It seems like lucid dreaming is an important part for many, like a gateway, but it is unclear to me whether they are describing an extended lucid dream where they go to a separate reality in the dream (a lot of Harry potter based realities apparently) and their physical body is just sleeping.

Some say they have shifted for years and then woken up a day later. Some describe a "clone" of themselves doing all the things they would do, while they themselves are living in a separate reality.

It all seems very idiosyncratic from person to person.

Edit: even the clones part is unclear.

Clones are really just parallel realitys.

When everyone thinks of clones they think of them in this reality being life an empty shell and obeying their commands of their script after they shift to their Dr.

What are clones actually? -The reality of it is, clones don't exist. When you script that your clone will clean your room while you are gone, you are essentially scripting that you'll come back to a parallel reality in which you cleaned your room.

Whatever you script your "clone" to do, you're simply scripting to shift back to a reality in which you did that, not changing or altering what you're going to do in this specific reality once you shift. You would not be coming back to the same reality.

You can not control realitys or specific people in realities while you're not even there, so I don't know where the misconception of clones came in at.

TLDR; clones aren't real, you're shifting to parallel realities.