Sleep Paralysis / Possible Seizures

Hey there. Last night, I went to bed at around 10:30 and bolted awake at 11:30, wheezing for air and with a look of complete terror on my face. My heart was racing, I felt terror and dread, and I basically got on top of my girlfriend, frantically trying to get her attention. She started freaking out too and started yelling with me, in tears. We both freaked each other the hell out. Eventually I snapped out of it between 30 and 45 seconds. I've been suffering from similar episodes ever since I was 18, never with more than six months between episodes. However, last night was by far the worst, and my ability to move from my stomach/side to my girlfriend leads me to believe that this may not be sleep paralysis. I have had a terrible episode like this one other time, where I fell asleep in a chair beside my girlfriend's bed in the hospital (she was there for having had two seizures that morning, non epileptic). In my fear I got out of the chair and ran to her side, falling in the process and attracting nurse attention. I did the same thing there too, looking in her face and freaking her out (she was heavily drugged and by the time I got to her was nearly done, so she didn't seem to mind it too much). That time I fell asleep around midnight and the episode occured around 1:00. I didn't think much of it because I figured it could have been caused by sleeping in the hospital, but yesterday was an otherwise extremely uneventful day so now I am very anxious. I don't mind the smaller episodes which occur about once every two weeks on average, but these two terrible ones almost feel like life changing events. I have these almost any time at night, but both bad ones were one hour after falling asleep roughly. Anyone know if this could be a seizure of some sort? Granted, it resembles nothing like my girlfriend's grand mals, but it doesn't quite seem like sleep paralysis. One last thing: I feel very confused and such when I wake up. The weaker episodes I typically just make some quieter yelling noises, but the two bad ones are distinctly different in my vocals. They happened seven months apart. Any ideas or help is appreciated.. I'm a 24 year old male.