Possible Experience - a little freaked out

I'm not sure what exactly signifies a sleep paralysis experience from something different, more sinister, but whether what just happened was sleep paralysis or something else it freaked me out. So I just needed to get it typed out and felt this was the best place for it.

First off...can sleep paralysis occur if you haven't yet fallen asleep?? Or rather when you have woken up suddenly from a weird dream??

It's been a fairly long weekend (...month actually) so being overly tired (I've been getting tired pretty easily lately and I found it pretty odd, but I've been dismissing it as just the stuff that's been going on in my life lately. I.E. transferring to a university and being overloaded with assignments , my dog getting suddenly sick and having to be put to sleep 🙁 and then Firday night a good something being getting to meet a director, a writer and a celebrity or two at a movie showing...anyways I was heading to bed early tonight. I was laying down and watching some tv until I got to that "ok falling asleep" point that you get when you're laying down and watching tv.

I turned the tv off and closed my eyes and was trying to fall asleep, my mind started to wander as it usually does while I try to fall asleep. Not long after that passed and I had my eyes closed I started to drift off to sleep and I had this like mental image/feel of something traveling over a great distance and very quickly getting closer. I started to fall asleep more and was getting ready to dream and even started to get a feel about what I was dreaming about but kinda suddenly that scene got over taken by the feel of something traveling closer and let me say that whatever it felt like was not a good feeling. It felt angry, it felt pissed, it felt ready to do great damage.

I pushed the feeling/image out of my head forcefully and focused back on getting to my dream. I actually started to see my dream in quick bits and pieces that was starting to slow down into something that made more sense and then I saw someone in my dream that felt important, but also the location I was in seemed important and I had the feeling like I shouldn't loose sight of the scene that was around me. But then I felt like something was there and it didn't fit the feel from the dream it fit the feel of that something coming closer and it was such a strong and sudden feeling that it woke me up. The first time I woke up, looking at my ceiling and then just closed my eyes again, but soon as I closed my eyes that feeling was there again.

I opened my eyes again (this time my head was turned slightly to the right side), or I think I did, and this time let myself focus more. I was seeing my room as it was, but it feel weighed down and I felt very heavy. But not like the tired don't want to move heavy but like someone was sitting on you heavy. At this point I was thinking I think I'm experiencing sleep paralysis so I did the tactic of trying to squeeze your fists so your nails dig into the palm some. But I couldn't even move my fingers, heck I couldn't even get my voice box to work ( I think I automatically was thinking about saying get off or something)

I've had what I thought was sleep paralysis before and it didn't feel like this. Before it was just a feeling that I couldn't move no matter how hard I tried, but this time it really felt like there was a heaviness to it. And not only that but the weight of the heaviness seemed to shift positions as I tried to move. It started at about my stomach height and then traveled slowly up to the chest (lingered around the chest height a while) and then the shoulders.

I thought to try to say something cause I remembered reading somewhere (might have been here) that trying to talk could help snap you out of the sleep paralysis, but then the heaviness feeling was at the underside of my chin and it made it hard for me to try to move my jaw and then my tongue started to feel strangely tingly.

I don't remember what caused the feeling to slowly stop (it wasn't a sudden stop) and I turned my head and slowly focused more. It was like I couldn't see clearly and my eyes were focusing, but at the same time I remember my eyes were already open. Anyways as I was focusing I swear I saw something that seemed like a small black fog/mist-like mass up at my ceiling. It could have been a trick of the eyes focusing though. My room did have that feeling like someone was in my room as well, but it didn't feel like either of my parents.

I think I'm going to lay some salt down, and try to lay down again (I'm still very tired).......but now that I have all that down. What are your thoughts on what happened? Was it some weird sleep paralysis thing?

Thx for reading guys and gals. I appreciate any feed back that you can offer.