i heard of astral projection before i even knew what lucid dreaming was.

for a couple years (off and on) i would try to astral project. sometimes i would feel strange vibrations, numbness, shuddering, heard auditory sounds (some extremely frightening) and my name being called, etc etc.

finally one night i felt my body begin vibrating...eventually i rose up out of my body. as i floated up i could see my body lying in bed. i got excited and my awareness flickered between my floating 'astral' body and my body in bed (i couldn't see anything when my awareness swung back to my sleeping body, but could feel my physical body lying there with my eyes closed).

it flickered back and forth a number of times, and then i felt myself snap/slam back into my body. of course, at the time i thought i was being reeled in by my 'silver cord'.
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a few months ago i discovered lucid dreaming. it is much clearer, scientifically verified, and the techniques are straightforward (for the most part) and have yielded great results.

now i view my 'astral projection' as nothing more than my first WILD (and recently i have had another much longer one to compare it to, that was definitely a dream.)

in light of this, i would say you experienced aspects of a WILD. i'm not saying astral projection isn't possible (i plan to experiment with its validity after i master lucid dreaming), but i'm saying most astral projections are probably lucid dreams.

*shrugs* who knows. but IMHO i wouldn't be in a rush to view lucid dreams as astral projection. although, if doing so helps you have successful experiences, more power to you..