I regularly experience consciousness during sleep paralysis, and I've heard that for some people it's possible to go from SP back into a dream, and stay conscious, hence initiating a lucid dream. I'm just wondering how exactly this is done and whether there are any techniques which are helpful.

This morning I had a whole sequence of SP episodes. In the past I used to just panic and wake myself up as quickly as possible, however this time I stayed calm and tried to go back into the dream. The weird thing is, every time I tried this, there was nothing (or at least nothing I can remember). I was conscious, in SP, then I would go back to sleep into utter blackness, unconsciousness, then wake in SP again a short while later. This happened several times and not once did I wake feeling as though I'd just been dreaming. This is very odd for me, because I usually have pretty good dream recall. I'd been sleeping for a long time as well, 11 or 12 hours, so I think I must have been in REM.

Another slightly bizarre thing which has never happened to me before was that once, when I woke in SP and tried to open my eyes, I had the weirdest sensation of my eyes moving from side to side really quickly, of their own accord. I wonder if this was REM... however I really wasn't dreaming at that point, I was conscious (or as conscious as it's possible to be whilst still in SP).

Any ideas or help would be very much appreciated : )