It’s called hypnopompic hallucination.
Unlike with sleep paralysis, you can move and talk while still seeing it and it will last a few seconds up to a minute which can seem like an eternity.
It usually fades as soon as you turn on the light, but for some very few people it does not and persists even after turning on the light.
Here’s an example of someone who often experiences these and has started recording themselves: https://youtu.be/bEMGZNvETMQ
Why YSK: because it’s very scary and unsettling when it happens and since you can move you don’t believe it’s sleep paralysis and can’t explain it. This might explain many of the “monster or spirit at the foot of my bed” sightings that we often hear mentioned in horror podcasts.
This happened to me consistently for about 9 years.
The instances were terrifying if I was stressed out. I’d see people in my room screaming at me, people just floating silently watching me sleep, spiders on the wall and ceiling, snakes falling on me, to name a few. One day I looked at my camera roll and found a picture of the empty corner of my room from 2AM, it freaked me out, but then I remembered I was tring to capture a shot of the spider webs full of snakes I thought I saw. Sometimes I’d be across the room from my bed in a full panic, turning on the light switch. It was wild.
If I was not stressed, it would be innocuous things, like a chair that wasn’t supposed to be in the room, or pipes in my ceiling. One time there were gnomes showing me the tiny, glittery door to their world! Weird shit, but not scary.
Then I started antidepressants and they all stopped. Turns out night terrors, or waking terrors as I called them, can be a sign of depression. Who knew? I just thought my brain was a bitch, but she just needed happy pills.
Aren’t human brains fun? So kind of our brains to show us everything terrifying that it can cook up and place into our lived reality just to fuck with us.
It’s ridiculous! The terrors were so regular that they became interesting and funny stories I’d share with my friends. Very much thought of “my brain” as a spearate being from me because it sure wasn’t on my side. Rude.
I know my brain is like at least 70% memes, but nooo, it’s gotta be the horrors in sleep paralysis. Always gotta be the horrors with those damned things. How much funnier would it be to wake up to like a confused Travolta or a doge in your living room.
This sounds horrifying. Glad to hear you’re in a better place now.
Thank you! It was really awful for a long time, but it got to a point, years in, where I understood what was happening and that made it easier. I could be jolted awake, seeing something coming at me, panicking as I scrambled to turn on the light, and then watch it slowly fade away. Then I would laugh at myself and tell my brain to fuck off and fall back asleep. Being able to sleep after made it much more tolerable. Would have been even better if I didn’t wait nearly a decade to think it was important enough to share with my doctor.