Lucid Dreaming - A useful skill?

I've had a few lucid dreams but I was never able to stay lucid very long. Probably because I was so nervous that I'd wake up.

I'd either go back to dreaming or wake up. I got frustrated when I'd become lucid but wouldn’t' have full control over the dream. I'd try to materialize things but it wouldn't be what I wanted or nothing would appear. I didn't try for too long though. But the technique I was using was to will yourself to remember all your dreams just before you go to sleep every night. So I did that and it worked, I'd wake up after EVERY dream and remember it. I found I had several dreams a night. The next day I felt like I didn't have any sleep at all. Anyone else experience that? I couldn't stand to do that very long. But I started to have lucid dreams occasionally out of all the dreams I had to wake up to remember. I gave it up soon after. If there's other techniques besides that one that would work I'd try again.

I've had realistic dreams to the point where I could feel the sun on my skin and the sand inbetween my toes. I usually have partial control in those kind of dreams but didn't know I was dreaming. Once I was in the middle of a huge battle with hordes of monsters. I could cast magic and I was blasting them, that was pretty awesome.

Jam it back in, in the dark.