Scary lucid experience.

A quick introduction. I'm not an expert in lucid dreaming. After numerous LDs in the past, I've been practicing WILDs for some time now and have had some success. Usually when I fail to become lucid using this method, I still have a pleasant dream that follows me falling asleep accidentally. I do however often lose my concentration when I focus on visual hallucinations too much with my eyes closed, and I realise the hallucinations are becoming more than just lights and colours.

This is where the problem comes in. I rarely have nightmares. So rarely, in fact, that I couldn't possibly recall the last time I had a nightmare, until last night. I took my usual steps and got to a point that I was familiar with. The vivid lights, colours, shapes etc. After a couple of failed attempts followed by some short lived dreams, the nightmare happened. I woke up in the same position I was sleeping in and thought that I was simply in my bed again. I tried to move, but couldn't and after a few seconds I found myself being violently thrown around my room. The dream was incredibly vivid, the feeling of force against walls and the ceiling were almost real. I tried to scream, move, talk but couldn't. I could hear screaming in my head, but nothing would come out. Even breathing became difficult. I realised I was in a dream, but I couldn't wake up. I managed to get myself into another persons room in my house, only to find the rooms empty with the bed sheets thrown onto the floor. I woke up, for real this time, to find myself out of breathe and shaking. I had to leave my room and grab some water to calm myself down for 20 minutes before I went back to bed.

I used to experience some sleep paralysis and small nightmares as a child but have never experienced anything like this. Quite easily one of he scariest experiences of my life, so much so that I'd like to hear what you guys think. Thanks in advance for any feedback, I'm happy to answer any questions.

This is definitely sleep paralysis. When you woke up and couldnt move you woke up in sleep paralysis. During sleep Paralysis the mind's "fear center" in the brain becomes very very active for some reason. This is why many people experience horrid hallucinations and evil presence during this stage. My thought is that you were very strongly focused on this fear as you slipped into a dream/lucid state. You knew you were just trying to lucid dream and some horrible feelings came over you, you started to dream out the scenario that you were fearing at that moment you crossed into the dream state instead of crossing into a casual dream... and it snowballed from there. In my opinion, you just experienced a strong variation of the "old hag". If this happens again, the minute things become surreal, realize you are dreaming and take control. :)

Thanks for the reply. I'll take the advice on board :). At the time, I didn't even consider trying to control the dream, although now that seems like a great idea ^^. It's been years since I've had any trouble with sleep paralysis, really hoping this is just a one off. I found it unusual that I was unable to wake myself up, normally I'm trying harder to keep myself from waking. The mind is a powerful thing...

Yeah man it's definitely sleep paralysis, I get it all the time.*
For me it feels as if I'm being sucked up into the air spinning end over end violently, usually accompanied by whispering in my ear or some other sound,*last night I heard laughing all around me.

Definitely sounds like SP. Read up on it as much as you can - there are tons of posts here about different experiences with SP and HH (hypnogogic hallucinations). They can get really intense, but as long as you know that they are nothing more than just hallucinations and they can't hurt you, you can just wait for them to be over and not let them bother you. Happy dreams:)

Cheers guys, spent a bit of time looking through some SP threads. Like I mentioned in my original post, I used to get this a lot as a child minus the crazy hallucinations, I just never realised it. I'd wake up unable to move and just eventually got used to ignoring it and going back to sleep. Presumed it was a dream. If this happens again, and it hopefully won't, I'll just try to fly away and make the most out of it ;)