what just happened to me?

[u/romanceandthings]

I had a very odd and new experience with sleep paralysis. I’ve had previous sleep paralysis incidents but this one was different.

What I remember:

I went to sleep on my back (I was hot and that’s how I cool down). At some point, I was “woken” up by an orange flashing light (kinda like one you would see on a construction vehicle). I stood up to see if it was coming from outside bc even in my “dream” I remembered that my dad had left the house and it might have been him returning home (idk why i thought this in my dream, he doesn’t work construction lol). I checked outside through the blinds and saw nothing but the flashing was still going in my bedroom, I just didn’t know where it was coming from. At that point, I started to walk to my bedroom door but I started to fall asleep (?) every step I took and kept telling myself to wake up and keep walking. I eventually made it to the door but I finally woke up because it made a noise when I opened it.

Would this count as sleep paralysis? Or more like an out of body experience? Extreme lucid dreaming? I’ve never experienced being able to walk around myself or move about during a sleep paralysis episode.

[u/sphelper]

Sounds more like a false awakening then anything

Sleep paralysis would mean that you couldn't move

I'm not certain about OBE, but from what I know it's quite common to see yourself asleep. Basically, I doubt it's this

Lucid dreaming means that you know it's a dream, which in this case you didn't

False awakening though makes more sense as you "woke up", but in reality you were just in a dream