My First Conscious Out Of Body - With Assistance?

This story is going to be a little disjointed I fear, as the dream and following states I was in are a little disjointed. I am posting this for anyone who has had a similar experience to discuss or to give advice, towards the end I've asked a couple of questions.

This morning I had a lucid dream about 6am that I woke from, very simple lucid dream, I was on a soccer field alone and realized I was dreaming so I kicked the ball and mentally directed it into the top right hand corner of the goal. A friend arrived and distracted me and I lost lucidity (thanks for that Steve).

A short while after I woke up and could feel the vibrations, which anyone familiar with sleep paralysis will be aware of, sometimes they scare me, other times they don't, which means I am getting better as they used to all scare the hell out of me.

Having read Robert Monroe's 'Journey's out of the body' I decided to try and 'roll out'. I was able to move my 'astral' arms and reach over and touch the floor initially. After a while I was able to fully roll out and was in a 'press up position' on the floor. All the time knowing that my body was up on the bed. I concentrated and floated up to the ceiling, then I felt anxious and automatically moved back into my body. It felt similar to when you get a fright in a dream and are shot back into your body, except in slow motion, I calmly floated back into my body.

Now the trouble was, throughout this whole experience, I could not see anything. The floor and ceiling were where I perceived them to be, but whenever I tried to open what I will call my 'astral eyes', my eyes started to open on my physical body, like it was waking my body up.

Question 1: Has anyone experienced such a thing and if so, how did you get around this? Any tips on how can I open my eyes and see what's around me when in this state?

Finally, now I am not sure if this occurred before or after I managed to 'roll out' of my body', but I felt a presence, 2 or 3 other beings in the room that seemed to be involved in the vibration process I think and it felt like they were trying to assist me in getting out of my body. There was a being I perceived as female, dark hair wearing a gray and black striped top, that is all I recall, no facial features just her presence. A short time after they had appeared to have left, a I started to get a little scared during the vibrations and asked for her to return, which she did, and she said to me in what seemed a rather jocular tone, "I do this about 30 times a week!".

Now it did seem in good spirit and like she has something to do with my being in these other states, assuming when I am asleep and unaware what is going on, seeing as lucid dreaming accounts for about 0.001% of my total dreaming life.

So Question 2: Has anyone had any similar interactions with entities when trying to get out of their bodies?

Sorry for this being a bit long winded.

Cheers,

Andy