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The original was posted on /r/luciddreaming by /u/Ppower7788 on 2023-09-24 19:02:53.

Since the mid 80’s I’ve had involuntary sleep paralysis on average about two times a week since I was 5. I’ve experienced about every terrifying thing one can while in this state over the years. Back then I didn’t even have a name for it and anyone I described it to just thought I was crazy (including my doctor who sent me to a unsurprisingly unhelpful psychiatrist) For the first 25 years anytime I found myself in this state my number one goal was to wake myself out of it since it often turned very dark or if I panicked I could get stuck in one and wake up with a killer headache and pain behind my eyes. People who had witnessed me having a sleep paralysis have told me sometimes my eyes were open or rolled back during it and I’d be making noises. I became an expert in techniques related mostly to the few muscles I could voluntarily control in this state, (namely my breathing) that could eventually allow me the ability to wake myself instantly at will 98% of the time. My theory being if I hyperventilate myself I’d be more likely to wake myself. Seems to work. That level of control finally calmed me a bit and made things slightly less claustrophobic and terrifying.

Finally well into my 30’s I would stop being so damn scared and started to experiment with embracing the state rather than deliberately waking from it and actively tried to face my fears and remain there paralyzed and relaxed as long as possible. What began happening next was each time I’d be faced with a blurry translucent wobbly liquid glass wall and I’d begin to focus on fairly mundane settings. A shopping centre. A beach. Things of this nature. Sometimes I’d break through the wall and boom…wow. I was actually in these bright places I had focussed on, full of sound and colour; experiencing them with a clarity that oddly felt even more real than reality. Sometimes I wouldn’t get through the wall without waking. For example if I was imagining a beach I could hear the waves, children playing, seagulls and see the blurry glimpse of water and sand just beyond the ethereal thick wobbly glass wall. It’s all still just so fascinating to me that my brain can create this stuff. So I guess to my question, is it common for people to only be able to experience lucid dreaming like this starting out with a sleep paralysis state and how can I keep my anxiety from turning almost all of these experiences eventually into something dark or terrifying and/or not wake up so quickly?