Following up on earlier posts about sensory anchoring. I tried the refrigerator protocol mentioned in passing by two other users: upon gaining lucidity, immediately go to the nearest refrigerator and eat the first thing you find.
Night 34. Scene was a kitchen I didn't recognize. I went to the refrigerator and took a handful of something — in the dream it appeared to be grapes, but the sensation was closer to cold, acidic, slightly carbonated. Not accurate to any grape I've eaten.
The taste was amplified to a degree I haven't experienced in a dream before. Not unpleasant — vivid. Almost electrical in the way it demanded attention. I stayed in the state for approximately six minutes, which is my personal record.
For comparison: spinning (the classic technique) kept me in-state for about thirty seconds before the scene dissolved. Hand rubbing was similar. Verbal affirmation was useless for me. This was substantially more effective than all of them.
Hypothesis: sensory excess demands full attention in a way that visual or proprioceptive anchors don't. Taste in particular may be more disruptive to the dissolution mechanism because it's less common in dreams and the brain has less template material to smooth it over.
Worth trying if conventional stabilization isn't working.