Was it real, or the mind just playing tricks ?

entropi

Only yesterday morning while asleep i had been dreaming of a ghost attacking me in a dream, it went to grab me and as soon as it touched my skin i seemed to go unconcious. About 2-3 seconds later in real time i woke up very quickly and alert, yet i could not move my shoulders or move up from the bed, it felt as though i was being pinned down by someone aggressive and breathing heavily [ yes i heard this also ] with only myself in my room at the time.

After about 5-8 seconds of this i proceeded to say out loud " you are not welcome here, go away and leave me alone " which strangely enough, seemed to do the thing as i felt all movement in my body again and the breathing sound went away. Yes there are 2 spirits / ghosts i know of in my house and acknowledge them being there as they never harm anyone and seem grounded to the place, but could this have been a rogue invading my room ?

I have only 2 explanations for this myself :

1. It could have been sleep paralysis or some form of it [ but i could move other parts of my body], just not those specific areas i felt pressure on.

2. My body reacted to the dream in a way that made me feel uneasy and wouldn't let me move through fear of harm.

If anyone could shed a little light on this i'd really appreciate it as it's running through my mind all day, and is the first time i've felt that way ever.

Aoide

I would go with the sleep paralysis explaination. It's a scary, scary thing to go through and I hadn't realized just how common it apparently is, but your story sounds a lot like things I have gone through as well as other people that have posted before.

6th

It really does sound like sleep paralysis if it was just taken on its own but you say you have other things happening/other spirits around?

odonnell

People with asthma (im in this bracket and have personal experience of what im telling you) tend to have dreams of drowning, suffocation, being under something, or being encapsulated in something - basically a situation where breathing is inhibited. These dreams, more often than not, result in the sufferer waking up to realise they are gasping for air and need their medication. The dream itself takes the form of whatever is going on in reality - i figure its an alarm system of a sort.Many times ive awoken from a drowning dream to find im having an asthma attack in my sleep.

this MAY or may not be the same ball park 6th. Ive alway awoken in the middle of the nightt o find ive slept on a limb or two and couldnt move them for a few minutes until the circulation came back, and normally i awake from a dream of being trapped in those instances.

Id say youre safe mate... spirit doesnt just pick on us, and certainly - i wouldnt be afraid of ANY sort of a 'sentence' since spirit has no more control over your death than you do yourself. No worries mate - paralysis ftw! hehe

Ed

entropi

6th wrote:

It really does sound like sleep paralysis if it was just taken on its own but you say you have other things happening/other spirits around?

Yes 6th, not too long ago maybe 2-3 months my mother was awoken by a figure of a little girl [ who we believe is one of the present spirits who reside where i live ] looking at her, then floating off through a wall to a laneway beside us, but the drop is about 25ft to the ground so it could never have been a person. I myself see figures moving through the shadows when i am home alone, have had some small items misplaced or even disappear entirely from the house. My neighbours have had similar experiences with missing items also so i know i'm not the only one. Along with the gut feeling that something doesn't sit right at home, i can almost feel as if something else is there that shouldn't be [ apart from our brief visits from 2 known to be there spirits ] like a presence of bad feelings etc...

There also seems to be the spirit of an old man living here also, i have seen his figure once before, but it was gone when i tried to fixate my gaze upon it. As far as i can tell, it was very real, sleep paralysis seems very likely but with the other circumstances that have happened to me and some of my family who lived here i would think it's not a malevolent spirit but maybe a mischievous one... Granted alot of this stuff hasn't happened on a few years time doesn't move for the dead trapped in limbo.

And odonnell, cheers for your input also. Although i have no medical condition that could cause this i have before [ like most preople ] woken up normally without feeling in an arm or something due to pressure on it during the night. I know that feeling of numbness and the feeling of blood rushing towards the extremeties but the feeling i had was just like someone was sitting on my back, pinning my shoulders down, and i've felt that before by someone i knew was there.

What i never mentioned in my original description is that i actually felt a little fearful because i was helpless for a few seconds [ i know it's natural but i'm a normally calm person ] and i couldn't see what could have done this. I'm certainly not afraid of spirits or ghosts as they are not known to be violent but i believe that a spirits actions reflect the person's true being while they were alive, so evil spirits may have been evil people while alive and the same for good natured spirits.

I'm sorry for the long ramble but i hope it's been helpful. I'll try looking up more similar expreiences on the net, see if anything rings a bell and if any conclusions were drawn up about it.

Aoide

Death Sentence wrote:

I'll try looking up more similar expreiences on the net, see if anything rings a bell and if any conclusions were drawn up about it.

There's loads of sites out there on the subject of night terrors and sleep paralysis as well as a section here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054968826 that you may find helpful. It really does help knowing you aren't alone in experiencing these things. It seems most cultures have there own way of explaining this occurance. In Irish lore it's blamed on an old hag.
If it makes you feel any better. I've had experiences with both sleep paralysis and felt and heard and seen spirit/ghost and the two are different enough that I think you would be able to tell the difference between the two.

Darragh29

I had my first experience of sleep paralysis last year, my gf gets it regularly, she knows what it is and its no problem for her, however I happened to be going through a very stressful period in my life recently. One night I had a nightmare that there was a demonic like black figure at the end of my bed. The fear of the dream partially woke me up but I was liretally paralysed, with this black 7 foot thing at the end of my bed! My gf in the bed beside me heard my breathing going so heavy that it woke her up and when she started talking to me, I started coming out of it and waking up, but yes, very very scary, very real like and absolutely terrifying. Glad it hasn't happened since!

el Bastardo

I've had various 'people', some of whom were Indian in appearance, pulling me out of the bed feet first, demon's 'sucking' me through the bedsheets, presences in the room... and the list goes on. Didn't know about sleep-paralysis at the time but I had to talk audibly, telling myself that it wasn't real just to wake myself up. I reckon that it was all stress-related, both study and career. It hasn't happened that often since I changed my job/career and location.

Dave!

Sounds like sleep paralysis or some sort of reaction to you having a dream about a ghost.

Forget about it.

SkepticOne

Yeah, sleep paralysis comes up again and again. It is not paranormal. During REM sleep the body is paralysed to prevent acting out the dream. Occasionally there is a partial awakening from the dream state but with the paralysis remaining. In this highly suggestible and hallucinatory state, you are liable to interpret this paralysis as fear (i.e. so scared that you can't move) and invent an object of that fear e.g. some dark presence at the end of the bed. Others imagine a demon pinning them down.