I struggle staying aware as I am falling asleep, though this is what the course I am doing teaches as it is a mindfulness of dream and sleep course as well as a lucid dreaming course. I keep missing that 'biting point' and just black out.
The times I am lucid is after my wake ups, I do the 5 hours sleep where I have my deep sleep, then in the second half the night I do the wake ups every 90 minutes and recall my dreams. I tend to have 4 or more lucid dreams a month. Lately though I seem to have 4-5 one after the other for a few nights, then that's it till a few weeks, then I have them again one after the other- I am keeping a record to see if there are any patterns when I have most lucid dreams.
So far I have called out to the dream and asked to integrate any shadow aspects and blockages- I had two powerful lucid dreams around that, my first two lucid dreams my plan was to explore the creativity of the mind and I had two amazing dreams where I was flying, going through walls, seeing if I could close my eyes and think of a place and then I would appear there without even having to fly. Then recently, as I am a Buddhist, I called out to the dream to tell me which would be my next steps to enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, and I had a wonderful experience around that.
The reality checks really work as when I do become lucid, I tend to become lucid before my reality check, but then I check my hand and have more finger or something and then I become very lucid.
The few occasions where I thought I had out of body experiences felt different from the lucid dreaming experiences. Before falling asleep I usually feel a energy surge before such an experience, then as I am falling asleep, if I relax, I feel like I am being swept out with this energy surge and find myself floating around the bedroom, once I looked straight down and saw myself asleep in bed with the cat there. There have been 3 occasions and each time I have been able to get further away from my body. The 1st was just in my room, the 2nd I got outside onto the street an floated down the road high in the air, and the 3rd it seemed I had got a fair few miles.
