When I was 14 years old, I had a weird experience.

I woke up in the middle of the night, under an intense feeling of stress. I was stressed mainly because I couldn't move a single limb. I was neither awake nor asleep, and yes, paralyzed.
I was intensely thinking to myself "wake up, wake the F up", quickly followed by "YOU'RE GONNA DIE!".
It lasted way too long for me to actually wake up without thinking I'd just been abducted by and alien from hell. Or something.
Past this point, it happened again, every now and then, until I had the urge to look for the origin of the phenomenon.

I'll spare you the details of the search, but  know that if you're experiencing the same thing, you're not going mad, it's a natural event, it's called sleep paralysis.
Here are some details about it, plus some more just in case you think you're still going bonkers.

Sleep paralysis - Not an evil curse from outer space

SP leaves the person fully conscious, but unable to move. The paralysis can last from several seconds to several minutes "after which the individual may experience panic symptoms and the realization that the distorted perceptions were false".
The paralysis state may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations and an acute sense of danger.Sleep paralysis is particularly frightening to the individual because of the vividness of such hallucinations.

Hypnagogia - Or when you float between worlds

When you're just about to fall asleep, you can be prone to a whole range of hallucinations, may them be image, sounds or even tastes and odors!
Being blinded by a bright light, hearing music... these are common, they happen more often than you think. They might go as far as endlessly re-experiencing a repetitive activity you've been doing all day (that's the Tetris Effect) , or hearing someone call your came.
Actually some people actually use this phase of sleep to find solutions to problems or create artistic content. So yeah, no worries there, use it at your advantage!

It took me some luck and quite a long time to find all this out, not knowing the names of these phenomenons (before I realized it was all here and here on wikipedia), so I hope I've helped by sharing it :)

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr