Comment by boole1854
Oddly the author compares their cataplexy experience to sleep paralysis and says they are not similar because in sleep paralysis "you can't feel" whereas in cataplexy "you can feel all your limbs and it feels like they're all ready to obey you".
I have experienced sleep paralysis several times, and I have always retained the ability to apparently feel my body/limbs as I think most people do. It would seem that the author's experience of sleep paralysis is different from most people's.
Author here -- I wouldn't describe it as being completely numb in a way fully equivalent to, say, anaesthesia (or having your limbs fall asleep), but it's very qualitatively different from cataplexy, for sure. It's hard to describe exactly, but it's a much more "total" experience than cataplexy is.
I have had multiple (thankfully rare) instances of sleep paralysis in which I am completely unable to move upon waking, with the classic feeling described in the literature of a heavy weight on your chest (presumably sleep paralysis is the experience from whence the Norwegian word "mareritt" -- meaning nightmare -- comes from; you are being "ridden" by an evil creature called a "mare")
The worst experience with Sleep Paralysis I had was paired with hypnogogic hallucinations of wasps flying above me. I was sitting there terrified and utterly helpless to move. None of my usual anti-cataplexy tricks worked at all.
Eventually the sleep paralysis wore off and I stumbled out of the room in my underwear. I cautiously crept back to see if the wasps were still there. Staring at the ceiling, I realized they weren't wasps, they were ... dragonflies? Then the dragonflies disappeared and I realized the whole time it was just a tiny hook in the ceiling, the kind of thing you'd hang a potted plant or decoration from.
This was all before I learned the finger trick for cataplexy, however. It's been over a decade since I had sleep paralysis, but next time it happens I will definitely give it a try.