i have never been able to experience lucid dreams, but i did eventually overcome a repeating nightmare.
For years, every now and then I would have a spider nightmare, dreaming that i was in bed, asleep, and woke up to find a giant black hairy spider - huge, metres across, leaping down on me from the ceiling.
Often, seeing a spider in the day would trigger the dream at night.
I would wake up paralysed with fear, so frightened i couldn't even scream, and would refuse to move until my then partner (Don, very patient guy) pulled back the sheets & blankets, inspected every part of the bed & room, & was able to assure me that there was no spider there.
after many years of this dream coming, maybe two or three times a year, i started to have dreams in which the spider was smaller, and crawling along the wall. They were still very scary and I still woke up in fright.
Then one night I dreamt I opened a small drawer in my cupboard. I looked in and saw the same, huge black hairy spider crouching in the drawer. in the dream i took the handle of the wooden drawer, and closed it, closing the spider in.
Í haven't had a spider dream since! (at least 5 years free!)