Templum, in some ways your experiences sound similar to my own, although I eventually learned to use my HSP as a gateway to LD (although I didn’t know it was called that at the time). It seems like, having had a chance to browse through some of the threads here, that someone with some bad SP experience like myself might serve as a useful lesson for some of the younger folks who’re scared of it.
My first HSP experiences started when I was very young (maybe 8-9 year old?). The first one I recall was during a really bad extended fever, and I’ve always thought of that moment as a “tipping point” for me with respect to HSP. I heard a droning sound like a swarm of bees were surrounding me. I felt pressure on my chest and blackness closing. My body was totally paralyzed. I thought I was going to die, and as an atheist (even as a small child) that was an incredibly scary thought – no heaven for me! I only finally managed to wake myself up by trying to slooooowly drag one limb off the bed to touch myself on the face. The weird thing is that when I finally woke, my real limb was still lying still, although my mental struggle caused me to jerk my arm when I woke.
From this point on, I can remember having very frequent HSP experiences, probably once a week for years on end. And they got progressively worse as I got older. By the time I was in my early teens, I was having what I now know as “old hag” HI… a being of pure shadow (wearing a long-brimmed hat! ) would appear at the foot of my bed, extend his hand, and “magically” crush me in my bed. Not having a particularly fantastic relationship with my parents at the time, I unfortunately kept this under wraps for years and thought I was either going crazy or… just maybe… there really was something coming to me in the night.
It wasn’t until early college that I had my first lucid dream. The shadowy stranger was visiting, and he was doing his new, utterly terrifying, “levitate me out of the bed” routine. And just that once I managed to resist him, having some idea that this was only a dream state. I floated back and up, away from the shadowy figure, passing through a vertical mirror of water… and into mid air, floating above my adopted city. After I finally woke up (having experienced flight on my first LD!) I decided to do some research on the topic of dreams and the neuroscience & psychology behind them, and realized what I’d been experiencing all those years.
So for those of you who are a little scared of experiencing HSP as part of your path towards LD, look at it this way: you already know that any HI you experience as part of SP isn’t real! You also have an entire community of people here that you can talk to online about your experiences good or bad! I never had this, back in the pre-intarwebs days! [size=75](Geez that makes me feel old.)[/size] You have an enormous advantage! Go fearlessly!