Sleeping Body Awareness

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?

I experience this as well. I notice that I usually wake up if I move, but could go back to sleep and continue the dream via DEILD.

Sometimes i stay in my dream while my alarm goes off, and i experience this sorta thing for a few seconds. I hear the alarm in my dream as something else usually, then i wake up and realize what it is. One time my alarm sounded like screaming in my dream and it jumpscared me awake. It was just the Dr.Who theme though

I experience this all the time. I have gotten very good at noticing when I can start to feel my body, before that state takes hold. I then stop and use techniques to stabilize the dream. I can usually get back to where I can only feel the dream.

I have experienced this too :) It's just that i forgot my dream easily XD

I experience this near the end of lucid dreams too, but most often it is a problem for me when I attempt a WILD/SSILD during a nap. What you said about a detailed, controllable movie was a perfect description. Sometimes I naturally slip into the scene if I am lucky, but most of the time it becomes too distracting and prevents me from falling fully asleep. I cannot do reality checks because moving will move my real body and jerk me awake.

What technique do you use to stay in/re-enter the dream while experiencing this duality? So far I have not found a solution to ignoring it!