The experience of waking up in the castle sounds like it was probably an OBE but you weren’t consciously aware enough to realize it, especially when you’re not used to having them and recognizing the different states of awareness you can be in.  The only way to know is to get more experience with OBEs and all the different levels of consciousness you can be in.

I think some OBEs and lucid dreams can get crossed with each other. Like, you could be dreaming, then start to become conscious, and it doesn’t make sense that the dream is still happening since it feels like you’re waking up. Except you’re not waking up into the physical waking world, you’re waking up in a dream world. That’s where I think there is a fine line sometimes between these two states.

When I was younger teens, 20s, and 30s, I often had what I called “conscious dreams”. All I knew for sure was, they were real but not physically real. I was consciously aware in them. They didn’t seem just like normal dreams. They always had such meaning. It was dreams like this which usually involved me meeting one of my spirit guides, or where I would receive help and guidance from them. So while these experiences weren’t real compared to physical reality, they were still real experiences. And they felt every bit as physical as physical reality.

About seeing people in your room, it reminded me that I’ve had some experiences like that too. One I can remember off the top of my head was that I woke up in bed (or so I thought I was actually waking up) and saw that there was a woman standing at the foot of my bed. She wore a long old-fashioned black dress and a black bonnet. She took a blanket that I kept at the end of my bed, and she laid it over me. I remember feeling surprised but I don’t remember going back to sleep. It wasn’t until I woke up in the morning that I realized it was a very weird experience. The blanket was still covering me. When I had awoken to see her, I was still lying in bed. I didn’t move or sit up or anything. In order for me to pull the blanket up over myself, I would have had to sit up and then reach down to the end of the bed to grab it and pull it over me. So I don’t know if that was real or not, but it sure seemed real.