Thread: I can't move, but it's not SP I swear!

Is it possible this is just some sort of mental block? In the past i've had a strange love/fear relationship with the dream world.

It's the most likely explanation, especially when you consider this:

In a dream, you possess no body, you use no senses. The visual input that you're receiving is not a sensation, it's another kind of signal. This means you don't really see or feel anything: you just receive information and your brain automatically interprets it as you would do in real life: pressure in your feet indicates soil, a breeze on your face might indicate wind, etc etc.
In this case, you just need to internalize the fact that this "physical inertia" is a mental characteristic of the dream, and has absolute zero impact on your ability to change dream content: how can you be stuck if it you don't even have a body?

A suggestion: try to disregard your state and engage with some other part of the dream. If it means loosing lucidity, it's fine: just make sure you engage your senses and use the power of expectation to make something happen...don't act intentionally, but as if you were accepting the dream and waiting for it to show something else next. I use this exercise when I'm trying new stuff or making stuff I "consider" hard: I simply treat it like an ordinary dream (in which I'm not really doing any conscious control because I don't know I'm dreaming), and act like I'm like "whatever, just....make something happen".

Thoughts?

We still don't know the exact purpose of false awakenings, but they might represent an attempt to prevent the individual to wake up before the REM stage is over. This said, it's possible that you might be slightly more awake then usual, which can exacerbate bodily sensations related to REM atonia