Lucid dreams.

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I get them sometimes and I think they're awesome, unless something really good is happening and I realise it's not real.

i get them quite often actually; at least once a week, more often if i'm under heavy stress; it almost seems like another stim...

Last night I took 5-HTP for the first time, as a result of comments and recommendations made in another thread - one about fibromyalgia. I slept a little better already, I think, but I also had one or two unusually vivid and strange dreams. I've read that such a thing can happen in association with 5-HTP, and I'm wondering how it might affect my renewed (if, admittedly, not terribly strong or successful, so far) efforts at achieving and maintaining lucidity. Even if my ability to become lucid doesn't change, I'm still interested in seeing where this takes me and how long it lasts. The effect may dull as my body becomes accustomed, but I can also take a break and then restart usage if that happens and see how that works. In any case, I can't tell anything definitive from just one night, so I'll have to observe over time. But so far, so good.

Dosage: a single 100mg capsule around dinner time.

Yes, I have had lots of dreams where i am totally aware that i am dreaming.

TheSunAlsoRises

I can get enough control to influence the environment I am in to some degree, however not enough to reduce the stress and confusion in my dreams.
How do you increase your control in dreams?

Keeping a dream diary helps; after that it's just practice. You can try to give yourself assignments before you go to sleep, determine ahead of time what you'll do, so you don't have to think of something while you're asleep.

My dreams are so intense/confusing/scary/etc that I dont like the thought of keeping a diary. The only reason I think about them is to assess the level of control I have and try to figure out how to get more control.

So when you are asleep you will remember something you decided to dream about and automatically dream it?

Maybe writing out the summaries of those dreams would help make them less scary and less recurrent. Analysing the plots and stories within those dreams might help to analyse the fears that you feel, assuming the dreams are expressions of those fears. I think the analysis of dreams can go too far and be too symbolic, but issues about empowerment and relationships in dreams can make a lot of sense.

It is especially helpful if you have a stuck dream where you keep waking in a sweat without knowing the ending.

You've gotten some good advice already. I'd also add a small thing you can do. You can set your mind to the task of asking whatever is scaring you in your dream why it's doing that. That's just one thing to keep in your mind while falling asleep and that same one thing to accomplish once you're in your dream. You may or may not get an answer you understand, but it may turn that dream character, if not the whole dream, into something less scary. Once you've got that done, you can decide what you want to do next. But you'll have one clear goal while you wait. This technique has been known to work quite well with nightmares, and it can work whether you're actually lucid or not. Even if you don't know you're dreaming, conditioning yourself before sleep each night to try to ask this question can cause you to do it in a dream.

Good luck!