I have sleep paralysis and aphantasia. I grew up having waking visual hallucinations, I have had out of body experiences, and over the last few years have been able to keep my conscious awareness into the dream state. The work I am doing with dreams is ongoing and once I can develop my techniques for keeping aware into the dream state I will be looking for researchers to discuss any interest.

Sisylarap Peels

Lie me down to end the day
And let it be the place I wake
But in between the greys are green
With eyes utopian symmetry
Directing Qi and Holy Spirit

I am between the lines
In all that is read
The swaying spaces between your breaths
Where nothing is dead

This place you return eternally
In between thoughts
Surrounding the words
The nothing uncovered from what was cropped
The only place that you can create
The invisible vessel before you wake

And when it gets late
And eyes dissipate
And hallucinate
I keep mine in space
And slide through the fake
That follows the wake
Dissolving atoms dodging shaking
Keeping focus
Entrances unravel
Starting at the birthplace of time

notes (June 2019)

For the last few years I have been working on my focus before I fall asleep. I have been using different exercises but in the last year I have been working mostly at holding onto the state right before sleep, prolonging it and staying conscious and aware instead of letting my mind wander off. A couple of weeks ago I successfully kept my conscious awareness directly into a lucid dream (which then promptly fell apart). I almost did it again last week so I'm hoping to improve my results. Basically in short form...I was able to keep my mind focused on its own awareness of itself through the state of sleepiness and not have a single thought distract me. After this I  was able to continue the awareness through the flashes of hallucinations that can happen as you drift off to sleep, they are usually something that grabs you emotionally so this is usually where people lose track of what is happening and where they are. Next is where it was uncharted territory for me; There was a split second of what I relate to as static, although not visual, almost like dissolving between atoms or something but like a flash. Then I was in a black void and for another split second I caught a glimpse of being surrounded by thousands of images that could grab my attention (beautiful person, scary figure, scenic area, etc...) I was able to understand immediately that I was now in a dream and immediately all the images were gone (they barely formed this all happened in a flash). Then I was standing in a room surrounded by doors, completely aware that I was previously lying in bed and the path I had taken to get where I was standing. Then I understood that whatever image would have grabbed me would have been the dream I would have entered but I was now able to enter any dream of my choice. That's when it fell apart because the first thing that I finally thought was so unlike anything I would have guessed that I got confused and immediately the lucidity fell apart. Was pretty psyched with being able to get that far though...I certainly wasn't attempting to do anything like that so this was a pleasant surprise for me:)

The majority of my memories from childhood are memories of my dreams. I have sleep paralysis and when I was very young I would also experience waking visual and auditory hallucinations.
One of my very first memories is of a recurring dream: I was being chased (he wasn't chasing me as much as I was running away) up some stairs by a ventriloquist dummy that is rhythmically chanting "CHURCH". I learned over many dreams that he never caught up to me and decided I would burn him with fire: which I did, never having the dream again.
I now see the important lesson that was given to me at a very early age.