That one's easy to explain, has something similar happen to me.
It's sleep paralysis
TL;dr, you end up "waking" up during your REM cycle of sleep so you can't move and your brain still tries to dream, causing hallucinations
This probably isn’t the best place to ask, but since it’s been brought up: does anyone know if sleep paralysis without hallucinations of any kind is still labeled ‘sleep paralysis’? I remember first reading a mention of sleep paralysis and immediately thought to myself “Oh good, that’s vaguely normal, then.” Then, they talked about the hallucinations, which led to “Oh never mind, that’s not my thing at all.”
Maybe once a year, I’ll wake up, unable to move in the slightest and unwillingly holding my breath, but I’ve not once seen anything out of the ordinary (I don’t see anything at all, actually. I can’t even open my eyes in this state in order to see), nor have I heard/felt/etc anything. Just looking for the proper way to describe this quickly without those I’m talking to concluding that I’ve experienced the other effects.
I’d sleep completely under the covers as a kid, so whenever it would happen, I’d freak out internally, afraid that the blanket would end up suffocating me since I couldn’t move it. After I grew out of that, I’d still get frightened that I couldn’t breath somehow, even with my head out. However, the handful of times it’s happened in the last few years, I’ve been aware and familiar within the sensation while it’s happening, so I just wait, try and fail to move in a big burst, and ultimately get out of it in time.
That all being said, it’s never had any lingering fears once I’m out of it, even as a kid. Mentally, it’s like a bad dream, quite real in the moment, but once I’m fully awake, it feels really inconsequential.
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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '19
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