Hey, everyone! 
You may or not remember me—I’ve gone by some various different usernames over the past couple of years, and used to keep up a small dream journal on here. Either way, while I am a bit older than when I used to visit here a few years ago, I’ve been looking to get back into trying to lucid dream again—but this time, without simply giving up so easily. Over my past few years of trying as well as my inactivity here on LD4all, I’ve been able to achieve around twelve lucid dreams since I first learned about it—I’ve actually had a few, spontaneous lucids over the past couple of weeks just by thinking about it, which has really motivated me to try again. I haven’t begun to do any techniques yet, but I wanted to ask some questions about my “schedule”, per se, and my journaling efforts before I continue. I’m sorry it’s such a book, but I’m not entirely sure what to do about some things.
As of about a month ago, I finally said goodbye to my phone before bed. I’ve also been trying to keep a solid schedule of sleeping from 8:30 to 4:55 (as I need twenty minutes to record my dreams before “officially” getting up for school). Surprisingly, I’ve been successful with keeping it as well as recalling to the best of my ability—besides waking up later on weekends. I’ve found I can easily write pages in my journal after about a week of trying to write in it, so my recall is pretty good—one of the main issues being that it’s almost gotten too good (as in, not remembering one full dream, but instead a little bit of typically three to four dreams).
I’ve been journaling now for about two weeks and am confused as to how I should continue—or, that is, if I should be doing anything differently. My goal has been to work on achieving at least one full dream a night and to get into a solid schedule. I’ve just got some questions:
1. First off, as I use a written journal to record my dreams combined with a flashlight so I can see what I’m doing in the middle of the night, I’m not too sure what to do about the light itself. As I want to limit myself from getting to be wide awake if I happen to wake up in the middle of the night, a big, bad, bright flashlight doesn’t help. I’ve noticed that when I use it for too long (as I usually have a lot to write), it takes me quite a bit to fall back asleep—and I’m also worried it might make me forget my dreams. I’ve tried to use my phone as a journal in the past, but I’ve come to realize that I just don’t have the best recall when I type it out. A voice recorder unfortunately is also out of the question for me. Should I just use the flashlight less sparingly or something (as I’ve found I write way too much, but absolutely need it to write)?
2. To sort of build off of my first question, I’ve found that I write way too much. When I wake up in the middle of the night, I can literally spend up to almost an hour recording pages of my dreams. As such, when I wake up at two in the morning, I’m usually completely unmotivated and decide to forgo writing—and thus forget what I dreamt in the morning. Should I, to save time, only summarize my dreams by their key points so I can come back to them in the morning or afternoon? I had thought of doing this, but I’m worried I might forget a lot of the details if I don’t write down the full descriptions of everything as soon as possible.
3. I keep all of my journaling supplies on a small table beside my bed. I clip my pen to the current page of the journal itself (as well as write the upcoming date in it) so I can easily get the page open and start writing. However, having to individually take each thing and set it up in bed can take me almost a minute—which I know is bad, as making my motor neurons go off can cause me to forget my dreams and wake up more. I also am forced to wake up with an alarm in the morning, which I then double tap to “snooze” for a twenty-minute journaling period before it goes off again. I’ve recently changed the beeping sound to something much softer so that I don’t leap out of bed anymore, at least. Is there a better way I should be doing anything, or will having to move everything in the middle of the night and waking up like this not upset my recall as much as I think it will?
4. Finally, I’ve been trying to keep a solid sleep schedule so I can get at least eight hours of sleep a night. However, as much as I try, the times I go to bed and wake up vary on weekends compared to school days. On weekdays, I go to bed at the same time each night (8:30-8:45) and always wake up at 4:55 to journal for twenty minutes. That’s been working great for me, besides journaling for too long in the middle of the night—which can make me lose quite a bit of sleep. Weekends, however, I’m unable to go to bed at 8:30, and rather retire for the night between 9:30-10:00. Then, instead of waking up at 4:55, I usually get up at 8:30 and journal. So, do these irregularities hurt my consistent schedule, or does it not really matter? To kind of add on to that, to keep my schedule, should I wake up at 4:55 with an alarm on weekends to journal and then go back to sleep, or should I continue what I’m doing?
Whew. Sorry about all this—I just wanted to clear things up a bit before I start to really move on. I’m probably taking this way too seriously, but I just really want to be able to lucid dream—that way, in the future, I’ll be able to reach my goal of having a lucid every week (which would be awesome)! If anyone could offer some advice or help, though, I’d really appreciate it. Other than that, thank you all so much, and I’m looking forward to coming back to the community! 
I agree with the light—I used to use my iPad and type my dreams out, but that didn’t go to well as it hurt my recall. My flashlight isn’t overly bright, but it’s the best I have as I do need it to see—I’ve been thinking of investing in one of those light-up pens on Amazon or such one day.
