Ok so um. Sometimes in the morning I can’t move. I’ll force myself out of bed and manage to stand up, but then I look around and suddenly feel that I’m still in bed. It happens a couple times before I can actually move. It usually happens on mornings that I let myself fall asleep again. I looked it up and I got results about sleep paralysis. Is that what this is? Or is it something else?
Yeah sounds like sleep paralysis, false awakening or some combination thereof.
Both happen in that weird half-awake half-alseep state, so it makes sense that this happens when you've gone back to sleep. Personally, if you dislike it a lot, I'd say just don't go back to sleep.
Sleep paralysis is typically when you wake up and can't move. False awakening is when you think you're awake, but you're actually still asleep-ish.
The part you describe where you can't move sounds like sleep paralysis and the part where you describe realizing that you're still in bed sounds like a false awakening.
Oh hi! This actually hasn’t happened in a while, but thanks for the response. Although, what about the bit where I stand up and walk around but I’m suddenly laying down again? Is that like, a dream?
Yes, it sounds like you had a dream where you thought you were awake and got out of bed (false awakening). There's a good chance you woke up a little - enough to "trick" you into thinking you were fully awake. In some cases of sleep deprivation you can go from fully awake back into a dream sleep but that's not as common and since you also describe sleep paralysis, less likely.
And when you realize you're still in bed, you're more aware of your physical surroundings - which could be due to being "half awake" and recognizing the texture of the sheets, for example. (When you have multiple false awakenings in a row it's a "nested dream" which is very Inception like)
