Developing lucidity

It's been quite some time since I've visited this site, but having a sudden increase in OBEs and sleep paralysis, I thought I'd share with you my progression and most recent experience which happened this morning..

I've had sleep paralysis since about the age of 15, and mostly have tried to avoid it due to it's intensity and nightmarish tone. I've tried to avoid sleep paralysis by not napping during the day and not going back to sleep after waking in the morning. However, I can once in a while take control and end up having an amazing journey.

I ordered some kava paste from an online vendor a few days ago, and have been taking a moderate dose during the day, which I think has been building up in my system and affecting my dreams: they've become extremely vivid and it takes me a bit longer to wake up in the morning. For those who don't know what kava is:

"Kava is a tropical evergreen shrub with large heart-shaped leaves and woody stems. Its thick roots are mashed or ground and made into a cold beverage used similarly to alcohol. It has a long history of ritual and recreational use in Pacific Polynesia and is now a common herbal product."-taken from Erowid

Anyways, this morning I woke up around 6am, and decided to go back to sleep as I didn't have anything important to do today. After a couple drawn out and detailed dreams, I woke up and went back to sleep once more. This is usually when I get the more interesting experiences.

I started getting the onset of sleep paralysis-a humming noise, pressure on my body, stiffness in my limbs. I began to see blobs and slices of light under my eyelids, and instantly remembered that it was probably some kind of endogenous DMT being released. Instead of trying to wake myself out of this potential trainwreck, I instead decided to embrace it and try to move my ethereal body instead of my physical body which I felt trapped in. I quicky started to feel myself float out of my body and all of the sudden had a sort of darkened "vision" of my room. I was now outside my body, and was guiding myself through my house and flying effortlessly through the walls of my apartment. I came into my living room which looked fairly different-the walls were yellow (they are really white), the room was much smaller and there was a fireplace on the wrong end of the room. It was also nighttime outside the window, but in reality it was about 8am. Totally lucid and aware of what was happening, I started having thoughts like "This looks like my apartment, but it isn't the same. Have I entered an alternate reality, where I'm seeing what my house could potentially look like if history had been different?" I decided I was done, and as I started to gain awareness of my physical body again, tried a few times to shake my arms and legs which worked surprisingly quickly-I was back in my bed in a matter of seconds, gently shaking myself awake as my eyes opened.

I thought to myself "not many people get to experience this, I might as well try again." Plus, I seemed to be in control this time.:shock:

A few minutes later I went right back into the paralysis stage. I felt a push of my energy rushing upwards, and instead of fighting it, I embraced the momentum. Soon I was blasting off into the sky in astral projection. It was hard to say how high I went, as I felt there was still some awareness of being in my body as I rocketed straight upwards. Perhaps this was the "tether" that I've read binds you to your physical body so that you can have a safe return. This feeling lasted only a few seconds and I went into another drawn-out dream story, which I won't go into detail about (it was quite sexual). Unfortunately I didn't have any lucidity during the dream.

Anyways, I feel like I had some catching up to do on this forum. Sometimes I'm in total control in these situations and sometimes not. If anyone is interested in having better dream recall, I recommend kava root, especially the liquid form as the dried herbs tend to lose potency. Also if you have the time, going back to sleep upon waking seems to heighten the chances for an OBE, lucid dream, etc in my experience. Anyone else had a similar effect?

Yes, wake back to bed (wbtb) is a very effective way of increasing your chances and or vividness, one reason being your sleep cycles get longer as the night goes on. Btw, what would your definitions for astral projection, and out of body experiences? What are the differences in mood, clarity, are there people, ect.

For me, astral projection is something that only happens in SP. It's when I get the rushing of my body's energy shooting out of me into the sky, and it only happens when laying on my back. It's usually frightening and accompanied by trippy visuals on darkness, and a sense of some other presence. OBEs to me are when I "get up" out of bed and walk or float around my house, occasionally outside of it, which is usually not so scary and I often see other people I live with. I suppose an OBE could be considered part of astral projection but those are the way I experience those differently.