Trying to wake up but can't - what was the name of it?

Question

You know you're sleeping but you're trying to wake up but can't.

There was a scientifical explanation of this situation, I just can't recall.

Last night I was trying to wake up, wave my arms (in my dream) but it was like something was holding my head and not let me wake up. I woke up and I was exactly lying like I was in my dream

Answer 1

It's called sleep paralysis.

Answer 2

It is a sleeping paralysis you describe - you lie in a semi-lucid awakening state and wonder whether you are dreaming the thing or feeling something real.

It can in fact be a mix of both.  Dream paralysis is thought by some to protect one from overt actions during the dreaming process.  A paralysis similar to 'ordinary' paralysis does normally occur during REM sleep - which is when you sleep the deepest and really dream (rapid eye movement).  Oddly, as you awaken, you may be so occupied by the feeling of being 'pinned' that you probably have no recollection of what was in the dream - hence the confusion - 'dream or not?'

'Sleep' paralysis also sometimes occurs in a few people as they are going to sleep.  As to awakening to it, you are likely being stirred directly from you deepest sleep for some reason and the natural cycle of this condition fading before wakefulness cannot complete itself before your awareness of it.

It will likely continue if you've had frequent episodes of it.  If not, it may be a fleeting thing, and the more you can avoid awakening stimuli that prompts you from deep sleeping moments the less likely you are to experience the thing.  

The body and mind are full of wonderful and mysterious mechanisms that we will never fully understand.  Part of that can include one more oddity - sometimes dreams that drift into our early consciousness with sleep paralysis present can also produce hallucinations.  This may account for many of the manifestations some 'see' upon awakening that are so 'real'.  It is even theorized that some of these phenomena may account for the sightings of ghosts, or even alien abduction reports.  It may even account for giant spiders on the ceiling, who can say for sure...

It's never terribly comforting to awaken with this still happening.  That said, perhaps in understanding it a bit better you may come to not notice so much as you learn to give your body a chance to gain fully wakefulness and respond.  You may also be able to prevent disturbances that stir you in your deepest sleep.

Hopefully some of this will help.

All the best to you.

Answer 3

One interpretation:

Knowing one is sleeping and unable to "wake up" is step before waking up in one's dream, lucid, and making decisions.  http://www.dreamviews.com http://www.lucidity.com

One has a further awareness option at that juncture; the turiya or deeper state of consciousness can either elect to recognize helping Angels and their telepathies ("Watch Your Dreams," Ann Ree Colton), and even rise upward to Schools of Light and Universities of the Spirit ("The Masters and Their Retreats," Mark Prophet), or to move with awareness into ordinary outer waking consciousness (alpha waves transitioning into lower beta waves).

Answer 4

Trying to wake up but can't  .... it's called .... Death