Have you ever played tennis or basketball before? Secondly, have you ever noticed that at some points, you seem to become more agile, or quick thinking?
Scientists have studied these questions before, and have concluded a few things. This sense of heightened awareness can be called hyper focus It is more common with children having ADHD or ADD. A man named Don Juan Matus’ believed that there are seven barriers of awareness, which they termed the The Seven Gates of Dreaming. In The Art of Dreaming, Castaneda describes extensively how a state called Total Awareness can be achieved by means of dreaming. According to Castaneda, there are 7 Gates of Dreaming, or obstacles of awareness, which when overcome yield total awareness. Four of the Gates of Dreaming are discussed in The Art of Dreaming. What follows is not so much a technique in achieving lucidity, but rather the practical application of lucid dreaming. By acting a certain way while dreaming, we can cause psychosomatic changes in our being, including an alternate way of dying.
What follows is a point-form summary of the philosophy surrounding Toltec dreaming as a way of “Sorcery that is a return to Paradise”.
* 1st Gate (stabilization of the dreaming body): Arrived at when one perceives one's hands in a dream. Solved when one is able to shift the focus from the hands to another dream object and return it to the hands, all repeated a few times. Crossed when one is able to induce a state of darkness and a feeling of increased weight.
* 2nd Gate (utilizing the dreaming body): Arrived at when one's dream objects start changing into something else. Solved when one is able to isolate a Scout and follow it to the realm of Inorganic Beings. Crossed when one is able to fall asleep without losing consciousness.
* 3rd Gate (travelling): Arrived at when one dreams of looking at oneself. Solved when the dreaming and physical bodies become one. Crossed when one is able to control the Dreaming Emissary.
* 4th Gate of Dreaming (Seeing): Arrived at when one is able to perceive the energetic essence of every dream item. Solved when one falls asleep in a dream, in the same position in which one has gone to sleep. Crossed when one wakes up in this reality, only not in the physical but in the energy body.
No one knows what the last 3 gates are, as Castaneda died before completing the Gates. I have found away besides sleeping to practice awareness. Follow the link to a simple flash game where you fly a helicopter. Play it for a while, like you normally would, and then try to get a heightened awareness while playing, anticipated what walls come up next, how fast you are going etc. I have noticed when I become in this state of mind while playing I can go relatively far, and have increased reaction time. I think that this can help in Lucid Dreaming, by referencing the gates of awareness. Good Luck, and have fun. 
P.S Thanks Wikipedia for the info, and to NPR radio station’s radio lab segment on dreaming.
