Dear Ceve,

Really, when you have been asleep and have just temporarily woken up, then it is easier to Astrally Project... to lift out of the Body and gently move away by 10 or 20 meters, so that proximity to the body doesn't whip you back. Once you are that far away, then you can lift up and into the higher astral planes, where it is as good or better than your typical Lucid Dream.

Now, Lucid Dreams are for when one is still asleep and comes into a REM Cycle... when one begins a normal Dream. that is the proper time for considering Lucid Dreaming.

This is just not quibbling over words. Certain techniques are easier when applied at the right time for the right effect. Astral Projecting is easier going from waking into sleeping. And obviously it is easier to go from Dreaming into Lucid Dreaming.

However, I one was able to go from Lucid Dreaming to Astral Projection. When I had gone Lucid, I oriented myself horizontally and on my back, and facing upward, and then concentrated on going upward. Well I shot up into the sky. In the dream, it was day time, and so as I went up and up, I could see that I was leaving the earth's atmosphere as the sky grew darker as I moved into Outer Space. When I was totally up in the blackness of space, the dream scene blew apart and I found myself several hunded feet above my building. It was early in the morning and I could hear my Landlady rattling the rice pots down below getting ready for breakfast. Anyway, I had decided to explore a bit before the Landlady would wake me up ( I was in the Far East living in a Boarding House at the time). I went to the town square near the Rail Way Station. and was surprised to find a Statue of a General on a horse. It isn't there in Real Life. it turns out that such a statue had been there before the japanese occupation, but since the General it depicted had been famous for kicking Japanese Ass, the statue had been removed... the same Japanese Sour Grapes they are characterized for throughout the Far East -- poor losers and even poorer winners. Anyway this points out that the Astral Plane, even where it closely corresponds to the Physical World, is not completely identical but has both subjective and psychic details superimposed.

And then I woke to a nice cheery breakfast of fish and rice.