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From what I understand, the difference comes down to the proximity to the physical body and physical realm. Physicality is a bit like a turtle shell, and going out of shell creates certain vulnerabilities.
In lucid dreaming, a portion of the subtle body naturally detaches as it always does during sleep and hovers very close to the physical. And in that state, it then experiences an internal projection of the dream environment. I guess it’s like stepping onto the roof of your house to get a better neighborhood Wi-Fi signal to browse the internet with.
When I was lucid dreaming and then focused on my own self-awareness, I woke up into my astral body which was partially detached already. It wasn’t just changing dream states, but an actual awakening or exiting from the dream, just as if I had awakened into my physical body at the end of a sleep cycle. So I was in the room, but not in my body, though very close to it. At that point, I could employ the standard projection techniques, in this case swinging or rolling out, and I experienced the extreme tug, sluggishness, or gravity that people describe which lessens the further one gets away from one’s body. Also the loud noise, wind, and acceleration at times.
So this tells me that was a somewhat tangible experience rather than solely just a mental projection as a dream environment might be. I really was in some portion of my soul that was gaining distance from the physical body, and I could move around the bedroom with it. If I had been unable to get back into the physical body, it probably would have died in its sleep.
Someone I know did something stupid once. If I remember correctly, he called out to the shadow people and challenged them, saying he would fight them and kick their ass. Well, not long after, he and his girlfriend went to bed and that’s when the shadow beings came. He woke up to them pulling him out of body and dragging him away. He fought as hard as he could. Meanwhile, they were also dragging his girlfriend away but she was able to fight them off more easily and woke up. She tried waking him but he wasn’t responding, while from his perspective he was being pulled out the bedroom door by these beings at that time. After struggling some more, he broke free and returned to his body and finally woke up gasping. So lesson learned. His experience matched what his girlfriend experienced.
In a lucid dream, we can have all sorts of nightmares but not die from it or risk not waking up because it’s just an internal mental projection formed by the subconscious mind or soul turning archetypes and various psychic energies coming in, into 5-sense constructs. What happens during the astral state is similar in that the mind turns energy patterns and psychic data into 5-sense constructs, except those patterns are really external and occurring there in the environment. Thus if your soul is being pulled away, it’s being pulled away for real in that case.
I’ve known others who did a lot of astral projection and the effects reminded me of what happens to heavy LSD users, in that a part of them seems to get lost, and worse, something else takes its place. I can imagine it being like a cookie being repeatedly taken in and out of a jar, the crumbs come off every time and eventually it’s only half the cookie. Also, I think the willful intent to project far and wide, versus just the nightly thing where one remains close to the physical, can loosen up the bonds between soul and body a tad too much and like Velcro wearing out it just doesn’t stick well anymore, and so the person isn’t as grounded. And with a loosening of bonds, I think other entities have an easier time manipulating the person too.
So for all these reasons, I would say lucid dreaming is safer than astral projection. I suspect it’s possible within a lucid dream to psychically tap into an actual astral realm and experience without actually leaving your physical body too much, versus the typical astral projection state where you fly out and away. Like drugs, astral projection is all right a few times but heavy chronic use may have the above-mentioned side effects. Also, it depends on how targeted one is by negative forces, as to what the risks are. I myself wouldn’t do it because these forces are circling me 24/7 and I have to be careful about my defenses.
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