Thanks for reading & replying Matte87. I have done some reading about SP and it seems the closest description to what I go through, except that I thought with SP one normally wakes up whilst still paralysed, whereas these things happen to me when I haven't even reached the sleep state & never when I am waking up. Sometimes they occur if I am just sitting in a chair feeling dozey - I can feel the experience coming & have to fight against it. So I'm not 100% sure if it's SP.

You are right about accepting it though - over the years I have just given in to the experiences as I can do nothing about them. Sometimes, even during the very violent experiences, I have lain there and said to "whoever it is" - "Okay, bring it on - do what you like - you just don't scare me anymore!" But the thing is, it is rarely pleasant and I hate the fact it can just happen whenever it wants to. I'm not in the mood for another one tonight so I'm still up now at 04.15.

A question I have - why did it suddenly start when I was 26? What would have brought this on? I wasn't stressed or anything - life was pretty normal as far as I know.

It's nice to know I'm not alone in this - I've tried to talk to a few people about it but they all think it's weird. Wow, your visions whilst awake sound bizarre - that would be pretty scary I should think.