Lucid Dream?

[Echtrae]

The last few nights I have been waking up between 2am and 4am with the intention of doing some meditation/energy raising work. (I am in the 4th week of the MAP program.) After doing this for about 1/2 hour or so and not feeling like I reached a deep trance, I go back to sleep. Every time I do this, I go into a dream state where I feel like I am going into a deep trance and become lucid in the process. I can hold this state of awareness for only a few minutes before I wake up. The last few days I have tried to fly in this state and have not had any luck. This does not feel like lucid dreams I had prior to starting the MAP program - the energy feels diferent - maybe stronger, but also like it is a different state. I would like to be able to stay in the lucid dream state longer or whatever state this is. Any insight or suggestions would be appreciated.

[CFTraveler]

There are many ways of maintaining and holding on to lucidity in dreams. The most popular for achieving it is reality checks in waking reality, and others for maintaining are:
Focusing on a detail in the dream- as soon as you start to lose conscious control, focus on a detail, such as a color or something in it.
Others include stuff like spinning (why I don't know).
The biggie for me, that I've realized, is that starting out with high energy is the best way to extend your lucid periods, and for that I recommend lots of energy work. I believe that RB has come to the same conclusion.

[Sleeping Cookie]

Another method to stay in a lucid dream if you feel you're waking up is to rub your hands against each other. You can recognise you're about to wake up by your visual getting blurry and then dark. When this happens, rub your hands or spin (like CFT TRaveler suggested). These actions are supposre to distract the mind from waking up and get you back to the dream.