Confused; not a regular 'vision'

(if I posted this in the wrong place or something, don't hate pls, just made my account)

So to start off I sometimes have just plain old dreams, colourful and ones in which you can't remember upon waking up. I'm not a 'lucid dreamer' or anything alike. Infact I only just made my account because of a small but very confusing 'thing' for me..

About 1 hour ago I had woke up, the light wasn't on as usual so my room was dark, I literally looked around my room and thought to myself it seemed darker than I had ever really seen it. I also had the thought 'well wouldn't this be creepy if someone walked up the stairs to me now'. Before falling back to sleep it appeared I heard those 'eery footsteps', it creeped me out but I brushed it off as nothing.

However, almost instantly after I shut my eyes to begin drifting back off, there was a vision of someone walking straight through my closed door - I began to breath heavy at this point. The person got close to me, (about 0.5m to be precise, lol) and upon inspection it looked like my mother in her nightgown (who is alive, and I live with), although I cannot be certain it was her for sure. She began almost 'pointing and waving' at me frantically, and attempting to hit/touch my face and head, although she couldn't actually. She appeared to be holding something glowing in one hand also? I was so confused, I was breathing very heavily and got scared as it felt so real yet so fake at the same time. I couldn't get out of the vision, I tried opening my eyes and I couldn't, it almost seemed as if the 'dream' had 'locked' me in until it had given a message possibly?

But that is basically it, after I opened my eyes I was relieved yet very hot and sweating! I was in shock as a dream has never done this to me, nightmares never scare me, but this is different. I don't understand the meaning of it, I couldn't find any info on this and I came across this site hoping you people could help, I'm sorry if I nagged on too much haha, it's definitely a lot of writing lol.

It sounds like a case of sleep paralysis. Technically SP refers to a string of similar incidents characterizing what happens as more of a disorder of sorts possibly brought on by stress or some other factor, and REM Atonia (atonia meaning muscle paralysis and REM being the stage of sleep the atonia is experienced during) is the natural process you go through all the time that you usually aren't aware of or awake during... however, even if it's not exactly correct, I think it's easier to classify it as SP any time you aren't doing anything to cause it, like trying to LD, to specifically make that distinction. In any case, it sounded a bit like a vivid hallucination caused by being unusually aware during the hypnagogic state (being right on the edge of the onset of sleep/teetering on the border of being awake and asleep), but given you couldn't move, that's up for debate.

See, being paralyzed, breathing heavily, sensing or even perceiving a presence, vivid hallucinations (tactile, auditory, visual, and very rarely gustatory and olfactory/taste and smell), and feeling an oppressive atmosphere or otherwise being afraid or outright terrified are all common things to experience during sleep paralysis. However, these things are usually experienced with the eyes open and it feels as though the situation you are in is entirely real. Considering you describe what you experienced as a vision, I think it was a combination of being in REM Atonia with advanced hypnagogic hallucinations. They can range from simple random or nonsensical thoughts/voices all the way up to pseudo-dream experiences. You seem to have experienced the latter, with the vision/dream-like scene just so happening to correspond with your room and the situation you found yourself in at the time (lying in bed almost asleep)... hence the clarity of what you experienced making it seem "real" but it also seeming fake.

This is all my take on it, but honestly it's all a guess. It was most likely SP/REM Atonia, hypnagogic hallucinations, or some combination thereof, but what I described that combination as being is entirely my opinion. Most people experience something like this at least once or up to a handful of times in their life. The time to see a doctor about it is if it becomes something that happens several times a year, or especially if it's multiple times a month or week.

Could be a lucid nightmare.