When I was about 21 I read about training yourself to do lucid dreaming by repeating to yourself that you would remain in control of your mind as you fell asleep. Within just a few attempts I was successfully lucid dreaming, although with somewhat limited control. I was hoping to keep practicing and get better at it.

But shortly after this success, I experienced sleep paralysis for the first time ever. It was absolutely as horrifying as everyone says it is. I couldn't move, but my eyes were open, and my "sleep paralysis demon" took the form of the black drape I had covering the window in my bedroom, which my brain was interpreting as some huge and pitch black entity looming over my bed while I couldn't move.

I stopped trying to lucid dream, but now I still get sleep paralysis once in a while, like a couple times a year at this point. The last time it happened I was sleeping next to my girlfriend, I couldn't move and I kept thinking I was hearing someone loudly stomping down the stairs to our bedroom. I managed to make some extremely strained, high-pitched but not loud "screaming" noise - sorta like when you try to scream but keep your throat closed but like... wrong - and my girlfriend was able to shake me awake.

She knew about my sleep paralysis because it happened not long before that and I told her about it, and so she was ready to help me, but I still thought she would be more unsettled by the very disquieting noise I was making, lol.

Anyway yeah that shit sucks, do not recommend.

When you catch yourself your brain is in a very limited, paniced, broken record which you are also aware of which adds to the fustration. It's a chemical misfire in the "wake from sleep" part of your brain. You need to focus on going back to sleep to restart the thing like cranking an old car.

But yea i've had 100s of sleep paralysis episodes including false wakes where I would be astro projecting around the house until I realize something is amiss and I'm not really up. Then there's the time distortion because lighting can look different when projecting. So when I do wake up it's a panic to see what the real world time is.

A couple of weekends ago, I dreamed that I was being poisoned by a shady hotel owner, and that I died and my murder was being investigated by Columbo. Except I didn't die, and that part was a dream, but I couldn't wake up until Columbo stopped monologuing about every tiny fucking detail of the murder, and all the while I'm being forced to breathe in broken glass shards.

When I finally woke up from that, it turned out I had a nasty nosebleed from some seasonal allergy bullshit, and I'd been laying on my back and inhaling some of it. Don't leave your window open overnight when it's below 40 degrees out, folks... Or you may just get a visit from an affable and overly verbose sleep paralysis demon

I actually have not had a false awakening sense childhood tbh. Sounds awful though

Ever wondered if you're still sleeping?

Yeah, that's happened to me before. I try to make myself wake up and get out of bed, and I think I did it, then I realize I just dreamed I got out of bed. Over and over again. Not scary, but frustrating.