Apparently the term "sleep paralysis" is being used in two different ways. In one sense of the term, this is something that ordinarily happens to us every night when we sleep: that is, many of our motor functions switch off, a safety measure to prevent us from physically acting out our dreams. The other sense of the term is being aware of this paralysis, a state sometimes treated as a pathology because it can freak out people who aren't expecting it. But if you understand that your body ordinarily becomes paralyzed every night during the dream state, maybe it won't be as scary on the off-chance that you happen to consciously experience this.

I've always referred to SP in the more mundane sense: that is, I can't say that I've consciously or directly experienced it, but I always know when my body has successfully entered sleep paralysis at the beginning of a WILD when I experience sensations of movement that I can tell are not being acted out physically. This is probably the more typical experience of SP in WILDs, that is, a condition that one is aware of only indirectly, and maybe it is people like me throwing the term around too casually that can lead the inexperienced to expect that the more dramatic experience of conscious sleep paralysis is commonplace.

Apologies, then, for adding to the confusion! But this leaves us in a quandary. What are we supposed to call the ordinary and everyday paralysis of the body during sleep--which we can become consciously aware of indirectly when we realize that our attempts to "move" are manifesting in a non-physical "body"--if not by the term "sleep paralysis"? If it is desirable to distinguish our ordinary and healthy state of sleep paralysis from the unusual and potentially alarming direct experience of it, then a more precise terminology will be required.