I do not envy people who have experienced sleep paralysis. Given that paralysis typically happens during the period of sleep that dreaming occurs as a defense mechanism, I've always assumed (and probably read somewhere) that things people see may often be hallucinations of a partly still-dreaming mind, but even so it sounds scary as hell.
(Not suggesting that's necessarily the case for you guys. Though it sounds scary enough I think I'd be hoping it was if something like that happened to me.
)
I can kind of see how dreams and the real world can end up mixed together in ways though... Thank god no sleep paralysis here, though occasionally, if my tv is on, things I'm hearing from the tv will end up as part of a dream, and can turn out really weird. Plus the time many years ago that I'd drooled all over my hand and dreamed that my hand was cold and bloody. (Then woke up startled for a moment because it still felt that way. lol)
Anyway, on the topic of paranormal... Recalled that my mom has always told one that's kind of fits right into a stereotypical book of spooky stories. She'd appanetly once clear as day heard someone knock on the front door. Nobody there. It was winter, with snow on the ground...and no foot prints. Supposedly happened when I was a young kid, but I don't recall the event. I'm kind of torn between maybe she didn't tell me until years later as to not scare me...or did she dream it. She swears it happened.
Also a handful of years ago my mom, I guess kind of in her peripheral vision, had seen a dark colored cat walk through part of the dining room. She looked toward it and... no cat. She asked my dad who was then also confused because he'd seen it too.
If it was one of our former cats then I doubt it was the one I'd mentioned before since he was about equal portions black and white, but another we'd lost some years before him (and was his buddy for a while) was a dark gray tabby.