"Some cases I know about from personal observation involve disturbing sleep cycles so much in pursuit of lucid dreams that the young people failed in work environments or crashed and burned in their university studies."

That is laughable ignorance my friend. The Wake Back To Bed method might mess your sleep schedule up a little, but you're only supposed to be up for about 30 minutes or so then you go back to sleep. That's not even the most common way of lucid dreaming. To say people have ruined their lives trying to lucid dream is, frankly, completely ridiculous and I'm embarrassed for the HN community for upvoting this post.