It occurred to me to create this topic while replying to another post about body "separation". If somehow this has been discussed before in the forum, feel free to delete the topic and let me know where I can read about it

When I'm experiencing a Lucid Dream, for the most part of it I'm completely "separated" from my physical/sleeping body without any apparent sensitive link to it. However, when the dream extends for too long, and Conscious starts to slip between the dream and the body, I get into this fascinating murky plane of experience where I'm both inside the dream and outside of it, both feeling everything from the dream and at the same time having full notion of how my body is laying in bed and how it is feeling. Usually this situation is what I use to measure how long I might have inside the dream world and how I can try to extend my stay.

Sometimes, really close to waking up, it feels like I'm just laying in bed but my closed eyes are visualizing a sharp clear movie to which I have full control. If I get lucky, I dive back inside the dream but usually that's when I wake up.

So, my question is: do you usually experience this duality at the same time? How do you use it to your advantage when trying to stay inside the dream? For me it seems to help to just force my body to relax and not move. What about you?