2nd Lucid dream, very frusterating. Help!~

alright so im going to try to explain what i experienced first then ill ask the questions at the bottom please help me out especailly if ur experienced in lucid dreaming.

so basicly i guess u can call me a natural, i find it being really really easy to lucid dream. When i first started it was difficult but now what i do is i use that one technique, ( please correct me ) where u set ur alarm after 5 hours of sleep and go back to sleep. Basicly thats what i been doing the past week and i experienced my first lucid dream from this. So instead of fully waking up after the 5 hours of sleep and getting up to drink water like most threads say to do, i just turn it off SUPER fast because its right next to me then i go back to sleep immediatly telling my self i will lucid dream and stay still as possible. So i first want to say that ive been experiencing sleep paralysis since about 2 years ago and i get it quite often now and yea. So last night i set my alarm to 6 am and went t sleep at around 11:30, i wake up at 6 turn it off then i went back to sleep telling my self i will lucid dream. So Its very hard to remember but i beileve i went through 2 quick NON LUCID dreams then i fell into sleep paralysis. after that this is the VERY WEIRD PART i was in a lucid dream in my room and i knew i was in a dream idk why i just knew and i didnt do any reality checks i just knew i was in already. So then im in my room in a lucid dream and it was fading away alot so i started rubbing my hands together and spinning and it was working very well but everything was blurry and fady i couldnt see anything and then i woke up in sleep paralysis OR WAS IT? it was super weird its very hard to describe. Within Seconds i keep switching between sleep paralysis and a lucid dream and i keep going in and out in and out untill i finnaly woke up it was very strange.

1. So would u count this as a lucid dream? i was aware i was awake and to add onto that i was rubbing my hands and spinning to keep the dream alive but since im a begginer its very hard to remember and my lucid dreams almsot feel like regualr dreams and not vivid at all.

2. ive had REAL sleep paralysis before and it sucks but idk if i was in sleep paralysis today or not i kept going in to sleep paralysis for LITTREALY 1 SECOND i could see my blanket and couldnt move then 1 second later im in my room standing by my bed SPINNING.

3. thoughts on this?

Hi-

Yes, I would definitely count this as a lucid dream. Reality checks aren't really a requirement: lots of people become lucid spontaneously in their dreams, so it's really not all that strange. If you knew that you were dreaming, then you were lucid (congratulations on the second lucid dream, by the way. :3) As you said, you did know, and spinning around and rubbing your hands to try to stabilise the dream indicate that this is true. Sometimes lucid dreams are not that vivid, especially if you're not fully immersed in them due to either having low awareness or being close to waking up; this in itself doesn't mean you're not lucid. Once you are lucid, though, you can work on increasing your awareness and the vividness of the dream even more.

The sleep paralysis thing has happened to me also...it is strange, and it can be difficult to tell when you're actually awake and experiencing "real" sleep paralysis and when you're just dreaming of it. As you are usually closer to waking within the lucid dream than your average normal dream, it is possible to either wake briefly and then go back into the dream (also known as DEILD) or to start becoming more aware of your sleeping, paralysed body while still within the dream (either because you're very close to waking up, or because you start to think of it when you realise that you're dreaming and become aware that your "real" body is actually still lying in bed.)

Really the best/only thing you can do is to continue to work on lucid dreaming and in time, you'll have much longer and more stable lucid dreams which you'll be able to stay in before waking. c: This may sound strange, but be careful with the spinning; some people seem to find it really helpful but I've personally found that spinning really fast actually disorients me, causing me to wake up more quickly. If you spin, try to do so as mindfully as possible, focusing on the sensation of your dream body spinning and also on everything around you - also maybe try going slowly, or your vision will naturally fade. Once you have some stability at least, perhaps it's better to try focusing on what's already there, slowly and mindfully taking in each sight, sound and sensation...all I can say is keep trying, and keep experimenting, and frustrating experiences like this one should become less frequent ^^ Good luck.