I thought about narcolepsy too to be honest.

I had to look into some time ago because of unpleasant experience that is for sure not bad as yours (lucky me). In general during the early hours once I wake up, but decide to carry on I have weird experiences. The last one disturbed me to the point where I didn't want to fall asleep anymore.

I was pretty aware where I was and how I was positioned in the bed, I was aware of my surroundings, but I couldn't move at all. It was really like trance. I was in some dark place (there were lights from time to time but not enough to see something) and everything was happening really fast. People were talking to me all the time, I couldn't even understand what they were saying. Then there was loud music, like really loud and just like you I wanted to cover my ears but I couldn't move my hands.

And then all those people were whispering and approaching me and I started shivering and in this moment I exited the trance. I felt it physically though. I had noise sensation in my ears and they were hurt even though I know that there was no real noise there. And I really felt cold and felt the shivers. In fact I was cold after this.

Anyway that's why I looked into narcolepsy. It sounds like you have something like that. Maybe your brain really does try to shut out your body, but it doesn't do it completely. Which is why you have something like sleep paralysis. You know what's going around you, but you can't move and you still dream. They say that some people enter REM phase far rapidly (it's abnormal) and that combined with the paralysis might make you feel this way.

I hope that you will find solution to your problem because it sounds horrible.