My dream-self was trying to astral project? What happened?

[Nova77]

I'm new here and I need to talk about the dream/experience I just had, but there's no one I can tell in real life, so here I am, trying to get some answers and I guess, some reassurance that I'm not alone.

I think my dream-self just had some sort of beginning of an astral projection... Is that even possible? I don't know how to explain it really, but I'll try my best, because I need to know if someone else has had similar experiences.

First, I guess I should explain, that by "dream-self", I mean the me that I am when I am dreaming, which is worlds apart from who I am when I am awake. I don't even know if this is the same for everyone, but for me when I am dreaming, it's like I'm someone else entirely, even though I still experience it as me in some way, just not "real-me". Does that make sense? Is it that way for everyone?

I've been having trouble sleeping lately and I have been going to bed later and later at night, not being able to fall asleep until around 4 a.m and it was the same last night. I woke up around 10 a.m and then I just went back to sleep again and I was sleeping on my stomach at that point. So then I was dreaming and my dream-self was in the bathroom in her apartment (but not the same as my own apartment or bathroom - completely different layout) and as she (I'll use she for my dream-self) was walking out into the hallway and into the livingroom there was this creepy feeling of someone/something else behind her and then immediately it is in front of her and there's this feeling of fear/of something unreal and scary and like she's being pulled back and away from herself. Then she's on her stomach on the bed and there's this intense rumbling and shaking and the feeling of something pushing her down and like lightning going through her body and she sees these images (but her eyes are closed) of her... sort of skeleton flashing in and out of her body in this extremely creepy way (I can't stress this enough: it's like nothing I've ever experienced before, dreaming or otherwise) and the imagery is in some sort of grainy black and white "flashes" of the skeleton and she sees herself "rumbling" in and out of her body in this shaking motion (this is beyond difficult to describe using just words, I wish I could show this on a screen or something just to properly convey how terryfying and otherworldly it was) and then I remember my dream-self thinking "this has to be an astral projection" so she started to say really loudly "I AM OUT OF MY BODY!" (I imagine my subconscious remembered this being something one should say when attempting astral projection, because I've read it in one of the books on astral travel) so she says this 3 or 4 times as the noises and the rumblings and the flashes of imagery kept going and then I just woke up instead. And I was in the same position (on my stomach, turned to the left) as I was in the dream but when I woke up I felt calm and I didn't have that terrified feeling that I had in the dream at all. The whole imagery flashing skeleton grainy thing didn't FEEL like a dream at all, though, and that's what scares me the most.

I should mention, too, that I sleep with earplugs, so I can't be sure if some of the loud rumblings and loudness were just distortions from my ears being covered, but... I don't know? For those of you who have experienced astral projection; exactly how loud can the noises and rumblings be before you exit the body? But the thing that also make me think maybe it was a really horrible nightmare, is that I was on my stomach. Don't most projections happen when you're on your back?

Also, from everything I've read about astral projection it is very much YOU yourself that is there -on the astral plane - seeing and controlling and experiencing the environment. What happened in the dream definitely happened to dream-me and not real-me, so that does give me hope that it wasn't a real try at astral projection. Because if THIS is what my projections would be like, I never want it to happen again! But at the same time I do still want to astral project! Just not in this horrifying, nightmarish way.

I should also say that I have had one lucid dream before, but it was nothing like this. In that lucid dream, I (myself as I am when I'm awake) was actually aware and able to move around in that environment (I was in my maternal grandparents' kitchen) completely at my own will (amazing feeling) but it only lasted for about 20-30 seconds before I woke up. I know it was lucid dreaming because it really was me-me and not dream-me and it was a wonderful experience (the little there was of it). The experience I had now was nothing like the lucid dreaming, because here it was definitely dream-me and not real-me, but the imagery and the noises and all of that were so different that I just don't understand what happened! In a way, it was like I was dreaming someone else's nightmare because it was so, so very different and disturbing.
 
I have also had dreams before where I've had the feeling of "waking up" in the dream over and over again - like I'm falling back into my body and trying to wake up for real but not being able too - but those have also been all dream-me. Plus, I have had the paralysis thing + some sort of vibrational state happen a couple of times just before going to sleep too, but then I manage to break out of it and then I just go to sleep.

If you've read all of this, thank you, and I hope that someone can offer some insights and reassurance/encouragement and perhaps some of your own experiences? Did anyone else have something similar happen to you in your dreams when you first started thinking about wanting to astral project?