Lucid dreaming potential tip: reality checks during hynpagogia

So far, this seems to work, but it will need more verifiable results for me to be entirely sure. 

I find that doing hourly reality checks and practicing "all-day awareness" is a good baseline principle, but it often isn't enough to lucid dream regularly. At that point I still only become lucid when I sleep in really late, and even then that's not a guarantee. Coupling this with the phase method for astral projection helps, yes, but then again my success rate at phasing isn't all that high. I can do it; it definitely works, but not super consistently yet. 

This is not ideal. 

Lucid dreaming once a week, which is what I get on average with that baseline, isn't enough to learn proper stability at any semblance of a reasonable pace. I am lucid for like two seconds and then I wake up while attempting to ground myself. No. This is crap. I need more practice. 

I started doing reality checks right before falling asleep, and whenever I wake up to write in my dream journal (in order to check for false awakenings). But even that wasn't enough. Instead of just opening my eyes at the last moment of consciousness to count the fingers on my hand, I now close my eyes and visualize myself counting five fingers on my hand. Half the time, I'm so tired that this translates directly into hypnagogia, and I'm already lucid by definition, even if I lose it half a second later. 

When I do this, it's like a switch is flipped on, and I become lucid multiple times in a night. 

As for the phase method, strength of intention and rehearsing what you will do -- both in the daytime and if you wake up to pee / get water and forget to phase -- seem to increase the efficacy of it. 

So it's a combination of both techniques. 

I just perused last night's dream journal, btw. I had some mildly lucid hypnagogia, then 3 lucid dreams: 1 in which I faded in and out of lucidity. One in which I attempted to make a reality shifting portal, having forgotten the astral projection step of my plan, and in which I succeeded in making the portal -- and in grounding myself in the dream somewhat -- but then woke up. And one other which I woke up quickly from. For some reason that one involved Thanos lol. 

Oddly, none of these were from phasing, though I did experience some brief astral vision with one phase attempt. That was right after waking up from the second LD. 

Let's see if this holds water and wasn't just a fluke. Fingers crossed. The more practice I can get, the better I can get at grounding.