I went to a sleep study part for this. I found out that my RERA (*I am afraid I don't know what the acronym stands for) is 17 times per hour. Basically, I go from almost awake to deep sleep and back and forth that many times in one hour. For me, I experience what you discussed in your post, but it has gotten to the point that I now have hypnogogic dreams. That's where I almost wake up/wake up and hallucinate. I can't tell the dream from reality.