I used SPI or sleep-paralysis induction for self-aware dreaming in my initial learning curve because it worked and it naturally occurred when trying to stay aware during the process of falling asleep. You get used to it and the fear which is the only barrier because of the intensity of mind-awake/body-asleep goes away once you realize it's normal and natural, also expected if taking this approach to dreaming.

However, I learned to bypass it entirely with a different technique that I call sensory-replay construction which lets me build up the dream during the hypnagogic transition into the desired dream outcome. By having my attention on the actual emerging dream content and not my body I found myself moving into the dream content as awareness unaware of the body as it naturally fell asleep and never had sleep-paralysis since switching to it.

Plus it produced all my best artistic dreams so win win for me.