I've had hypnopompic (waking up SP) a handful of times. Oddly enough, whatever I was dreaming was hilarious and I could laugh at it, although it came out as a whispered laugh. The last time it happened I was laughing so hard I collapsed in my dream, and actually felt my body go down. It's kind of weird but relieving to see something funny.

On the other hand, most of my SP experiences have been as I'm going to sleep (hynpogogic). Those are always terrifying. I've experienced it mostly while lying on my back, a couple of times lying on my side and once while sitting upright. I was certain once that someone was trying to suffocate me with a thick blanket, but also was completely aware that I had put it on myself and was now overheating beneath. But, I was also paralysed and couldn't do a thing about it. At some point I heard my husband yell for me. He was in the bathtub and needed a bottle of water. I tried to sit up, finally did and when I stood I collapsed because I couldn't feel my legs. I tried to crawl through the house but still couldn't feel my legs, so I dragged myself into the kitchen, pulled a bottle of water out of the package and dragged myself into the bathroom. The floor was soaking wet, because that's how my husband does it, everything must be wet. He gave me a puzzled look of disbelief and asked what I was doing. I told him my legs wouldn't work when I tried to stand up. He told me to go lay down again and he would check on me as soon as he got out. So, I dragged myself back into the bedroom, managed to get back up onto the bed, though I don't remember how, then laid down. Finally, I heard the water draining from the bathtub. Suddenly I could feel my legs again. I started thinking that I needed to change out of my wet shirt and felt the front of it. It was bone dry. I sat up, tossed the blanket off of me and realised and started to realise I had dreamt all of that. I went into the bathroom and asked my husband if he had called to me a little while before to bring him a bottle of water. He gave me a weird look but said, no, he already had one then asked if I was alright. At that moment I wasn't. Feeling like something had actually happened that didn't is pretty scary. I found out later that it's called a false awakening.

Another thing started to happen when going to sleep and experiencing sleep paralysis. This is when I was sitting upright on a couch. There was a small fan on in the room and I could hear it as I felt myself being paralysed. But it kept getting louder and louder until I could feel the vibrations in both ears. Then it turned into a hard electrical arcing sound. At exactly the same time I found myself (hallucinating) in the parking lot of an abandoned drive-in theater that we went to often when I was little. The electrical sound was coming from the wood structure holding up the screen, with purple sparks jumping from the wood. I've had this same experience many more times. It's called exploding head syndrome and it seems to be very underreported. I always try to let others know about this because it is a real experience. Most of the time with me it's an electrical sound, but there are other times when it sounds like a thunderclap, fireworks, screaming women, something hitting the house, crashes, etc. Some doctors think it could be the eardrums vibrating voluntarily or even a micro seizure.

I have had sleep paralysis a handful of times. My first one was when I was 6 or 7 years old. I was in bed, lying on my back and waking up. I panicked because I couldn’t move, and then I realized I was not breathing. The sheets an blankets were covering my head. I tried so hard to just move my little finger so I could wake up. When I could feel my heart pounding, I started to cry. It was the tear running down my cheek that woke me up gasping for air. This has happened my entire life. Until 10 years ago I was diagnosed with sleep apnea and I faithfully sleep with my c-pap. I often wonder since I was still exhausted with Cpap therapy, why didn’t my providers think of ruling out narcolepsy?

It usually happens while I'm dreaming and waking up at the same time. At a certain point in time, I become aware of the fact that I'm waking up while I'm still dreaming and so have a natural urge to move as part of the normal waking up routine, but of course I can't. the natural reaction is to try and fight it and try to move even more, but the more I do that the harder it gets. And while this is happening (apparently it's seconds or minutes, but seems like a lifetime) I'm still dreaming, so whatever I'm dreaming seems to then incorporate the sensation of being physically blocked, so it turns into a sort of nightmare, (you can dream of someone holding you down or suffocating you, because you literally physically can't get up, once I dreamt of doctors holding me down to give me medication I didn't want) sometimes it's with hallucinations. It's like you become aware of your senses while you're still sleeping and supposed to be unconscious, so the dream becomes multisensory. And it doesn't all wear off gradually. It usually stops automatically and abruptly with a sort of full body jitter that then finally wakes me up fully and I then recognise it as sleep paralysis with hallucinations. If it's any help, avoiding sleeping on your back helps because it's more difficult to breathe while lying on your back and that contributes to the feelings of suffocation during dreams.

It’s so frightening when we are so young and experience sleep paralysis.