What's the secret to such lucid dreaming?

Being in constant low level pain so that you cannot sleep for more than 2 hours at a time, so that you spend a lot of your sleep time in the that twilight zone where you are almost awake, but not quite. I don't recommend it. Of course it beats being in constant extreme pain, which is the circumstance some Buffistas are in.

Okay, so I'll leave the fancy dreaming to you. (Though of course I would remove the cause for you if I could).

As I understand the science of dreaming (and this may be obsolete - last read up on it years ago) dreams are never lucid during the actual dreams. Just disconnected images, maybe random sounds or words or smells whatever. But as you wake up, before you are fully awake, but are partially awake, if the images stick with you, your mind constructs a narrative a story around those images. So lucid dreaming happens when you take longer to wake up, spend more time in that twilight zone, have more time to make up a more elaborate story before you wake up completely. Or as in my case if you wake up often, and spend more time in that twilight zone for that reason. The science of sleep and dreams changes often, so I don't guarantee that this is currently the best theory. But it was at one time.

Not a lot worth telling in recent dreams but two nuggets:

Creepy man standing on lawn, Pterodactyl larger than he is perched on shoulder. Creepy mans says: "Polly want an annoying yapping dog? Yes Polly does, yes she does, yes she does."

Extended martial arts training. Class taken from strip mall dojo into small spaceship, ferried onto large space station orbiting Jupiter. At and of daylong training session in high tech gym, Sensei says "Is everyone tired? Good. Because tomorrow thing will start getting weird."

"Polly want an annoying yapping dog? Yes Polly does, yes she does, yes she does."

I adore this.

Creepy man standing on lawn, Pterodactyl larger than he is perched on shoulder. Creepy mans says: "Polly want an annoying yapping dog? Yes Polly does, yes she does, yes she does."

*snerk!*

So I've figured out why I'm stuck on my huge fic that I dream of finishing finally. It's the section where I would be so very annoyed with the characters if I was reading it, because they're doing stupid things that need to happen for the rest of the plot (Willow getting hooked on magic etc.). Being something it would annoy me to read, it's an annoyance to right. I'm trying to soothe myself by anticipating the pleasure I'll have with the comeuppance, but my muse sneaks up on it and veers away.

I can still write, I turned out a fairly nice Avengers story that was well received, and boy, that was a relief. But this story haunts me.

Still waiting on Cog editorial letter from agent. Really anxious on this one because I feel like I addressed a lot of issues brought up by reader, intern, and agent. I think it also lowers the entry age. There is some minor violence, but it's like the early Harry Potter novels--nobody is killed or anything.

I've sleeping better the past few nights, so less vivid dreams. Which I will take. Only one vivid dream. Stopped the zombie apocalypse by giving the zombies coffee. Turns out they were not undead, just homicidally grumpy from trying to give up caffeine.

And hope you get good news soon.