[johnchristopher]

I used to experience sleep paralysis on an on and off basis. Sessions were spaced enough that I wouldn't remember them for long. I thought it was due to high-level general anxiety.

There comes one session when I can't and don't want to go back to sleep. I wake up, turn on the computer and get on that old Deftones board. And there, there is a user writing about that topic and how he just experienced it and how he found out an article about it !

That article did a good job of demystifying the whole experience. It does not come from anxiety but can induce it (quite obvious). One interviewee reported he found the experience quite pleasurable, like being held in someone's arms. The article also stated that one you re-frame it in a pleasant way it wouldn't be a bad experience anymore: you could make it border on the erotic side of things.

And since then I have always been especially quiet and relaxed when having a sleep paralysis episode. YMMV.

Note: contrary to what I have seen in comments here you CAN´T force yourself to wake up from a dream.

which is how I decide to see it.