Weird sleep paralysis experience
I’ll preface this by saying that I’m 45 and have been having sleep paralysis since I was a child. At least twice a week, sometimes more often. I hate it, but I’ve just accepted that this is something I have to deal with. Thankfully I don’t typically have the hallucinations some people do. Just the waking up paralyzed. I thrash around and scream in my brain and try to wiggle a finger or toe until I come out of it.
A few days ago, I had the all-too familiar waking up frozen and started the struggle to move.I finally pushed through it, took a big gasp of air, sat up, and swung my feet off the side of the bed. I stood up and decided to go get a drink of water from the kitchen because I didn’t want to fall back to sleep too quickly and have it happen again. As soon as I walked through the bedroom door, something felt “wrong” and I turned back around. All of the walls were gone. The bed was gone, and my husband was sound asleep on the floor with the covers on. I suddenly realized I had not, in fact, woken up. I panicked and ran back to my pillow, laid back down next to my husband, and attempted to wake up for real. I was again paralyzed. I fought for a few seconds and then struggled out of it, sat up, swung my feet off the side of the bed, and opened my eyes. But instead of my bedroom, I was in my childhood home. I was instantly confused. I looked out the window and heard laughter, then saw children on Halloween costumes happily running towards the front door. I realized that, again, I had not actually woken up. So I laid back down and closed my eyes. When I finally fought through the sleep paralysis the third time, I woke up with a scream. I rolled over and everything was normal. I did not go back to sleep. I laid in the bed wide awake, touched my husband, looked at my phone. Anything to let myself know that I was truly not dreaming anymore.
Has anyone had a similar experience before with sleep paralysis? It really shook me and now I’m concerned this will happen again.