake when your body thinks you're asleep.

edit2: I don't really think sleep paralysis is a great term, as your body always paralyses itself when you are in the REM stage of sleep.  It should be called "self-aware sleep paralysis" imo

omg i had a lucid dream about being a freak

^ you sure that wasn't reality?

reality is an illusion my good man??? o.o????

I had a lucid dream.

...
*flashback*
Me: Goodbye.
Them: SUPE NO OH NOESSSSZZZZ
Me: *shoots X-Tech RC DN Master Tech Ultra Water Ball at sun using X-Tech RC Machine Gun Arm*
Sun: *dies*
Me: *summons Blackhole in center of Sun*
Sun: *is sucked into blackhole*
Me: ok.. now, The Moon! Then Earth! Then Mars! Then anything else I can find!

Needless to say,
It was great.

Can we control if we dream or not in general?

No you can't control whether or not you are going to dream unless you only sleep for 30 minutes at a time or something so you never reach the 4th stage of sleep (REM) and therefore don't dream

Sounds interesting. I am going to try this...

I've been having a lot more of these recently, and I'm not sure why. Unfortunately, I tend to lose most of them shortly after I notice that I am dreaming.

^
Me too. But my mom always wakes me up because she... yeah.
She doessnt know  what "quiet" is.

Maybe I'll have a chance to try this when school ends in a couple of weeks.

The muffled voices you hear when slowly entering lucidity are so convincing and bizarre it's not even funny. we humans and our mechanisms are so weird

My lucid dreams tend to be pathetic and don't last long because I'm on the verge of waking up already. The most recent one I remember was from a few weeks ago... the dream itself was really bizarre yet still managed to be somewhat realistic (as in, my brain generated its own world that was  really odd, but was still physically possible, ie no floating islands, etc).

The instant I went lucid I had an argument with myself... the main goal of my dream-self was finding out how to get to this burger place what really far away. The convo went something like this:

Lucid me: I'm just gonna TP there. [TP: Teleport]
Dream me: That's cheating. I want to do this normally.
Lucid me: Shut up. we're waking up soon and I want that dream burger.
Dream me: UGH FINE.
Lucid me: *TPs self to entrance of dream-burger-joint, enjoys dream burger, and wakes up*

I had a dream where I was in my bed and I looked at my hands and they were messed up, so I knew I was in a dream. So then I jumped around a bit then I jumped out the window, before doing loads of crazy stuff because I knew it was just a dream.

Then within my lucid dream I "woke up" on the floor after one of my crazy acts and loads of people were there shocked and I was convinced that what I did in my previous lucid dream wasn't actually in a dream I did it in reality, so I was like oh dear...and everyone around was having a go at me.
I looked at my hands but this time, they were completely normal. Which is really weird because it was a dream, so this convinced me that I was actually awake and not dreaming. Which made it even worse because I thought all the crazy stuff I did I actually did in reality.

Then I woke up again, relieved it was just a fake lucid dream within a lucid dream.