Hello, I am just starting to get an interest in lucid dreaming and I have researched a bit. I tried last night, by look at my hand 
Yeah~, didn’t work out too well. I actually slept through it without a single dream-- just darkness! Maybe I was hoping for it too much, but I was trying to relax as much as possible-- constantly repeating like a mantra in my head, “I am going to dream about (so and so)” and it’s one of these dreams I would really love and eager to see again and be in control since all I was doing was following the lead of my dream. And after I woke up, I was practically banging my head on the wall like, "Why didn’t I figure out and do anything!!! WHY!!! 
" (’]:< And in the end, I forgot the person’s name of whom I was looking for through some sort of “International Book” when I woke up Gosh, I was very disappointed! And I can’t even write my dreams because I have school to go to, so there’s that problem. I am going to try again tonight. However, how do I not sleep through my dream? I am going to try whatever that was suggested in the guide. But if anyone can give me helpful advice, I would really appreciate it! 
Wish me luck! 
Writing down your dream is one of the key part of lucid dreaming -nay. Writing down your dream is the main part of lucid dreaming. While in waking life your recollection may be good, in your dream they aren’t. Without a dream journal, you can never hope to be lucid. The only furthest you can go is be semi-lucid and trick yourself into thinking that you’re lucid, when you are actually dreaming about being lucid.
Unless you start keeping a dream journal, you can never hope to be logical in a dream.
My circadian rhythm used to make me wake up at 5AM every day, so I had plenty of time to write down my DJ. You should set your alarm to wake you up early. It’ll feel like shit for a while but if you don’t break your habit by the end of the week you’d be capable of waking up early.
Then again, I’m out of practice right now, so take my words with a grain of salt.
Welcome, firefeild. 
First of all, let me tell you right away that lucid dreaming does require some persistence and motivation.
Lucid dreaming is a completely different kind of awareness than most of us are used to, and it is actually almost a whole lifestyle.
You can pretty much say that the secret to learning lucid dreaming is to train your self-awareness and critical thinking of your surroundings - so how do you do that?
Well, I see you were looking at your hands - you were trying to do a Reality Check, right?
In order to use RC’s correctly, you will need to know exactly what a RC is - basically, performing a RC means that you try to prove to yourself that you are dreaming.
Looking at your hands is a very common RC, because it tends to be very reliable (hands almost always look weird in dreams) and is also very easy to do.
But there are countless other ways to perform RC’s, and you can invent your own checks if you want.
Just make sure that the result you are looking for cannot occur in real life.
One very effective way to use RC’s is to start with trying to write down your dreams as much as possible, and then look for recurring elements - anything that you seem to dream about a lot - and whenever you see those things in real life you perform a RC, and honestly ask yourself WHY you think you are awake right now - really ask yourself if there is any possibility at all that you are dreaming at that moment - keep doing this until it becomes a reflex, and you will have very good chances to do the same action in a dream later.
You said you didn’t have time to write down your dreams in the morning, but that shouldn’t be an issue - just make sure you go to bed early so you have some time to journal your dreams in the morning.
You don’t even need to write them down, you can use a voice recorder as well if you want.
If you feel like it, you can even decide firmly to yourself that you want to wake up during your dream periods throughout the night, and you will get several opportunities to write down dreams.
It might sound strange that you could just decide to wake up like that, but this is exactly the same kind of thing as when you fall asleep on a bus and suddenly wake up right before you need to get off - your brain is still very active while you dream, and if you really decide that you want to wake up at those points then your brain will listen, and with practice this will become easier and easier.
Good luck! 
Why is keeping a dream journal so important, I wonder? I mean, I haven’t kept a dream journal for the past few weeks of trying and I’ve already gotten pretty close. As long as you realize what’s the difference between a dream and reality, you should be fine, right? And after that it should just be a matter of training to keep your level of logic high enough to realize you’re dreaming when you’re actually dreaming. But how does a dream journal help you with that? Sure, it’ll tell you what signals to look out for, but are those really reliable? As far as I’ve been able to remember my dreams I can only see one thing they have in common: all of it is not possible in RL. If I remember one dream and I know what happened in that dream, that’s no guarantee that the next time it’ll happen it’ll be in a dream as well, right?
Or am I making a very obvious beginner mistake here? 
^ Well, much of dream journaling is psychological if your recall is already good. You’re right when you say that general awareness and logic are the keys to actually becoming lucid. Dream journaling reinforces your dedication to LDing, and it gives you things to visualize when you read and think “what if I’d realized I was dreaming right then?” You can recognize general themes as opposed to specific signs that rarely show or that you can’t practice in real life.
You mention getting “pretty close” to LDing. I can LD one a week on average without too much effort put in, but I don’t want to settle for that. I do my paper or online journal soon after waking up, then transfer the information from one to the other before sleep. The second reflection often causes me to remember another detail or to realize a link between aspects of the dream that I didn’t see at first; that’s the skill I want to train with my journal.
Perhaps somebody else can say what he/she sees in journaling? I feel like my answer’s pretty specific to me and not general enough to answer Reliku.
Well I do suppose the ‘being active’ makes sense, that’s a good reason I suppose. But does a DJ really give you that much more insight?
I mean, everytime I woke up with dreams still in my memory, I just thoight about them like ‘what happened here’ and deduct the reason why it was a dream from thayt point, hoping I can apply the same thing during a dream next time. But I think the next dream will be a whole different situation and it’ll be hard to actually spot the same signals. Probably harder than just training your logic to a level of perfection, get what I mean? 
At least, that’s what I’m thinking haha
Dream memories fade very quickly, and you are almost guaranteed to forget a lot of content during the day without noticing it.
Writing down your dreams as soon as possible will ensure that you keep those memories, which will in turn make you much more familiar with your dreams overall.
^ Ok, that’s a valid point. I suppose it all adds up then.