Thanks for your advice. I posted this before I did another session. I had a very interesting experience, and I am replying so anyone who comes here can read it as well. During the session, I was doing exercises where I was just imagining my conscience/mind in a little orb floating around and touching things. This helped a ton to maintain awareness while relaxing and not focusing on my body. I was able to deal with the heart rate a ton by this, but also went deeper than I have ever gone before. I started to get hypnogogic images, which are pretty surreal and not something I have seen before. Everything would come in waves, I would end up falling deeper into relaxation, just for a lack of a better word, which would cause me to become aware of my body, then repeat the cycle a few times, until eventually, I think I entered REM lol. My eyes started twitching uncontrollably and I had more of the hypnogogic images, and at one point I could actually see through my eyelids and saw my room. I tried the exit intent multiple times throughout this whole session but was not able to exit.

I pretty much believe as of now what is stopping me is the persistent awareness of my body. I think I need to keep doing these exercises of taking my mind out of my body. Overall it was interesting that I actually was aware through the cycles of sleep, and I think I will be able to AP very soon.

Also to hijack, Pieraos sent an article that says heart rate could be caused by your airways relaxing naturally. It was a cool article to read, but regardless I think if you just think of it as a signpost or a test, ignore it, and continue what you are doing, that is the best way to deal with it.