Bodily awareness and SP during dreams

the Stuff Dreams are made of...
1

I had a nap with the intention of having a lucid dream. During the last few minutes of my nap I apparently went semi-lucid, I became aware of my sleeping body. I could tell I was lying on my back with my hands on my navel. To confirm this, I moved my thumbs, albeit very slowly. My awareness kept shifting between extremely short dreams and my body, until a particularly vivid dream caught my attention. I still didn’t become lucid, but the dream recall was better than usual. BTW, when I woke up I was indeed lying on my back.

So, could anyone tell me what happened here? For example, why didn’t I have sleep paralysis, and why didn’t I become fully lucid? Are dreams normally this short in 1-2 hour naps, or did my awareness end them prematurely?

2

Perhaps those short dreams were hypnogogic dreamlets. Like, you were in the process of falling asleep, explaining the body awareness.
Sleep paralysis does not need to be complete, only complete enough to ensure you don’t go off on “adventures”. Moving your fingers is not dangerous, in fact, I have heard of people signaling from lucid dreams using their fingers. Remember it’s a product of evolution, you only have to be paralysed enough to survive and the genes will live on.