My Sleeping Disorder

Ever since I was a kid, I've had this weird thing happen to me, that I never could explain accurately.  It doesn't happen all the time, but I'd say maybe every few months, so sometimes a little more frequently.  I've decided to try to start documenting every time it happens in here so I can keep a good score of how often it really does happen.
The best way I could describe it was that while I'm asleep, my brain suddenly wakes up, but my body stays asleep.  I suddenly become awake, and completely aware of everything that is happening around me.  I can hear everything as if I were wide awake, laying there in bed.  I could swear that I can even see everything, even though I'm asleep so my eyes must be closed.  But I can't wake my body up for the life of me.  I try rocking it back and forth to try to shake myself awake, but as hard as I try throwing my body across the bed, I know that it is barely moving an inch.  I try to scream, perhaps to gets someone's attention so they can wake me up, but even my vocal chords won't work.  At least once I KNOW that I stopped breathing during this even.  I eventually shake my body enough to shock it back into consciousness, and I can move again.  It happened to me this morning(April 18th 2012), and I finally woke up at 5:30 in the monring.  And like all the other times, as dead tired as I was, barely able to keep my eyelids open, I was scared to go back to sleep for the fear that it would happen again.  I lay there in bed, horrified, not knowing if I should risk it.  I always do risk it, and doze back off.  I don't think it's ever happened to me twice in one night.  Yet. . . .

I have gone through this countless times ever since I was a kid, and never knew what was wrong, or how to describe it to people.  I kind of thought it happened to everyone.  I never knew it was a real THING before.

. . .

One of my favorite sites is www.oddee.com.  Every day they have a new list up.  Some sort of amusing list, usually involving either funny pictures, or interesteing facts.  On March 27th, they posted 8 Bizarre Sleep Disorders.
http://www.oddee.com/item_98126.aspx
I was going down the list, reading some interesting ones.  Even some funny ones, like the woman who gained 60 lbs by eating in her sleep.
And then I came up to the last one.  The most bizarre one of them all:  Sleep Paralysis.
I couldn't believe my eyes, as it described what I haven't been able to put into proper words for over 20 years.  Suddenly, what I have been going through since I was a child was real, and I had a name for it.  No, it was not normal for everyone to go through it, and no, I must not be the only person that suffers from it.  Bizarre.  Something personal to me and my life made a list of bizarre.  It is such a relief to finally know that it's real, and to have a name for it after all this time.  Sleep Paralysis.