Determining Sleep paralysis

Recently, I've been trying to enter a LD from the start of sleep, basically trying to remain aware as I enter the dreaming state. (Whether it works or not, I haven't figured it out.) What I get stuck at is a state I enter after I close my eyes and move on to what I assume is the first step of sleeping. I've been thinking that the stage is SP but I'm not sure.

Within the stage, I hear voices from the back of my head. Most of the time, these sound like they are of my family. Other times, they are voices that I don't recognize. (I know that these are simply in my head, so I don't open my eyes.) At first I don't exactly notice them, but when I do, they disappear and I feel as though I fall out of this stage. (If it even is one)

Is this sleep paralysis? I've only once had an "image" during this, but I'm not sure about what it was. I feel as though I won't get anywhere with this unless I find a way to consciously get through this.

it's more likely Hypnagogic Imagery/Hallucinations

this doesn't sound like SP quite yet, but are you saying you do this at the very beginning of the night? it is very hard to WILD then because you aren't properly relaxed
try it after a few hours of sleep

Performing a WILD before sleep is incredibly hard. And even if you can do it the quality will be really bad because you won't be in REM. And rem is when the best dreaming happens.

I've tried this too but the farthest you are probably going to get is NREM2 or 3. You can physically tell when your body falls asleep it feels like going down a 'level' or you'll feel a rush of energy which will then stay with you until the next rush. Those were my experiences with trying this, I'm pretty sure I haven't got past NREM2 without falling asleep, I did a WBTB one time and it worked perfectly just use these same techniques when you do it. You'll probably have one