It's actually not that hard to start having them pretty frequently. I always had that same problem though: I'd realize I was dreaming, say "Wow, I'm actually dreaming and aware of it. This is amaz-" and wake up. There are supposedly tricks you can use to prevent yourself from waking up like spinning around, but it didn't seem to help even when I remembered to try in the dream.

You can make them more frequent by just thinking to yourself "Am I dreaming?" and checking if you are a bunch of times a day. 5-6 is probably enough. Keep that up for a few weeks and you'll probably start having frequent lucid dreams. I read that lucid dreams aren't really that restful compared to normal sleep though, so don't try to induce them unless you can spare the sleep time.