[almog]

I don't think I have narcolepsy but I discovered that whenever I have a really bad dream and I start to be aware of it being a dream, yet not able to gain control over my body and wake up, focusing moving just my fingers and squeezing my hands helpa me regain that control of my body and eventually wake up.

[bgnn]

yeah I do squeeze my hands when I wake up with sleep paralysis too. It doesn't take long to gradually gain full control.

[almog]

Are you fully aware of your surrounding when that happens? That trick I mentioned works best for me when this annoying meta-dream of being sleeping/paralyzed in my dream (i.e. dreaming of being somewhere sleeping, usually around people and not being able to wake up to engage with them). I've often wondered if this is a sort of sleep paralysis or not because it doesn't quite fit neither what I read about sleep paralysis nor about false awakening but it's extremely annoying when that happen.

[bgnn]

I'm not fully awake initially but not fully asleep either. It's an in-between state.