Thanks for the thoughtful replies

Yes, I do find the meditation and breathing techniques help me to remain mindful during bodily sleep. At present the dreamworld is quite unstable and liable to spin and change if my awareness changes, but I'm delighted to be able to at least enter into it. Hopefully I'll keep breaking through and gain some more control.

One thing that astounds me reading journal entries here is the similarity of some experiences to my own - most notably entering a starscape at the point of entry. This scenario always seems to be my entry point...

I'll look into MILD right now