Lucid dream = awareness of sleep paralysis?

[Afterdreams]

Hi, I want to post about my lucid dream experience and hopefully get some feedback about what happened. After working with auto-suggestion, dream signs, dream recall, and rehersing/daydreaming, I had my first lucid dream of the year... sort of. I was absolutely shocked by what happened, because I thought my first lucid dream would occur within a dream environment, like all the ones I've read. Here's the part of the dream where I became lucid: [Before this, the guy and I were in another "scene" of the dream. We literally "ran to and fell" into this scene.] I’m in the water, trying to pull myself onto the roof of a bus. I notice the scene around me is colored a dark orange (a dream sign of mine). I say to the guy, "Did you notice we changed scenes?" I look off into the direction where the dream "changed scenes," and this causes me to shout (in my head) that "I'm dreaming!" But immediately everything turns black. I'm aware of myself thinking about what just happened, and I wonder whether I'm dreaming or daydreaming. I decide to try and recall the dream scene, but nothing happens. Then I hear a voice say, "Spin! Do something before it fades!" I imagine myself spinning, but the scene still remains black, and I grow frustrated. Then I become aware of my body in bed. I gasp and force myself to take a breath, as though I've been holding it. I can feel my right arm stretching out at an angle towards my feet (like I’m reaching for something). Then I feel that my right leg is slightly raised too, and my foot/ankle is tensed as a result. I try a few more times to recover the dream, but my mind is distracted by my leg, which is straining to stay up (I have no control over it). I decide this is way too weird and wake myself up.

[Robot_Butler]

I get that disorientation a lot too. Especially after waking directly from a lucid dream, or trying to reenter a dream scene. Just this weekend I was sleeping on my stomach and I started to feel my body bend in half backwards at my waist. Sometimes I will feel like I am unable to move one of my arms. I remember one time I felt myself back in bed, and felt my wing twitching like it was flapping. Since when do I have wings? Its not necessarily sleep paralysis. Its more of a false body image, or a dream/body overlap. You are still dreaming, but you are dreaming yourself in bed with your dream body doing strange things. Is that what it was like?

[Afterdreams]

I get that disorientation a lot too. Especially after waking directly from a lucid dream, or trying to reenter a dream scene. Just this weekend I was sleeping on my stomach and I started to feel my body bend in half backwards at my waist. Sometimes I will feel like I am unable to move one of my arms. I remember one time I felt myself back in bed, and felt my wing twitching like it was flapping. Since when do I have wings? Its not necessarily sleep paralysis. Its more of a false body image, or a dream/body overlap. You are still dreaming, but you are dreaming yourself in bed with your dream body doing strange things. Is that what it was like? Hey Robot_Butler, What you're describing, the dream/body overlap, does sound like what happened to me. Maybe I only "thought" I felt my body stretching out... I honestly don't know... I did feel very disoriented when I woke up. I've had a vivid false awakening before, but I convinced myself to fall back asleep because I thought it was "too weird." When you have this kind of thing happen to you, are you able to re-enter the dream environment, or are you forced to wake yourself up? If this happens again, I don't want to react by waking up... but I'm not sure what to do. Maybe I can try to "get up" out of my bed and see where that leads.

[Robot_Butler]

I can normally get back into the dream despite it. I find I have to distract myself from it. When I feel it start to happen, I will try to imagine my body moving through space, running, floating, bouncing, falling, ect. That will normally give my brain a new body position to lock onto, and ditch the old distorted one. But sometimes, its just too bizarre or uncomfortable.