I have had episodes of sleep paralysis since I was a child. When I was young it would terrify me when I would become conscious of my inability to move. It felt like I had been buried alive. I would scream at the top of my lungs until some reason I woke up. When I say screamed at the top of my lungs it was only in my head. I never had any reason to believe I ever made a sound. This went on for years. Eventually I would try to relax and study the condition from inside this state. Many people report visual hallucinations, I have never had this type of hallucination. I have heard things, like steps coming back the hallway rapidly. Mostly I would enter this condition and just immediately freak out.

As time went on I did eventually get control over the terror. One night I realized I could move my feet up and down but nothing else. Later I realized I could control my respiration. I could breathe really fast or slow. This ability continued for years. It became a way of communicating with my girlfriend that I needed her to say my name and I would usually snap out of it.

Later on I had a recollection after snapping out of it, of remembering I thought I could see the digital clock. I finally was able to realize I could open my eyes. I would stare at the digital clock and remember the time and when I snapped out of it, that was in fact what the clock read. This took years to make it to this point.

Eventually when I was about 30 I had a girlfriend that was staying the night and as was custom I explained this condition and what to do if she woke up to me moving my feet up and down really fast. It continued and she would call my name and I would wake up. I always said what ever you do don't shake me cause the idea is so terrifying I'm not sure what I will do.

Another thing I started noticing was what it felt like to slip into this condition. It usually happened when I was really tired and could fall asleep quickly. I would feel myself literally falling over an inclined plane, more like the surface of a globe. I would feel the sensation of picking up speed as I went over. At this point I some times could wake up but usually this is when I slipped into paralysis and would Just lay there staring and flapping my feet.

One night while laying next to my girl I fell into this condition. I focused all my concentración on saying, "I cant wake up." and sure enough I could say it. I had no control over my tongue but you could tell what I was saying. I couldn't pronounce the W in wake for instance but i could say "ake" or the P in "up" but you could understand. I know because my girl woke me laughing one night and said, "Man, you are a freak." We had lots of laughs over this.

So this is where I eventually got. I could move some parts and I could open my eyes as well as talk a little and still not be fully conscious. Its still like that but the episodes are much rarer.

Another thing I noticed when young was I had the ability to control my Dreams. Inexplicably for two weeks straight at 16 years old, if i focused on something as I went to sleep I would wake up in a very lucid dream about what ever I wanted. At 16 it was sex of course. So I would focus on a woman I thought I would enjoy dreaming about and sure enough I would wake in a totally uncontrolled situation but with that woman and the ability to control my behavior fully aware it was a dream.

  It happened for years but specifically for those 2 weeks it was an every night event. So weird stuff was a common occurrence when I went to bed.

I woke up paralyzed just last week for the first time in a long time and my Spanish speaking girlfriend, not knowing anything about it, shook the hell out of me. It turned out not to be so bad but I had avoided that 40 years up until then.

So this bring us up to date and the real reason I started writing this. My Mother passed away Last year and I woke up one night in a dream I was at my childhood home and I knew I was dreaming. I heard a familiar sound in the laundry room and I immediately knew it was my Mom so I Rushed in and said the first thing I thought of, which was, "but You're dead" and Mom said, "Well, I'm hére now."

I woke up crying, it was intense. I told my friend and he agreed that sounds exactly like what she would say. This happened 10 months ago. Last night I was laying there and Mom's voice came to me again, except this time I was seeing total blackness and It didn't occur to me I was dreaming at first. She was giving me advice and although I couldn't see anything I clearly sensed her moving away, leaving. That's when I realized it was a dream and I quickly said, "Mom! Mom! Do you know your dead?" and she said, "I'm doing the best I can." The thing is when I asked that I could hear my voice in my ears and feel my throat vibrating familiarly like it had during sleep paralysis. But when she answered and drifted away I opened my eyes and wasn't asleep. I'm not implying anything. That's Just what happened.