What Is It And What May Be Next?

I'm new here but have had dream issues for 50 plus years starting with nightmares I've not been able to wake up from, to thinking or knowing I was awake and physically being assaulted from invisible and also shadow type figures of which the only way to escape is to control my fear and relax which makes me think I am really asleep after all.

Over the last several years things have changed in that I've woken suddenly to see an older woman laying next to me on the bed but floating about 6 inches above the mattress. Often the figure is but not always a female and never the same one standing over my bed or in the doorway. Sometimes It's a figure I can't identify as a person but they almost all appear to be reaching toward me and recently they've been solid bright colors of blue, red and green, almost glowing.

It can happened twice a night and sometime several nights in a row. What these issues all have in common is that I feel I woke up first and instantly viewed it before it vanishes however so quickly, so I think I wake up to it not the other way around where I'm dreaming and the vision wakes me.

I've practiced Astral Projection in the past but not for a couple of years and these issues have been going on long before I started trying that. Astral Projection and OBE by the way are enlightening in that I feel I can fly and walk through walls like I'm crossing through a of membrane that stretches to let me out. I've also read you often tend to eat during these times which I often do. (Maybe that explains those few extra pounds lol)

I guess my question is what am I experiencing and given the pattern is changing what should I look for next? It sure makes getting a good night's sleep a thing of the past.