I had sleep paralysis on and off starting when I was 10 and all through my teens. It started petering off when I was 19/20, when I figured out how to shake myself out of it. I usually used to get it on falling asleep, but occasionally on wake. I was fairly lucky, all things considered, because I never saw anything during an episode.
I've felt the onset of SP over the years since it has stopped, but I can wake myself up before it's full-fledged. I haven't had a full SP episode in nine years, until tonight (I think).
I say "I think" because SP was never anything like this, before.
I was having a nightmare when it started. I didn't register it as SP at first. It felt like my whole brain was intensely pulsing, and as it pulsed, I could hear the fan in my room in a choppy way, like my ear was being covered/uncovered with each pulse. I could also see a weird light pattern that reminded me a bit of water caustics, only white on black. I tried to call my wife's name, and woke up with a gasp and a wave of tingling all over my body.
Between the pulsing and the lights, my first thought was that I was having a seizure and/or actively dying, lol. But the very first time I had SP, it (a) was also during a nightmare, (b) made me try unsuccessfully to scream for a loved one’s help, and (c) made me think I was having a major health issue (I was 10 and I though it was a heart attack).
I'm like 80-90% sure this was SP. My doubt is just in the fact that SP was never, ever this intense, or anything like it at all. Underneath the new stuff, I also could not move, but it only lasted a couple of seconds and I was more focused on the pulsing and the lights.
Has anyone ever experienced something similar? The weird sensations, weird lights? The near-decade clear of SP only for it to come back differently?
Crossing my fingers this doesnt become a regular thing again.