What is happening exactly? Spinning void + pleasant sensation

Posting this here first. I do believe in the banned-on-this-sub topic and don’t want to rule it out, but I’m more interested in the physiological and psychological aspects right now. I’d like to understand it better.

Background: I’ve had sleep paralysis episodes for about two decades now. At first they were your normal, everyday terrifying ones where I’d wake up in my bedroom and be terrified by visual hallucinations until it ended. This is what got me interested in lucid dreaming and other things, but the methods everyone talked about never worked for me and I gave up. It’s been a hard but naturally progressive learning journey for me, largely intuitive, and I’d kind of given up on the idea of ever lucid dreaming until recently.

Over time, I stopped being afraid of the visual hallucinations and they became auditory and physical ones instead. Eventually I stopped being afraid of those too, and I learned to just… be patient. I’d see a shadow figure or hear something, think “you’re not real”, then redirect my attention. Maybe this conditioning and learning to think through my episodes is what opened the doorway to lucidity, idk.

After that happening for a while, my episodes shifted again. I began waking up in dream bedrooms instead of my irl one. I’d be lucid, consciously thinking, but still stuck in SP. I also started falling into several SP episodes, back to back, with false awakenings. It was like some Inception type stuff. I’d wake up in a dream in SP, then “wake up”, then “fall asleep” back into SP.

Over time I began to recognize when it was about to happen, because I’d wake up in real life and notice that really heavy, intense buzzing sensation in my body. Usually happened too quickly to stop it, and eventually I didn’t want to. I just let it happen.

My episodes recently shifted again, like massively. It happened completely on accident, but I was basically in a lucid dream with SP as usual. This time, I was just staring as opposed to looking around, and all of a sudden the dream began swirling in on itself and I was looking into this void space. It freaked me out and I woke up right before I fell in.

Same deal when it happened again, except this time I was able to stay with it since it wasn’t “new”. I entered the void space, and that feeling of heaviness went away completely. I had the most blissful feeling I’ve ever felt in my body and soul. I just felt… light and free, idk how to describe it. Before I could even process what was happening, I was flying around a starry night sky with these purple and pink crystal structures below me, and what looked like portals. I didn’t enter any of them. I don’t get flying dreams often and they’re my favorite, so I just enjoyed flying around for a bit. It was over too quickly.

It happened again last night, and I was fully expecting to end up flying around the same place. I was intending to explore it more thoroughly. However, the void opened up instead to reveal a very bright and beautiful sunny sky. I don’t remember getting to explore. No flying this time either. It’s possible I just don’t remember doing it, but I think I was so surprised by the unexpected change in scenery that it ended super quickly.

I hope this wasn’t too long, and if you read all the way through I appreciate you. I would love to hear some insights on what might be happening. I’m interested in the most recent developments, but I’m more interested in the way this process has unfolded for me in general over the years.

So here are my questions:

1. What is this new thing I’m experiencing, and what is the next level to it? This seems to be unfolding in little baby steps, and I suspect I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what I can experience. So… what comes next? I don’t want to be caught off guard and throw myself out of it.

2. How can I stay longer in these places? I don’t seem to have control over where I end up, but so far, they’ve been pleasant and beautiful.

3. What’s the physiological and psychological aspects of this? Why is it happening in “levels”, so to speak? And why did it take so long (15+ years) for me to enter a lucid state?

4. Is it possible to enter a lucid state from within another lucid state? Anyone else have experience with being in SP during a lucid dream?

Thanks again if you made it this far! Appreciate any insights people might have.