Ripples on the brain

I was pleasantly surprised to find some literature on something that I experience very frequently but had thought it to be something crazy and never explored it further so far. Though this has been happening since as far as I can remember, I seem to have grown conscious of it only for the last one year or so; from the time I was in ISB, to be precise.

The experience is this: It generally seems to be initiated by a bad dream, not a real nightmare, but an unpleasant dream that I want to run away from. At some point, I realize that it is a dream and return to consciousness, but only partially. My eyes seem to open, but as I get out of my bed and start walking, I realize that my body is not moving with me. When I was a kid and was sleeping along with my parents, I tried to scream at this point and after sometime wondered why they weren’t responding though they were sleeping near-by. Nowadays, mostly because I realize that I am sleeping all alone and also because I have experienced this over and over again, I close my eyes one more time and open it again and check if I have regained control over my body (by trying to move my hand or leg). This check does not happen very easily because if i try to move, I get a feeling that I am out of the bed and walking most of the time before something makes me realize that my body is not out of the bed yet. If I open my eyes again, I see the same thing (either the fan, if I sleep facing upwards, or the table/stand nearby, if I sleep side-ways). I try to get up again. This process repeats till I am convinced that my body is moving with me.

There are actually different variations to this. Sometimes, even as I realize I am in a dream and try to open my eyes, it takes me to a different situation - say to a busy road or school or something - when I realize that I have not woken up as I ought to be sleeping in my bedroom if I am dreaming. So, I close my eyes again and open it and repeat this process till I am convinced that I am back to reality.

All this while, I am conscious enough to
a) realize I was only dreaming
b) see the real things, i.e., my eyes start functioning. I can say this positively because even when I regain full consciousness I see the same fan or table in the same position before I move my neck. When I am partially conscious, I can see in a single position only; I can neither move my eye-balls nor my neck.

Though I vow to talk to some one about it everytime I experience this, I forget all about it the next morning. Hence, I was surprised to find some material on this topic. I was, in fact, more surprised to read the case-studies where people quoted experiencing the same things that I experience. On an average, 1 in 10 people claim to have experienced this. So I am not alone.