Lucid dreaming/Astral projection
For the past year I've been trying astral projection almost daily, and when i sleep lucid dreaming. I have a very good understanding of the process to attain astral projection, I've even had a few and very brief experiences but never the "full thing." Here's my situation; For my lucid dreams if you want to call them that, are that i realize I'm dreaming but can never gain full consciousness. By this I mean i tell myself that I'm dreaming but can never take control. I'll be 'aware' that I am in a dream but cant get myself to do what i want. It's as if I'm dreaming about realizing that I'm dreaming. I don't know if this is common, and it's obviously not a full lucid dream because i don't remember it clear as day, it still just feels like a dream but where i realize that i am.
For astral projection I'll lay down to meditate and 99% of the time i end up falling asleep, or i know that I've done it but cant recall anything about it even the feeling of leaving. It's like i get to a certain point but then i black out. I simply can't keep myself in a meditative state for long enough to achieve the right feeling for disconnecting. I've woken out of sleep a few times into sleep paralysis, which i experienced as a kid so it wasn't scary and in my research about how to astral project i remembered that you are aiming for the sleep paralysis state to disconnect from your body. One of the times i awoke in this state i instantly knew what to do (and i took advantage since i can never get to this state unless i wake up into it) i let the feeling take over and thought to disconnect from my body and when i did i heard what sounded like a jet for a few seconds then i felt it, the disconnect. so i started to float up and with a little bit of trouble meaning i didn't feel like i was a feather floating in the wind so it wasn't effortless, but it wasn't hard either. I was in the bottom of a 2 story house and i could feel myself float past the first floor, and then through the roof and felt where i was on the top of the house. I could feel i had done it, i knew i was disconnected from my body and had a feeling of complete peace and harmony with the universe. The only thing is i was blind the entire time. I could tell where i was, and where i should be looking but all the while seeing nothing but darkness like i was wearing a blind fold. this entire experience lasted what felt like maybe 5 or 10 seconds then i came back to my body still in paralysis and tried again to disconnect but couldnt do it. The other time i was sleeping on the couch and again awoke in sleep paralysis. I quickly started to try the disconnect process which when in that state seems very easy. I was listening to a binaural beat and i could hear it still playing. I felt myself move up but not more then 3 feet before i snapped back to my body, again with the jet sound in my ear, so i tried again. Same thing. Tried once more and this time i tried "back flipping" out of my body but once again i snapped back into it. While still in this state i tried to simply sit up instead of float, but with some effort. It worked...kind of. This experience is hard to explain, I could feel both body's, the one laying down and the one sitting up but whats even weirder is i i could see myself sitting up before i even did it. It's like my body laying down had watched me sit up, then i actually did sit up. Once up i checked my laptop which was playing the binaural beat and saw that it was 3:10 and i said to myself "I'm late for work I have to wake up" instantly i came back into my body in sleep paralysis and proceeded to wake myself fully up. Once awake completely i sat up but in the exact way as in my experience, it felt like i was reliving what i had just done when i sat up, looked at my laptop and it was only 1:15.
In short i dream about lucid dreaming or I am lucid dreaming but can't take full control, Astral projection is a pain in the ass because it's only ever slightly successful in the off chance i wake into paralysis.
What I'm hoping to get out of this, is tools, tricks, pointers, anything really that will help me both lucid dream, and astral project fully. If someone has been through the same thing or knows advice to give me to help over come my obstacles in doing this it would be dope. It can get frustrating after trying for a year with little success.