Lucid dreams?

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For years I had somewhat clear dreams, but not particularly so, nor was it all too common to remember them. Then for a couple of years I (almost literally) had no knowledge or recollection of my dreams, and would just fall asleep and wake up, then maybe once a week recall a vague detail about something in one of my dreams.
Now, in the last few months, my dreams have started to manifest themselves, and are becoming clearer and clearer.

I´ve been a lucid dreamer since I was a kid, maybe 7 years old. I would have nightmares every time I fell asleep. I would keep myself awake because I knew I´d have nightmares when I fell asleep, but of course, one can´t fight off sleep forever. Finally I learned to control my dreams. To this day fear is the most common trigger for lucidity in my dreams. I have also employed other mnemonics (the classic is to pinch oneself) that have allowed me to become lucid. The most recent lucid dreams/false awakenings I had occurred while staying on some friends´ couch. I kept going to the same area over and over and seeing a red lantern sitting on the ground. Shortly after seeing the lantern I would experience a false awakening. This happened quite a few times before I realized I was still asleep. I saw the lantern and became lucid. I started walking through the dream looking for the ¨important character¨ (I do this in dreams and in waking life. I´ve found that if I want to do something in a dream, the best way to remember is to make it a habit in my waking life). I would look at my dream characters and decide they weren´t important, then lightly touch them to make them evaporate into a puff of mist. After a while I found a character with lightening in his eyes. I said, ¨It´s you.¨ He smiled and the world disappeared. Simultaneously he spread out infinitely like those paintings of the Hindu pantheon. After all this, I finally woke up for real to find my friend standing in the living room. I asked her, ¨Am I still dreaming?¨ She said yes, but was unable to convince me after so many false awakenings.

I've never had a lucid dream, but I don't have nightmares either. 80% of the time my dreams are just abstract thoughts and still images. Just a bunch of concepts that make no sense, almost as if when I dream I am trapped in 3 dimensional world with no way of traveling through the fourth, which is time. And even then that's if I'm in the dream, I'm not always, sometimes my dreams take on a third person view as if I'm just an observer. It's really kinda weird now that I think about it, but it doesn't when I'm in the dream.

As an example, one of the last nightmares (sort of) I had was actually almost two years ago. I was sort of sleeping on the couch in a very uncomfortable state, and there were two lamps around it. Throughout the night, I could not stop imagining that those two lamps were my mining facilities and I had to protect them as they were being attacked. But I didn't have any combat units to send to the facilities so I was screwed. It lasted the whole night, I could not consciously do anything, as nothing ever happened. Just a constant state of "oh crap I'm about to lose my only sources of income". I know it lasted all night because I sort of woke up several times that night and kept coming back into that same dream.

One of the best dreams I had was also like this. There was this airplane, a Boeing 737 to be exact, and I just imagined it moving through the clouds. I could control it with my mind, even though I was not really in the dream. It's as if I was the airplane, but the pictures in my head were of the control panel and a window view looking out at the left wing.

Perhaps the absolute best dream of all time was this next one I'm going to describe right here. It was a long time ago, so I don't remember any details at all, but I have to say it has truly been the most inspiring. All I remember are pictures of it. Stars, planets, and moons that came entirely out of my imagination. When I woke up I was shocked with amazement. Somehow I had experienced the massive scale of space, huge expansive distances and all sorts of beautiful nebulae and asteroid fields. I'm not quite sure what this feeling is, but I've only ever had it once, and it was that morning.

I've had those. It's sort of strange, but very interesting, and kind of fun.

I have had some very lucid dreams in my life, too. And remember having false awakenings more than once.
It seems to me that I am usually either depressed or under a lot of stress when my dreams occur. I have awakened at times mentally exhausted after very lucid dreams, as well.