Sleep Paralysis Or Real Ghost?

I have lived in my current house about seven years, its a two bedroom building and just myself and my husband live here. I have always felt something in this house, when we first moved in I kept hearing a scratching noise coming from our attic, we checked and there were no signs of any rodents etc, eventually I asked what ever it was to leave my house and the sounds stopped.

Over the years there have been strange events like my TV turning itself on, lights flickering, strange noises from outside and seeing people out of the corner of my eye. I have not been too bothered because it felt like whatever is causing this is quite peaceful. This was until last week, I have recently changed jobs and have an unusual sleeping pattern so not to disturb my husband some nights I will sleep in our spare bedroom, there is definitely something different about this room, the temperature can suddenly drop and it has a general eerie vibe. I have my two cockatiels in this room and quite often in the early hours they will get spooked and start flapping about. When I sleep in there I keep a dim lamp on because I am too afraid to sleep in there I complete darkness and I wear an eye mask.

Last week I went to sleep in the spare bedroom with my eye mask on and dim lamp, I was on my back and just drifting off to sleep when feeling slightly anxious all of a sudden I snapped out of drifting to sleep and woke up. I opened my eyes and could just see a small part of the room through a gap in the bottom part of my eye mask, I looked up and to my side and made eye contact with someone stood over me who instantly rushed towards me and was trying to strangle me through the bed covers, I couldn't move and all I could see was this person's eyes, even though this was all I could see I knew it was an older lady and I sensed nothing but pure hatred from this being towards me. It was over quite quickly and was terrifying.

In the past I have experienced sleep paralysis and have been attacked by shadow people so I put it down to this; that I didn't realise I was asleep. I told my sister about it and she has terrified me telling me it was a ghost and not sleep paralysis which could be plausible because this person was not a shadow. I clearly made eye contact with them and saw their eyes in full colour. I was wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar and if you have any tips on how I protect myself from this happening again?

from Your Ghost Stories source