I remember the first time I woke myself from a bad dream. I was pretty young, and in my dream I was being chased by a monster and I suddenly realized that it was a dream and I could chase the monster back. So I turned around (in my dream) and started to chase the fucker.

I recall waking up laughing.

I've woken myself up from several unpleasant dreams and nightmares before by literally just going "fuck this, I'm out."

I think I'm often aware that I'm dreaming, but I don't really lucid dream because my dreams are generally more interesting than anything I could consciously come up with anyway. So more often than not I'm just content to be along for the ride.

im almost like that exactly

Awesome ! mine is blinking real fast, it wakes me up in about two seconds of in-dream time.