new poster, long time lucid dreamer and sleep paraylsis chick

hey, i'm casey. i'm 31 and have been lucid dreaming since I was 15. For the most part I just have fun with my dreams, changing things and having fun. The times I've had sleep paralysis I always knew what was going on but continued to feel and see things while awake. I have had SP probably 10-15 times in the last 5 years.
(my understanding of SP is everyone is paralyzed during REM but when you awake during REM or at the end of it, that part of your brain that keeps you paralyzed doesn't click off, so there I am, lying there, unable to move. I may still feel or hear things, and sometimes I have even seen things in my room, but my eyes are open, I am conscious, but I can't move no matter how hard I try. I believe I astrally projected during one of these episodes years ago) I have never intentionally tried to have sleep paralysis and I don't understand why you would want to except maybe to project..but I'm new at really studying up on this subject.
I just now found this site five minutes ago, but was excited to find such an extensive forum on the subject of lucid dreaming. I look forward to reading through posts and hopefully learn more about myself and my dreaming in the process! :banana:

Welcome!

That's interesting. I've never experienced SP in real life. Generally what happens is I feel the onset of SP right before HI starts when I WILD, and then SP carries over into the dream itself, so for about a minute where I'm still differentiating between my dream body and real body, I can't really move in the dream. Then I manage to roll my dream body over and roll out of my bed.

This is all new to me and I didn't think there would be people trying to SP like I have? it seems like some definitions may be a little different in this realm of speaking... My neurologist uses the term "Sleep Paralysis" when speaking of being paralyzed after REM sleep when you are conscious and awake and paralysis DURING REM is called REMatonia or something like that. I have a lot to learn and really a lot to do in my dream world!! But the times I have experienced SP while awake, or whatever, is I wake up in the morning and I can't move. A few times, the alarm clock has gone off and I can't move to turn it off! I lay there for a second or three and, I guess cherish the oddness of it and then I look around the room. One time I saw a woman glide across my room and I tried so hard to get up, and I think I astrally projected b/c I felt a swooping, then the cold floor on my feet, and then a swooping feeling in my gut and I was laying back down paralyzed again! Freaky!! Other times I've felt things jumping on my bed, things flying in the room, and one scary time was I awoke in the middle of the night and felt someone leaning over me in the bed. Usually not a very frightening thing during my episodes, but I was a single female truck driver and thought someone had broken into my truck.
what is HI? (see, i'm really new)

Well, the process of falling asleep goes something like this: You go from being awake to "attention switching" where your mind wanders off and you stop focusing on the outside world. Then your mind basically loses consciousness, and your body enters sleep paralysis. After sleep paralysis, HI (hypnagogic imagery) occurs as a side effect of the brain's transition into a REM cycle that eventually leads to the dream state. However, people are usually unconscious through all of this (and unconscious through the dreams as well, which is why they're so hard to recall or control)

When one does a WILD (wake induced lucid dream), they keep their mind alert by not allowing attention switching to happen completely (rather, preventing their mind from losing consciousness by keeping it active), and "fool" the body into thinking the mind is unconscious so that the body goes into SP and HI and transitions into a dream. If you wake up in the middle of a REM cycle, you might feel SP for a moment until your body wakes up again. With WILDs, though, there's a moment at the beginning of the dream where you're not completely transitioned into the dream, and have the sensation of your real body (which is paralyzed). As a result, you can't move until the dream becomes more stable.

As per my experience, a dreaded SP patient earlier, once we are aware of the benefits of getting into SP, it is likely to disappear from your life. Instead, even a slight SP will be transformed to a Lucid Dream.