Thread: Greetings and a question

Hello everyone, my name is Francium. I am glad to finally join this community and cannot wait to meet you all.

A little bit about myself. Nearly 2 years ago, I began my first dream journal after learning about lucid dreams. I did not put much effort in trying to learn to lucid dream at that point, but I continued to record dreams every few weeks whenever I could remember them. Over the year, there were months that I was doing very well with dream recall, then other times when I didn't write anything for months. But I never stopped thinking about dreaming; it was always in the back of mind. A few weeks ago, I had an epiphany that I really love dreams, to the point that I might want to study them for a living. So I decided then and there that I would not let school or anything else get in the way of me learning everything I can about dreams and more importantly how to lucid dream.

I spent a lot of time on this site and others reading about the different techniques again (and reread Robert Waggoner's incredible book about lucid dreaming). Since then, I have been practicing MILD every night while performing reality checks throughout the day. I have been wanting to join this community for awhile, but had not gotten around to it yet. There is a particular reason why I joined today though: I had my first lucid dream last night !

I was only semi-lucid at first during my dream; I acknowledged to myself that it was a dream, but I did not have full control of my body. Part of the problem was that I thought that I had fallen asleep at school (where the dream was taking place), not in my bed. At some point, the dream seemed to start to collapse. I had the sensation of both standing and laying down at the same time. I think it hit me at this point that my physical body was in my bed. I then attempted to stabilize the dream by looking at my hands, but I found I could not move. My vision seemed to be changing back and forth from the faded dream to blackness (the backs of my eyelids). I tried to breath deeply, but each time I began to, I felt this electrical sensation in the top part of my back, and heard this electrical sound. Eventually the dream fully ended and I found myself in my bed. It did not occur to me until after I woke up that I was probably experiencing sleep paralysis.
Which brings me to my question: Is it normal for a lucid dream to collapse like that, halfway in the dream, halfway in sleep paralysis? I had the feeling that it would be more of a sudden, quick transition to being awake. Also, is there anything I can do to stabilize the dream at that point if I cannot move?

Thanks !