Sleep paralysis, share your story

King George VI

I experience this almost every night. I've learned to accept it and let it run it's course. It's gotten to the point that I can control it. Before I learned to do this it was scary as ****. Normally I go through periods of about 3 months getting them every night, then a month or so SP free, then 3 month cycle starts again.

From my post in the sleeping and dreaming forum:

Johnny Carson wrote: »

I sleep on my belly with my face pointing to the left or right. I was having alot of weird dreams (one involved me going into the kitchen for a snack and all I found was broken pieces of Easter eggs HAH... but that's a story for a different day). Anyway when I "woke" from the dream I felt the familiar sensation of the skin on my face being sucked off, I felt an evil presence in the room and everything was kind of... blurry. My face was pointing towards my girlfriend who was fast asleep next to me. As with sleep paralysis I couldn't move a muscle so I tried to shake my hand and breath heavily to try wake her but to no avail. Then (and this freaked me the **** out) she suddenly sat up and turned her head to me. As it was dark and blurry I assumed it was her anyway. She stared at me for a minute or so then really quickly crawled off the bed out of my view and as she crawled out of view she kind of resembled a demon like creature/incubus type thing. She was gone for a minute and then I felt her crawl onto my back which made my breathing really difficult. I tried to scream and rock back and forth, all the while my breathing was getting increasingly heavier and after a minute or so of this I woke up.

Out of breath and exhausted, I looked over and there was my girlfriend looking at me asking me did I just have a seizure. I sat up in bed for a minute and after I gathered my thoughts I laid my head back down on the pillow. Literally within a minute it started happening again. Blurry room, unable to move, that face suction **** going on. I was like "Jesus!! Not again". I was able to snap out of it the second time and finally fall back asleep.

It's a scary occurrence but it's totally harmless. It's caused by messed up sleeping patterns, medication, caffeine, stress... etc...

Read the wikipedia page. It helps you understand it a bit better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis
__________________

One strange thing though, it ALWAYS happens when fall asleep with a body part sticking out of the duvet.

Canis Lupus

Saralee4 wrote: »

I just read up on it and it is a common thing in sleep paralysis but the experience is exactly the same as people have when they have an out of body near death experience. Something to do with waking up mid REM.

Yeah, it's called dreaming.

LucidLife

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Get a friend to put a mystery object on a shelf that you can't see in normal day to day activity. Wait till you have an out of body experience and then come back and report what the object was as you look down from above.

(pro tip): You won't be able to do it because you're talking rubbish.

You sir are wrong. It has been proven. Do a bit of research lol

Mr Freeze

Tis a scary experience.

The first time it happened to me, it was quite bad and I was 100% positive what was happening was real.

I was lying in bed and thought I was awake and noticed there was something behind me, pressing against my back.

It my head, I thought it was a giant snake or it was a demon or devil or something and that all it was going to wrap itself around me and eat me and drag me to hell. To say I was panicking like never before would be an understatement.

I couldn't move a muscle and I didn't know why, and I just lay there terrified.
I don't remember waking up, I was in same position when I did wake and was able to move.

I thought it was the most real feeling dream I ever had.

LucidLife

strobe wrote: »

Or to put it another way, lay off the ecstacy.

I don't take it.

Saralee4

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Yeah, it's called dreaming.

No it's a transitional experience between wakefulness and sleep. It is medically recognised.

Canis Lupus

LucidLife wrote: »

You sir are wrong. It has been proven. Do a bit of research lol

I'll await the links to this peer reviewed research...

I'll be waiting a while I imagine as well...

LucidLife

Canis Lupus wrote: »

I'll await the links to this peer reviewed research...

I'll be waiting a while I imagine as well...

You will be if you expect me to enlighten you. I don't care up or down what your mind perceives about anything.

noodler

tim3000 wrote: »

When I work nights I sometimes sleeping tablets to get some sleep during the day. I only get it when I take them. The last time I got it was the worst yet, goose-flesh, the horrible sensation of not being able to move and the feeling that something was sliding the blankets off me and sliding itself into the bed beside me. Miserable experience.

Exactly right.

Usually it feels like a massive gust of wind coming from nowhere is blowing my duvet covers off leaving me exposed.

I only remember seeing somebody once but they walked past the bed and wouldn't look at me.

1) Frozen - (can still see)
2) Can't scream or make any noise no matter how hard I try
3) Duvet flying off me due to wind (although it actually isn't).

noodler

noodler wrote: »

3) Duvet flying off me due to wind (although it actually isn't).

I ought to get that looked at!

Am I rite?

AM I RITE?

Canis Lupus

LucidLife wrote: »

You will be if you expect me to enlighten you. I don't care up or down what your mind perceives about anything.

You could just have said no such research exists that proves it....

Canis Lupus

Saralee4 wrote: »

No it's a transitional experience between wakefulness and sleep. It is medically recognised.

Oh I know sleep paralysis is recognised but then as you can read in this thread people have horrible stories to recount about sleep paralysis. One person thought she was being raped! Obviously they were all dreaming and yet you, when you float out of your body, apparently are not despite it being the obvious cause of the 'experience'.

LucidLife

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Oh I know sleep paralysis is recognised but then as you can read in this thread people have horrible stories to recount about sleep paralysis. One person thought she was being raped! Obviously they were all dreaming and yet you, when you float out of your body, apparently are not despite it being the obvious cause of the 'experience'.

Your ignorance is my bliss

StormWarrior

When I was a teenager for a while my bedroom was the attic. When sleeping in there I used to get sleep paralysis all the time. The scariest one was when I felt it happening again, managed to scream for my mum who came upstairs, opened my bedroom door and stood over me. I said, "Mum, it's happening again," and she did nothing to help but just went downstairs again. When it finally wore off I got out of bed, went downstairs to complain, and my mum said she hadn't been up at all. The hallucination was so real I thought she'd really come up. That was when I realised that my bedroom door had been locked from the inside, she couldn't have come in. I had one where two strange men were in my room, sitting on my bed, looking at me and talking about me. They were really scary and sinister and even though I knew it was a hallucination, I was terrified. I had a horrible one once where on my bedroom wall I could see a scene of the beach and cliffs down the road from my house. In the sleep paralysis it looked and felt like I was repeatedly climbing up the cliff and jumping down onto the beach, over and over again. I also used to have one where I could see an evil figure by the window of my bedroom. Later I moved to a different bedroom and my sister got the attic. Now my sleep paralysis ended and hers began. She used to see the same figure by the window that I had seen.

LucidLife

StormWarrior wrote: »

When I was a teenager for a while my bedroom was the attic. When sleeping in there I used to get sleep paralysis all the time. The scariest one was when I felt it happening again, managed to scream for my mum who came upstairs, opened my bedroom door and stood over me. I said, "Mum, it's happening again," and she did nothing to help but just went downstairs again. When it finally wore off I got out of bed, went downstairs to complain, and my mum said she hadn't been up at all. The hallucination was so real I thought she'd really come up. That was when I realised that my bedroom door had been locked from the inside, she couldn't have come in. I had one where two strange men were in my room, sitting on my bed, looking at me and talking about me. They were really scary and sinister and even though I knew it was a hallucination, I was terrified. I had a horrible one once where on my bedroom wall I could see a scene of the beach and cliffs down the road from my house. In the sleep paralysis it looked and felt like I was repeatedly climbing up the cliff and jumping down onto the beach, over and over again. I also used to have one where I could see an evil figure by the window of my bedroom. Later I moved to a different bedroom and my sister got the attic. Now my sleep paralysis ended and hers began. She used to see the same figure by the window that I had seen.

Ouch thats a rough run. Do you remember anything the two men said or do you try and ignore them memories? The one with your mum was a lucid nightmare sounds like which aint fun.

StormWarrior

LucidLife wrote: »

Ouch thats a rough run. Do you remember anything the two men said or do you try and ignore them memories? The one with your mum was a lucid nightmare sounds like which aint fun.

I couldn't actually make out what the men were saying but they were looking at me while talking and there was a really sinister feel about it, I just knew they were making plans to do something to me.

noodler

StormWarrior wrote: »

I couldn't actually make out what the men were saying but they were looking at me while talking and there was a really sinister feel about it, I just knew they were making plans to do something to me.

..a makeover?

Bastards.


EDIT: By the way, this thread has huge potential. Similar to that "most unerving thing that has ever happened to you" thread from a few Xmas ago.

StormWarrior

noodler wrote: »

..a makeover?

Haha no. I felt that they were planning to rape and kill me.

asteroids over berlin

used to get it after going for a couple of beers then staying up until 8 - 9am playing poker (cash games) in a casino. usually walking out with a nice wad of cash, however the paralysis was quite fcuked up, in my case, it was a sign it wasn't a good thing for my health, so I knocked the poker on the head. Play the odd tournament now, which I suck balls at! hmmmmm

thebostoncrab

Only happened once to myself. I woke up with the same feeling of dredd and fear that others are describing. I couldn't move, and I couldn't make any noise (It was like I couldn't catch my breath). All the while the bedroom door was being knocked at so violently that it looked like it was bouncing against the hinges. After about a minute of this it suddenly all stopped and I just shot up like a dart. It was terrifying and I wouldn't wish it upon anyone!

Paco Rodriguez

It happened me once. I sleep on my side facing the wall usually.

I woke up like that, well thought that I had woken up. But I felt like there was someone standing beside the bed looking down at me.

I tried to turn my neck but couldn't. I was in a panic trying to turn myself around. Don't know how long I lasted but I tried count to 3 and then turn and I did. Of course there was nobody there.

Never felt fear like that.

Apolloyon

I used to get them quite frequently when I was 19 or 20 working and living in London. I had no idea for years what it was so it was quite terrifying. Nowadays I get them now and again but nearly always Saturday night/Sunday morning sleeping.


Previous experiences include high winds buffeting where I live even if there is no wind. Someone or lots of people trying to break the door into where I live or the worst is when someone comes in through the window. Which is why I have a pathological dread of open windows at night time.


But now that I know what they are, I can feel detached (most times) from the experience. One time a few months ago, I heard a monstrous hissing/growling combo close to my bed and I said (not really because I was sleeping but in my head): 'Is that the best you can do?'


I felt really badass after that and the sound went away.

Ave Sodalis

Canis Lupus wrote: »

I'll await the links to this peer reviewed research...

I'll be waiting a while I imagine as well...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945211002978
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810012000438
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945208001305

Whatever about the causes, out of body experiences are accepted to happen

LucidLife

Whatever about the causes, out of body experiences are accepted to happen[/quote]

Dr Charles Tart is worth looking into too but I bet he is too cynical to understand or recognise even after seeing proof

take everything

Canis Lupus wrote: »

'Woke up' couldn't move... realised it was sleep paralysis... chilled out and then woke up properly after a couple of minutes.... simples :P

Like a boss

Canis Lupus

sup_dude wrote: »

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945211002978
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810012000438
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945208001305

Whatever about the causes, out of body experiences are accepted to happen

I never said OOB experiences aren't accepted. I'm arguing that something physical or spiritual actually leaving the body and going floating around the place is rubbish. IE it's not real, just either a dream/hallucination/the effects of an oxygen deprived/dying brain (in the case of near death experiences).

LucidLife

Canis Lupus wrote: »

I never said OOB experiences aren't accepted. I'm arguing that something physical or spiritual actually leaving the body and going floating around the place is rubbish. IE it's not real, just either a dream/hallucination/the effects of an oxygen deprived/dying brain (in the case of near death experiences).

Told you he is to cynical

killanena

Its only happened to me once, quite recently actually back during the summer. I woke up probably around 2am or 3am. I couldn't move at all and I saw a black hand above me holding a lit fag and the hand was moving up and down towards my face as if I was smoking it. I had completely forgot where I was. (was staying in a friends spare room) I was a little freaked but I only lasted a couple of minutes until my girlfriend turned over in the bed and I snapped out of it. Couldn't go back to sleep after so I just watched some tv in the living room till the morning.

Canis Lupus

LucidLife wrote: »

Whatever about the causes, out of body experiences are accepted to happen

Dr Charles Tart is worth looking into too but I bet he is too cynical to understand or recognise even after seeing proof[/QUOTE]

Are you refering to the experiment that Tart admitted himself he fell asleep during and had no one else monitoring the subject nor video recording the subject? That's solid science right there in action alright

dmm82

oooh its a horrible thing... the first time I got it I was only about 17.... got into bed and all of a sudden all the lights went off except for a big light going past my bedroom window, the whole bed was shaking and there was a huge roaring sound,it was like a train was going past the bed... I could feel something siting on me. I tried to scream for my Dad but couldn't move. Eventually it stopped and I was hysterical!! Ran downstairs bawling, I honestly thought a ghost had been trying to kill me!! My Dad laughed and said it was probably the "D/ T'S" from the weekend (I had been at my first rave that weekend so that was probably true )

Still happens me every now and again and always after I've had a mad weekend. And its still as scary every time