It’s called hypnopompic hallucination.
Unlike with sleep paralysis, you can move and talk while still seeing it and it will last a few seconds up to a minute which can seem like an eternity.
It usually fades as soon as you turn on the light, but for some very few people it does not and persists even after turning on the light.
Here’s an example of someone who often experiences these and has started recording themselves: https://youtu.be/bEMGZNvETMQ
Why YSK: because it’s very scary and unsettling when it happens and since you can move you don’t believe it’s sleep paralysis and can’t explain it. This might explain many of the “monster or spirit at the foot of my bed” sightings that we often hear mentioned in horror podcasts.
This happened to me consistently for about 9 years.
The instances were terrifying if I was stressed out. I’d see people in my room screaming at me, people just floating silently watching me sleep, spiders on the wall and ceiling, snakes falling on me, to name a few. One day I looked at my camera roll and found a picture of the empty corner of my room from 2AM, it freaked me out, but then I remembered I was tring to capture a shot of the spider webs full of snakes I thought I saw. Sometimes I’d be across the room from my bed in a full panic, turning on the light switch. It was wild.
If I was not stressed, it would be innocuous things, like a chair that wasn’t supposed to be in the room, or pipes in my ceiling. One time there were gnomes showing me the tiny, glittery door to their world! Weird shit, but not scary.
Then I started antidepressants and they all stopped. Turns out night terrors, or waking terrors as I called them, can be a sign of depression. Who knew? I just thought my brain was a bitch, but she just needed happy pills.
Aren’t human brains fun? So kind of our brains to show us everything terrifying that it can cook up and place into our lived reality just to fuck with us.
It’s ridiculous! The terrors were so regular that they became interesting and funny stories I’d share with my friends. Very much thought of “my brain” as a spearate being from me because it sure wasn’t on my side. Rude.