I'm new here, so I thought I'd share a story about an experience I had (hey, it's the closest I've come to anything like a lucid dream, haha). I've developed a consistent case of sleep paralysis during the last two years, almost certainly due to my job as a night auditor at a hotel. Between working full time and going to school, my sleeping schedule is pretty much crap. My first few SP experiences freaked me out (and still do sometimes), but after I researched them, I found it to be pretty interesting. Now they occur probably twice a month.

But I always wondered how an outside factor would affect the experience. Until just recently, I've always had SP occur at home, when I'm alone. Well, like I said, I work at a hotel, during the night shift. Although I've been doing it for two years and have pretty much gotten used to the schedule, there are still nights when I can't help but recline back and take a quick nap. I usually put a bell up at the front so if that if anyone needs me, I'll wake up when they ring it.

So the other night, I dozed off while watching the security camera. I'm not sure how much time passed, but I heard the bell ring and woke up to go to the front. The only problem was, I couldn't get up. My eyes opened and I could see a couple people standing at the front desk through the security camera monitor. Even with the bell ringing and a sense of KNOWING that I needed to get up to help them, I still couldn't move! Usually during SP I have a sense of fear that I'll never be able to move again, but this time it was more or less aggitation that I was probably going to be bitched out by these guests, haha. I don't think the episode lasted more than a minute, and I was finally able to get up and tend to the guests.

But anyway, that incident just really freaked me out and I just felt like sharing.

Ok, so on to a question: I've heard that you can use SP to induce a LD. Is that true? And if so, is there any process? The unfortunate part about SP is that you're usually so determined to move that you don't consider the alternative of going back to sleep (and possibly more).