Nightmare I've had long ago that confuses me still

So I'm Korean and theres this thing called ga-wee in Korea and it's basically something that happens to you in a dream but you can't move your body. There's also lots of variations to this but I don't know the others. I think I've had one of these but I'm not too sure and I also don't know the word in english.

A couple of years ago I had a dream, (or at least I think it was a dream) where I was really thirsty. I was sleeping on my stomach and since I was thirsty I was going to get a drink of water. I tried to move but I couldn't. It wasn't that I had no feelings of my body it was more of that my body was too heavy for me to lift, like I just became really weak. I tried to move my arm for a really long time and finally after a lot of strength I just barely lifted my arm and that took so much strength out of me that I was too tired to move on and then I went back to sleep. Then it felt like a couple minutes later I would try to do it again and would fail again. After awhile I don't really remember what happened but I got up fully and don't remember if I went to get a drink but then I went back to sleep. I'm still confused if it was really a dream or not.

I told my mom about it and she said that it's called a seizure or something?
I really don't want to believe that because it sounds so scary and plus it wasn't that I couldn't move my body it was just too heavy for me to lift.

My brother told me it was like the devil on top of me preventing from me to get up but that's just superstition and he only said that to scare me even more.

I was wondering what I've experienced is something that happens to some people or if it's just me. And is there a word for it?

Sleep Pyralisis. You woke up during the REM period, and since you're body thinks it's still dreaming (REM is the period where most dreams occour) and since your body doesn't want you to act out your dreams, it shuts down your body from moving.

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Originally posted by BeautifulDreamer
Sleep Pyralisis. You woke up during the REM period, and since you're body thinks it's still dreaming (REM is the period where most dreams occour) and since your body doesn't want you to act out your dreams, it shuts down your body from moving.

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Oh, that makes me relieved. So, if it prevents my body from moving how come I was able to move my arm a bit? Was that me dreaming or did I actually move my arm?

Actually, it's spelled "sleep paralysis". No you don't need to be dreaming, I find I can move my limbs very little when in sleep paralysis, but in order to really move them, I need to completely snap out of sleep mode.

The point of sleep paralysis, I think, is to make sure we don't walk around like we do in our dreams. It would be alright to move our muscles a little, but not as much as waking life. Of course, they already do. If muscles could not move, then we would not be able to breathe.

I can also barely move in Sleep Paralysis, its not a complete paralysis, but more like a 95% paralysis ;)