I've experienced both lucid dreams and sleep paralysis. I didn't consider lucid dreams to be frightening (in fact, once you become aware that you're dreaming, you can change the direction of the dream - which is very empowering if you're experiencing recurrent dreams about a particular issue or theme in your life) but my sleep paralysis episodes are awful.It feels like some evil, malicious presence is trying to smother me. Like you, I wake up screaming - or actually, attempting to scream, because my vocal cords haven't entirely "woken up" yet.
I tend to have lucid dreams early in the morning if I have been woken up and then fall back asleep. It's similar in that it's often a dream within a dream, usually of being asleep in my bedroom and then waking up. By the time I DO actually wake up I'm often a bit confused about whether or not I'm truly awake or in yet another dream!
Fortunately, I don't experience sleep paralysis episodes very often. I don't think I'd want to go to sleep if I experienced those regularly. They do seem to be tied to stress.View Thread