[nooneelse]

> "(although closing your eyes in a dream is not always"

I've been lucid dreaming for a good many years now. Losing visual sensations in a dream typically leads me to waking up. I attribute this to me being a rather visual learner/thinker while awake. Early on I tried the spinning-around trick, but it led to confusing visual-blurs and often me unintentionally sensing my real-body's proprioceptive channel, all leading to waking up.

My best dream-stabilizing trick so far has been to look at my dream hands and use one to scratch the palm of the other. That ties my visual perceptions to my dream-body's tactile sensations. Once I get a dream stabilized like this, I can just keep one hand scratching its own palm all the time, serving as a good, constant reminder that I'm still dreaming.

Or, if I'm flying/hovering, I just crash into something or the ground (the harder the better), also linking the visual to the tactile.

Just my personal experience, ymmv.