Thread: What happened?!? Is this Lucid Dreaming?

Hi! I had my first lasting lucid dream (I think?) today when I took a nap. But I'm sorta confused about some stuff, so I thought I'd post the story here and see if anyone could tell me anything... (I originally posted this on Reddit but didn't get any responses and I need answers haha)

So! I started off using WILD, ended up falling asleep entirely, had a little dream I don't fully remember, and woke up. I felt pretty unsatisfied when I woke up. Was awake for 5-ish minutes, fell back into another regular dream which was pretty vivid, and then woke up again. This time I was like, okay, I'm awake now.
But, I decided to try to fall asleep again, and this time I tried to FILD. I wasn't expecting it to work. Now, I'm not totally sure if I made the decision to FILD while I was fully conscious and things are slightly fuzzy so I'm not sure /exactly/ what happened.
Anyway, I remember FILD'ing for a while. I think I was counting my breaths and got frustrated. Then, I heard my parents in the hallway and got even more frustrated but decided to focus on their conversation. I realized they were having some weeeeird conversation about elephants. It was then that I realized I couldn't move. I felt fully conscious but I couldn't move. I'm prettyyy sure I had gone into sleep paralysis, but not 100% because it's never happened to me before. I remember feeling this INTENSE vibrating across my body and I kept my eyes shut (I also remember trying to pray or something but couldn't speak. My breathing also got very restricted. It felt like the world was collapsing on me. There were no hallucinations though??)
Anyway! All of a sudden, it stopped, and I felt this suuuper strange almost like release. I did a dream check (put my hand to my nose, tried to breathe) and realized I was asleep. Which was crazy to me because, before doing the dream check, I was like "there's no way I'm dreaming. I can feel everything".
I was still in the bed though. So, I pulled myself up (it felt so weird. I felt very light but felt some strange pull back towards where my body actually was) and tried to look around BUT I COULDN'T KEEP MY EYES OPEN. It was extremely frustrating. My eyes slipped shut and I found myself back in my sleeping position and was like, "Great, I'm awake" but I wasn't. So I pulled myself up again, tried to keep my eyes open, and they slipped shut, back to start. This happened a couple times, one time I fell out of bed on to the floor, couldn't stand, and felt like I was sinking (but then my eyes closed). I remember wondering if I'd ever be able to wake up. On my last attempt, I walked towards the my bedroom door, but everything outside of it was extremely dark. This time I tried to pry my eyes open with my hands and saw the corner of my pillowcase??? (I was lying on my side, so maybe I was trying to open my eyes in real life and what I saw translated to my dreams??).
Anyway, does this sound like a lucid dream?? I had a similar experience with FILD in the middle of the night before, but it was very short and I woke up as soon as I realized I was dreaming. (I started in my bed in that situation as well)


Also, I have that can't open my eyes, squinting thing happen in regular dreams. Does this happen to anyone else when they're lucid dreaming??? Is there a way to fix it?? Also, my dream felt very unstable. Is there a way to increase stability in lucid dreams.

Thanks!!