sleep paralysis?

I have been reading forum posts for some time now and have recieved A LOT of great information, from learning how to LD, to techniques for staying lucid, to what i should do while lucid. But i have yet to come across a good informative post related to sleep paralysis.

My understanding of this is while you are in REM sleep, your body become paralyzed to prevent your body from say, just getting up and walking away while still asleep. but this real life paralyzation should not effect how your body works or moves in your dream...?

Well i had a lucid dream just the other night, where i realized i was dreaming, trying to stand up and enjoy it. however i could not. although i was aware i was dreaming and should have been able to move around and do whatever i wanted, my body would just not get up.

any thoughts about why this happened?

this experience is similar to a very common dream many people have: when you begin running in your dream, but vvvvveeeeerrrrrryyyyy slow. you may think to yourself what the hell, i should be running faster than this.

or if you are in a fight, your swings are much slower and much less effective than you know they would be in real life.

i have wondered for many years why this occurs.
please comment with ANY information or thoughts

For one sleep paralysis is not just during REM but the entire time you are asleep. Also sometimes I have been lucid I have had the problem of not moving. I think it is usually one of two things. Either You are not in REM so you cant have an active dream, or if it is a lucid you are just in a very unstable dream.

I have had dreams where I was in sleep paralysis seeing halucinations etc. and yes I get that sluggish feeling every now and then too. Like what moongrass said it was proably an unstable dream state im still working on getting my lucid dreams stable :P

I was unable to move on my very first lucid, while my DC was teasing me making some frustrating noises and moves .
But I rarely gets paralyzed after that , its fine anyway , you will get with that easily .

My last LD was like that. I had this disgusting, creepy, feeling come over me and it took a great deal of effort to get to my feet. Once I did, it felt like the dream was slowly becoming a nightmare so I closed my eyes and woke up.

thanks guys. your comments cleared it up a bit. it must not have been very stable. it actually makes a lot of sense, cuase i am still new to the whole lucid dreaming thing, and this dream was so wacky theres no way it could have been a stable lucid dream.