Dream within a dream combined with lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis... (my story)

Well this is a first for me-

I've suffered from both sleep paralysis and night terrors all of my life. The night terrors have significantly waned as I've grown older; they occur maybe once every nine months to a year. They used to emotionally affect me for hours after the event. Now, though, I've learned to cope with them and can usually resume sleep within a half-hour or so.

Sleep paralysis is a different story however. While the incidences have decreased in adulthood, they have maintained a frequency of about every other month. I've seen doctors about this and the answer is generally that it is something I'll just have to deal with. Like the night terrors, I've learned to cope. They don't leave me with a sense of dread or anything of the sort. They are more of a nuisance than anything else.





Last night was a different story.

For the first time in my life I had a dream within a dream. This wasn't some slight occurrence. This was dramatic. I had a nightmare; from which I "awoke." I actually went on for some time with the awareness of the first/inner dream. Acting as I would had I awoken from any dream. However, things got very weird and I soon realized that I was still asleep (lucid dreaming).

As is common with the lucid dream state, it ended quickly and I awoke from the second/outer dream. As if that wasn't enough (inception and lucid dreaming) I was in a full-blown bout of sleep paralysis. This lasted for probably only a couple of minutes. I was on my couch and had managed to get myself about three-quarters off of the couch with my chest and head still resting upon the seat before I finally fully awoke.

It took me a few minutes to process and comprehend what had just occurred. Such a myriad of conditions to attack at once was somewhat unsettling. I wasn't able to make myself go back to sleep and eventually hit up the local Starbucks at opening time.





The sleep paralysis is just a fact of life for me and I'm not concerned with that. The night terrors, though a bitch and certainly not fun, I've learned to accept. Lucid dreams are rare, fleeting, and can be interesting, so I'm not worried about that. I think I was most rattled by the dream within a dream. Not so much that it occurred, but by the realness of the second/outer dream.

I haven't sleep walked (slept walk? slept walked? ) in years, but the power of that dream had me wondering if I didn't really have a dream within a dream, but instead maybe I never fully awoke from the inner dream and was walking around functioning in a semi-awake state.

It was just odd and I was wondering how many of my OT brethren have suffered from these conditions? Have any of you had combinations such as my event last night?