Yeah, for some people the cost is just too high. I used to enjoy regular lucid dreams—I’m always dream-aware—but it’s not worth it to deal with fatigue and sleep paralysis.

I regularly have episodes of sleep paralysis anyway, almost any time I sleep on my back. The kind with terror, hallucinations, coming out of it bellowing and attacking things that aren’t there, the whole bit. So unfortunately lucid dreaming isn’t for me.

It’s all kinds of fun though, and I miss it. :(

>> "One of the side effects was sleep paralysis"

That's interesting. For me lucid dreaming is more a side effect of sleep paralysis. I usually realise I am dreaming when I experience the symptoms of sleep paralysis and am then able to continue the dream (aware that it is a dream).

I would be lucid in a dream and want to wake up. I would force myself out of the dream. Then, I would experience sleep paralysis. Usually, the best option was to fall back asleep.

Have you ever opened your eyes during a sleep paralysis incident? I did it once and what happened was so scary that I always close my eyes and let it pass from then on.

Hallucinations? The origins of the "demonic attack" myth of sleep paralysis?

I cannot describe how awful it is. In an episode of sleep paralysis, I have been genuinely convinced that the darkest abominations of my imagination are real, present, and about to do unspeakable horrors to me or my sleep partner. The worst thing is that you feel that ordinary people simply cannot sense them, and you are powerless to do anything.

Let me tell you, it doesn’t help your fellow sleeper’s sense of security when you wake up screaming and trying to protect them from something they can’t see.