Dream relaxation, controlling your dreams

For a good night sleep and dream relaxation a certain amount of preparation is needed, it has taken me time to find out what conditions get me to sleep quicker. Firstly if you are not totally warmed up you will stay awake even if you are not cold so tuck in. Also avoid tea or coffee before bedtime, it is hard if you like the taste or are addicted to it but drinking it a few hours earlier can help.
If falling asleep is still hard then certain aids are available, Passionflower for example is calming and sleep inducing. It is used for insomnia; it relieves cramps and nerve pain as well, taking a few drops as instructed 40-50 minuets before sleep can slowly calm you down and provide a state of dream relaxation.
While you in a state of dreaming you could be affected by a movie you watched, what you ate and even down to how you were feeling before going to sleep, waking up with a nightmare is not really a relaxing experience. Dream relaxation is when you are not totally at the will of your dreams, you may have heard of lucid dreaming and dream recall. Through the techniques of lucid dreaming you can instead of hoping to change a dream (like a reoccurring nightmare) you could control your own behavior, this is done by first realizing you are actually dreaming then being active in your dreams, this is also making use of the hours that you didn’t think you could use. With practice you would change your attitude if you have a nightmare, when you realize you can not sustain any bodily harm you will have better sleep and have dream relaxation. Your nightmare could be transformed to a serene dream. Some people with a growing percentage have such nightmares that they avoid going to sleep, this can help them. However this is one route to dream relaxation there are more reasons such as if you are relaxed in your hours of sleep it will definitely affect your waking hours and your behavior there.
I found a brilliant site for lucid dreaming and dream relaxation; it has a lot of very good information:
http://www.dreamviews.com