A couple times, when it was literally freezing cold outside, I’d get completely under the blanket, head and all, and end up falling asleep.

Then later on, I’d just barely wake up, unable to move though, basically because of lack of oxygen under the blanket. I’d have to lay there and muster up every last bit of energy I had just to toss the blanket off of me to get a breath of fresh air.

So yeah, sleep paralysis with a bonus risk of suffocating to death is extra scary.

I’ve had the weird thing where I suddenly lose sight in my dream. Like sticking your head in water and trying to see underwater. The dream went on.

This was a semi regular occurrence that added to the dread of the situation.

Only later my girlfriend told me that sometimes I would open my eyes when asleep, which freaked her out. Only a while later I managed to connect the dots. I was trying to see in my sleep and opened my eyes irl, causing me to lose vision in my dreams and seeing a weird blurry unrelated thing instead.

Ugh, my poor wife; I’ve had a number of bad experiences because I’m so fundamentally stubborn. In the dream, I won’t be able to do something, and I’ll work and work at it, and sometimes succeed in real life. It’s been as simple and benign as not being able to see in a dream and struggling to open my eyes until I finally do, and I wake up. But I’ve managed to yell with a mouth that didn’t completely work, so my wife woke up to what sounds like a yelling, mournful ghost. I’ve managed to fight and punched my wife. I’ve managed to run, and kicked her. In all these cases, in the dream, I’ve had to really struggle to do the thing before I succeed and wake myself up.

Sleep paralysis turns out to be a good thing.