I think you're absolutely right that "the dream imagery comes from the dream mind interpreting the activities of the projected double as it tries to leave the physical body." But this might only be for part of our dreaming.
I can certainly relate some of my experiences to what you're saying and have been considering the possibility for some time. In one dream last year I was an angel. I was flying over an old fashioned town with steeples, giving my kids a ride and a friend a lift - all was bliss. Then it changed, my family andI walked up an incline and were accosted under a bridge* by two bandits, one of whom took me hostage. (There was also a kind blonde woman walking by who smiled at me and, whom I presumed was also taken hostage- she reappeared in subsequent dreams as different kinds of guides). Then, all was completely black, I was gagged and in a coffin or trunk. I couldn't move (and if I have any phobic tendency then it's towards claustrophobia) and I was in an absolute panic. I started screaming in my throat. That's when I became aware I was dreaming and it took all my will to break out of sleep paralysis. (I was only just beginning to read about AP at the time and didn't really know much about such things).
Another time I fell asleep while trying to AP. I felt myself drifting right before I nodded off. I dreamt I was walking my dog and, after a while, for some reason I closed my eyes. Then I wandered off towards the left and hit a fence which made me wake up. I'm sure the fence was my physical body.
Obviously, there's also a lot of symbolic meaning in such dreams and to agree with your statement isn't to deny this.
What I find myself thinking about today is where are we and what are we doing when we're just asleep and not dreaming.
*I subsequently read somewhere on the link between liminal places (like doorways, bridges or the edge of a dark forest and a well lit cleared space or any other threshhold) and AP.
"A dream is a question, not an answer."
(Therapist and dreamworker Strephon Kaplan
Williams)
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