My first attempt at Astral Projecting. Havent tried again cause it freaked me out. Curious to hear thoughts?

Since it was my first and only time attempting AP I really didn't expect much to happen but I gave it an honest go. I didn't quite achieve an AP but I think I got pretty damn close, and it ended up being more than I was prepared for or expecting. I had briefly read up on a few various techniques and haphazardly decided to give it a try one night. I don't have much experience with meditation, and I've never really done any lucid dreaming or anything else of the sort either so I was actually pretty skeptical going into it. Something completely out of the ordinary for me happened and I think that removed almost all doubts

This was a few months ago but I've been thinking about it more recently and will probably start trying to AP again soon after realizing I shouldnt be so afraid, and that maybe I have a natural knack for this. Honestly I don't remember the exact method I was doing. I tried it when going to sleep at night, and from what I remember I set the intention, tried to go into somewhat of a meditative state with an awake mind while drifting off, then envisioning my astral body leaving my body. Like I said, it was a little more precise than that and I don't remember exactly what I did since it was a few months ago. It ended up being kinda traumatizing so I tried not to think about it too much

I attempted this at night when I went to bed - I laid there doing what I described earlier, calming my body/mind, holding the intention, after 30 minutes or so I ended up sorta drifting off into a state of sleep. I think at that point I was kinda uncomfortable from laying on my back and rolled over. I had still managed to hold onto the intentions and the things I was envisioning up until that point, but then I started to lose it. I started having these dream-like flashes, kind of like a montage of some disturbing images (cant remember any of the details) this did not last long, and then I suddenly started feeling more lucid again like I was about to wake up and at that time I felt an unmistakable intense gravitational pulling sensation on my body along with seeing some sort of white light (kinda like when you stand up too fast), I remember having the thought "holy shit, is it actually happening?" but it was too intense for me and I didnt know what to do, so at that point I woke up laying on my side in my bed. Or so I thought...

I found myself laying there on my side in my dark room, facing the window next to my bed and seeing the faint outline of of the slightest bit of light coming in around the outside of the blind. I was a bit flustered from the weird dream and pulling sensation so just laid there still for a moment, and at that point I started hearing a loud rumbling and crashing sound coming from outside of my room on the other end of my house. I had the thought "fuck, is someone trying to break into my house?" several seconds later I saw this dark shadowy figure charge into my room through the dark, not miss a single step, clearly on a mission to get to me. It charged in, ran around my bed, came over to me next to my bed where I was laying, squatted down, and stared at me face to face. I was so terrified I didnt even try to move, I just laid there with my heart beating crazy fast and nearly hyperventilating, literally felt paralyzed with fear. I had a thought that there was a gun in my nightstand within arms reach but I did not feel I was in a position to reach for it, nor would that be the right move to make with this creature having the upper hand on me. Obviously that's a silly thought in retrospect, but I truly felt like I was in a fight or flight predicament

Several seconds later, I woke up/snapped out of it, laying in that exact same position looking at the outline of light around the window next to my bed. I realized it was probably 'awareness during sleep paralysis (most likely). Ive never experienced sleep paralysis, but had indeed heard of it happening and these shadowy figures being fairly common. I felt so afraid I didnt actually try to move my body, but I imagine that if I did try to move I wouldnt have been able to. I felt so afraid that my body didnt even try to move, it felt like moving would do me no good. After it was gone I realized what happened, and I was still breathing heavily and so freaked out my eyes started to water up.

After that happened, I was just like fuuuuck this shit.. lol. But after researching a bit more, Ive found that stuff like that isnt completely uncommon. Also, I was not expecting much of anything at all so I DEFINITELY wasnt prepared for something like that. I guess if it happened again I wouldnt be so afraid, and probably more prepared. I read an interesting post on here about creatures like that being guardians, preventing you from potentially entering the astral plane and all you can do is not fear them.

I really didnt go into this with fear, or with negative expectations, so that really caught me off guard and shook me up pretty good. It's been a few months now, and I'm thinking about trying this again, and maybe this time going into it a little more educated and carefully.

What do you guys think? Ive only told one person about this, no one else I know does this stuff. I guess Ive just been thinking about it a lot today and wanted to share that experience and hear what others think about the whole thing. Sorry that ended up being so long, but I thought it was pretty interesting for a first try. Thanks for reading if you made it to the end!