Has anyone ever had this before? It comes in quite a few forms, most seem to be fairly benevolent and just weird, but there are other states where this phenomena is literally a nightmare. Like this:
http://www.wired.com/2009/08/sleep_paralysis/
Apparently this is quite common, but not in my experience. Trying to explain it to people, other seem to end up confused with no idea what I'm talking about.
I've had this experience twice, both in the same night. During said experience, I never fell asleep. I simply closed my eyes and starting having visions. My body was paralyzed and it felt hard to breath. The visions themselves were extremely vivid and interactive to the point they felt almost undeniably real.
However, at the same time, I was completely awake and very aware of my surroundings. I could feel my GF's arm touching my own. I could hear her breathing and even the heater running. But my body was paralyzed. I tried screaming, but couldn't so much as open my mouth. I specifically remember trying to focus on listening to my RL surroundings which suddenly felt like my sight in noticability, hoping someone would do something to help me.
Another thing I remember is trying my hardest to move. I was able to ever so slightly move my fingers and barely open my jaw with extreme effort but nothing more.
Overall, I was stuck, paralyzed while experiencing one of the worst nightmares I've ever had.
In the nightmare, I was being strangled by a figure-less entity that had no specific form. The visualization of this entity can only be described as darkness. It enveloped me and suddenly it became hard to breath. Eventually my breathing just stopped and I felt like I was going to die.
At the last moment I regained control of my body and came out of it crying. My GF just blew it off as a typical nightmare and went back to sleep. After about 20 minutes, I finally gathered the courage to try to sleep again, and the moment I closed my eyes, I had the exact same experience.
Vision wise, the surrounding setting was different, but the overall theme and experience was the same.
After finally breaking out of this one, I refused to go back to sleep and stayed awake for 2 days, too terrified to close my eyes.
This was all over a year ago, and I've never experienced anything like it before or since.
Has anyone else here experienced this type of thing? I think there is a specific term for it, but I can't remember.