Is there a way to trigger an Astral Projection instead of a Lucid Dream?
I have had a large number of lucid dreams (usually conscious false awakenings), but no successful attempts to astral project.
To trigger a lucid dream usually I am lying in my bed waiting to sleep but suddenly (I don’t know how) I realize that I am already in sleep paralysis (although I can wake up if I want to) and just waiting to enter a REM phase. Then at this point I am trying to mentally shift my position slightly to the left or right (there is no muscle involved in this movement, so it is safe as there is no chance to trigger an actual movement of the real body) once I feel the shift I take the big decision to get off my bed and start walking in the darkness with confidence. If I doubt even slightly then the dream physics may not be stable enough (I once fell through the floor to the abyss!). At this state there are no obstacles, I just think that I am walking on a solid floor, I feel each step and the vibration when walking. Usually the optics come after a while and are always blurry (extremely blurry but with color), I just keep walking and I try to think that the vision is becoming more clear, and it becomes (with extreme detail). I always end up in my house in different rooms depending on the distance I walked (Sometimes I see members of my family in the house but I have never spoken to them as I know they are parts of the dream).
Now at the state of sleep paralysis if I try to shift myself upwards, downwards or try to separate with complex rotating moves, I always find heavy resistance and loud buzzing (and another electrical type sound which is always the same when I collide the astral body with the real one while rotating). I can observe my arms moving (melting hands phenomenon) but there is no way to stabilize this state and I return back to my bed.
I would like to know if there is a way to trigger an astral projection instead of a lucid dream. I also wonder why is so hard to separate by flying and so easy by just standing up and walking (I have experience with flight in lucid dreams and I am good at it, reaching very high speeds and making very stiff maneuvers).