Sleep paralysis

Paddy Bateman · 14-02-2012 10:26pm #1

Anyone ever suffer(?) from this. I did for my late teens and early twenties as did my brother. Maybe once every six weeks or do...,,hasn't happened for a few years now

catbird · 17-02-2012 7:46am

I get at least twice a week , coffee and stimulants are a cause , but there just the most obvious ones

Joe10000 · 17-02-2012 7:52am

I had it one time only, was terrified.

Could "hear" someone coming up the stairs to get me.

Catbird do you get the hallucinations ?

catbird · 18-02-2012 6:48am

Joe10000 wrote: »

I had it one time only, was terrified.

Could "hear" someone coming up the stairs to get me.

Catbird do you get the hallucinations ?

Man i got one there two nights ago with some woman holding me hand

The worse thing about sleep paralysis is the visceral buzzing you get , both audio and physical , but its so hard to fight it because when it happens your more tired then you ever were , so you try to move like some sort of fish and just drift in and out of chaos , and when i get out of it anyway i cant sleep for another few hours or it happens again

They say sleeping on your back or stomach can induce it as well

But i sleep on my side most of the time and it happens then

Its Crazy stuff ha

Chuck Stone · 18-02-2012 6:54am

Have gotten it a few times. Horrible. It's like you need to wake up badly because something terrible is happening in the half nightmare half awake experience but you can't move.

CountryJoe · 18-02-2012 5:59pm

I dont get it as much anymore. But around 10 years ago when I was getting it regularly enough, it used to start when I would feel this kind of suction sensation on my face. Sounds kinda weird, but id be lying there, and it would feel as if some force was pulling the skin off my face. Then after that id get the sensation of being sat on by somebody, unable to move. The first few times it happened I was freaked out, but then after that I went with the flow and now find it to be enjoyable as I know its altogether harmless.

I usually find I get it with a disruption in my regular sleeping pattern. Last time I got it was when I arrived back home from holidays, I never sleep on the plane, so was up for 24 hours. In times previous to that its happened aswell.

I have always wondered what it would look like to an observer watching somebody in a state of paralysis. So, I looked on youtube and found this video, granted the lady in questions paralysis is caused by an underlying condition, but I would imagine how she is in the video is pretty much how everybody would be during it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omzsLqbgRaU

Randy Anders · 22-02-2012 2:16am

Sleep paralysis scares the cr@p out of me. Admittedly, I only ever get it when I have been on a drug binge from a crazy weekend or back from a trip from Ibiza. It has to with a lack of serotonin in my case

Seriously freaky stuff though, it's impossible to properly explain to somebody who has never got it. In my case, it feels like an evil old lady is sitting on my chest, applying downward pressure. I am fully aware of what’s going on, eyes open etc but can't do a single thing about it, you want to scream at the top of your lungs but you are paralysed

I find it very strange that nearly all the people who get it, describe it as an evil presence in the room, the old haggard lady in the room is the most common I've heard. I'm an atheist/agnostic but the similarities people have while under sleep paralysis freak me out big time

I hope that's not what hell's like!!

jay phelan · 22-02-2012 2:22am

Happened me a few times but thankfully it doesn't happen regularly. The last time was a few months back and scared me so much I didn't sleep for three days straight and spent the next week sleeping in the day in the sittingroom where my partner was awake.

Randy Anders · 22-02-2012 11:05pm

Jesus the very night I made that post two up, I got sleep paralysis. It wasn't as bad usual, I was trying to scream at the top of my voice but couldn't move a muscle and there was no hallucinations this time

I had a heavy enough session on the weekend so that is probably responsible for it but fecking hell, it was a bit of a coincidence that I posted about it and then actualy got it that night, nearly like I had planted the thought in my brain

DMGACC · 27-04-2012 12:09am

I sometimes get this about two days after a serious bender. for example if I am on the booze saturday I will get it Monday night. Normally one of two forms. A creepy looking old woman sitting in the corner in the dark looking at me or someone touching the back of my head as I lie in bed.

I never realised it was called sleep paralysis or maybe this is a different thing. Me and my friends just call it the horrors. I lie in bed almost too scared to move staring at this old woman in the corner trying to convince myself she doesnt exist. Its strange because I am pretty sure I am awake at the time and I am quite aware that this a result of all the booze the weekend but I can actually physically see her sitting there. Once while I was staring at her she made a lunge at me and I jumped out of bed in real life. Normally now I have to get up and turn on the light if I can and just sit in bed afraid to go back to sleep!! Hope it doesnt happen tonight now cos I am kinda freaked out just thinking about it.

One of my friends also gets it after booze but he see rats climbing up the walls.

Wilderbeast1 · 03-06-2012 8:33am

It usually goes away after a period. Has it repeatedly for a year in my early 20s; never came back (yet?!)

Once you know what it is it usually isn't a big problem.

karen234 · 09-06-2012 11:00pm

Oh ya.Plenty of times.It's terrifying.Last time I heard a big gasp beside me in bed and was trying to turn on the lamp but couldn't.I was lying there in the darkness wondering who was beside me for what felt like hours.

Oxe · 26-06-2012 12:24am

I experienced sleep or body paralysis when practicing astral projection . Its a condition where the body is in sleep mode but the mind is conciously aware. The method I use to release my self from the paralysis is to rock my head from side to side. This takes a fair bit of effort and willpower but persistence wins in the end. The buzzing in the ears is caused by the muscles within and surrounding the ears vibrate/flutter when entering sleep mode.

whatsup? · 01-07-2012 1:20am

It happens to me regularly and can be very scary! but its nothing to be distressed about its got to do with tiredness and not getting enough sleep. The part of sleep where we dream is known as REM periods. During each of our REM (dreaming) periods of sleep, the body becomes temporarily paralyzed so that we don’t act out our dreams. Occasionally when we wake up after dreaming, though, our bodies don’t wake up with us and they “stay asleep.” The body wants to keep sleeping because it hasn't got enough but the brain is awake.

SillyMangoX · 01-07-2012 1:30am

This has started happening to me recently, usually when I take a nap on the couch. It comes in 2 forms for me, the first is when Im falling asleep and ill get a feeling like Im being sucked into a vacuum and I cant move or stop it until ill suddenly jump awake as if ive been plunged into a bucket of water, heart going like the clappers and breathing really fast.

The second type happens when I have been asleep, ill wake up and feel like my entire body is vibrating, cant move a limb no matter how hard I try, can sometimes open my eyes a crack and I find it extremely hard to breathe. This is the scariest one. Has anyone ever had serious side effects from sleep paralysis?

calm_bull · 03-07-2012 1:02pm

i got it last night, and i get it about three or 4 times a week usually, on top of constant nightmares, i probably wake about 4 times a night at this stage. i cant remember the last time i had a decent nights sleep. mine usually starts where im looking around my room and then i start to hallucinate, either someone/something walks in and starts screaming at me or trying to hurt me, or otherwise one of the objects in my rooms turns into someone. its crazy and usually leaves me waking up hyperventilating and afraid to go back to sleep!

whatsup? · 03-07-2012 11:39pm

calm_bull wrote: »

i got it last night, and i get it about three or 4 times a week usually, on top of constant nightmares, i probably wake about 4 times a night at this stage. i cant remember the last time i had a decent nights sleep. mine usually starts where im looking around my room and then i start to hallucinate, either someone/something walks in and starts screaming at me or trying to hurt me, or otherwise one of the objects in my rooms turns into someone. its crazy and usually leaves me waking up hyperventilating and afraid to go back to sleep!

Christ that sounds awful

Think that's more nightmare than sleep paralysis!

tedobrien98 · 05-08-2012 4:16pm

I had it once. I had been sick as a plane to Lourdes for a few days before it with the flu and all that, (It was about a week before Christmas last year) and I woke up normally in the middle of the night, as you do, and decided to go out to the toilet... So I did the thing in your brain that tells your legs to move, and they didn't... I tried again, no movement... This is strange I thought... I remember feeling a funny thing in my legs... I just said fvck this and went back to sleep... Which is strange for me, because my mind ALWAYS makes things seem worse than they are... After reading some of these posts, I'm surprised I didn't have the whole kit and caboodle... Ould women sitting on me, her friend over in the corner staring, rats running up the wall, Justin Bieber on the radio... I'm sure it can be very scary for some people!!! I'm afraid of it happening again now, incase I'll have an experience like ye'rs...

therattler · 15-08-2012 3:04pm

i get it from time to time. Scary. Latest was last Wednesday....I was having a nap on the couch with my 2 year old daughter. I woke (half woke) and my eyes opened. I tried to get up but couldnt move. Couldnt even move a hand. Just my eyes. I could hear foot steps and with the fear of the situaution i got it into my head that someone came into the house so then I started to panic. Think I just closed my eyes then and went back asleep.

I got it really bad once in bed last year. I woke and not only could i not move but i couldnt breathe properly. I was looking at my partner who was asleep beside me and was trying to get the strength up to make a noise with my voice to wake her cause I was freakin' out but couldnt. Eventually I think I just reached the threshold for not breathing and woke up.

Mental!!

King George VI · 02-09-2012 12:25am

I get sleep paralysis fairly often but I'm not really bothered by it, in fact I'm intrigued and fascinated by it. Worst one was last night. Happened twice in a 5 minute period. I'll try and explain it in the best detail I can.

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 fuck 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 shit 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... as someone said a few posts ago once it's happened a few times and you know what it is it's not something that bothers you it's just something that happens from time to time.

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

gogomum · 10-11-2012 4:17pm

It is so interesting to hear other people's stories who have gone through this. I had it happen to me when I was 7, 14, 17, 21, 27 and 28 and for a while thought I was haunted by a poltergeist. It was especially strange that the number 7 seemed to occur at each "visitation". I had a combination of visits from a little leprechaun type man, speaking an ancient language through the radio which to me sounded like a satanic chant but I understood it, not being able to move, hearing voices calling my name in my ear, hearing footsteps on the stairs, feeling something on my legs pressing me down, seeing things move about the room like pictures or balloons or the sheets being pulled down. I thought for a long time that I was haunted and was so interested in watching horror movies. I even had my own special language that I could write when I was a teenager, with different letters that I knew off by heart and could write in a diary, I looked it up since and it was the Paleo Hebrew alphabet that I was writing in which dates from the 10th Century BC or earlier.

I read the Demon Haunted World by Carl Saagan though a few years ago and realised it was quite common and not at all supernatural, I am a humanist so it went against my beliefs to believe in ghosts and higher powers, although I do believe that electrical forces in humans can do strange things. For example I can stop a watch in anything from a few minutes to a couple of hours, just by wearing it, sometimes I mess up the laptop if I'm feeling stressed. I noticed the same kind of thing happens if tin foil is near the mouse pad area on the laptop too! It is spooky stuff and not nice when it happens, but now the odd time that it has happened since, I recognise the signs and am able to stop myself before it escalates.

TheStook · 22-12-2012 5:04am

I've been getting it so much recently, I enjoy it for the most part but sometimes..

Seems like every second night I'm getting it.

Most of the time I'll just go with it and let myself slip into a dream, (Btw the sensation of knowingly falling into a dream is one of the best feeling I've ever had, its ****ing crazy).

But lately its been getting worse, like I'm starting to see ****. Usually its spiders forming in the corner of my room. I still havent experienced this "demon" which sits on you or any form of entity, when that day comes I'll probably stop sleeping once and for all. Its bad enough seeing nothing.
And ever since I've been aware of this demon thing that most people see, Its been horrible. It's like I'm waiting for him to appear so instead of slipping into a dream I shake myself out of the paralysis.

Anyway, just thought I'd share

Hippies! · 27-12-2012 3:51pm

Sleep paralysis comes with stress for me or general lack of sleep. Haven't had it in ages though and been sleeping like a baby, so much so I've been able to shoot people in my dreams

no guns without bullets for me these nights

Miprocin · 06-01-2013 9:06pm

It happens to me regularly enough, mostly if I've been using MDMA or benzodiazepines though it does sometimes happen without this factor. I haven't experienced hallucinations. What usually happens is that I wake with a sense of dread unable to move. I either regain control of movement after a few minutes or fall back asleep, in which case it will happen again.

TheStook · 06-01-2013 10:24pm

Miprocin wrote: »

It happens to me regularly enough, mostly if I've been using MDMA or benzodiazepines though it does sometimes happen without this factor. I haven't experienced hallucinations. What usually happens is that I wake with a sense of dread unable to move. I either regain control of movement after a few minutes or fall back asleep, in which case it will happen again.

I find that just falling back asleep is the easier thing to do, its very easy to start panicking and freaking yourself out. Even though you're effectively paralyzed you're still able to breath so a few deep breaths and then ease yourself back to sleep.

It only takes a matter of seconds for me to fall back asleep, I'm not sure if its subjective though..

BlueJohn · 10-01-2013 1:36am

I've had it twice over the past 3 months. My first time I had it i woke to my door open in my room and the feeling some one was behind me. I was trying to move my hand to wake myself up and eventually did. Pretty scary **** cause when i woke up my door was still closed.

I think the reason I have started to get them is I had used LSD heavely for amount 6 months or a while before it.

Ciano35 · 28-02-2013 2:30pm

I always feared I would get this, and then I got it 3 times over the last 2 weeks!

:eek: Stress or something..

Although they haven't been as scary as some of the ones described here.

My most resent one I remember being barely able to move.. It was very weird. Like I was half conscious, and could only move my hands and legs very slowly, as if there were heavy weights attached to them.

I was also seeing a tarantula dropping down slowly from the ceiling which was frightening the crap out of me!! It turned out that it was just the wires of a smoke alarm that had the cover removed! :P

Shinners25 · 21-04-2013 11:29pm

I get it when I'm stressed or if my sleep pattern is disturbed.

The first time it happened me it felt like someone was sitting on my chest trying to suffocate me! The next morning I just told myself it was a dream. Then the next time it happened if felt like someone was squeezing my duvet around me trying to suffocate me again!! Scary ****.

So I googled it and was so relieved to learn it was sleep paralysis - had never heard of it before

Now that I know what it is it's not a problem. A tip to anyone that gets it...when I feel it coming on, like when you start to feel that pressure coming over your body and you can't move... Keep telling your brain WAKE UP, WAKE UP, WAKE UP!!! And eventually the pressure eases off and your body wakes up and you can move again

zef · 22-04-2013 12:01am

Good to find a thread on this. I like it and hate it both, some of it is fun, but a lot is pretty scary.
I get different types of experience - the most common being involuntarily pulled from my sleeping body and floating around the ceiling, although I can never see my own face, just the shape of me in the bed. One of my lads has black plastic over the small window on top of his bedroom door to keep the landing light out, and I had the experience of floating thru that, and seeing him there , even noticing his usual duvet was not on the bed, my pink 'cat' one was!

I also feel as if i have managed to get back to my body, it feels like i'm walking thru jelly on quicksand, have woken up, and am getting out of bed. But then I realise i'm still stuck in this body paralysis level.

The worst ones are the demon ones. Thankfully pretty rare. Sometimes I get great ones where I'm pulled out of myself and my bedroom becomes huge, bigger than a cathedral so i must be very tiny? Or flying. Or sitting on top of a train like the DART and going at speed. If I decide it's too freaky I have the libity to 'come back'. It's too vivid to be a dream.
It might sound odd but I had one where i was instantly transported to a shop and diner in some random US smalltown, and some other quite fun ones that I was aware throughout.
I find the best way to induce one is to have about 4 hours sleep, get up for an hour then go back lying on your bed reading a book that requires some concentration. Something challenging that you've put off. Always works for me.

I read that book about Irish exorcisms "The Devils Sacrament" I think, Its mentioned over on Paranormal a lot and it's a book you won't forget! One chapter was on a girl who began inducing astral travel with a guy she met from years ago who was into the occult. Apparantly the writers of that book are pretty devout Christian and denounce yoga, though.
It started happenning to me spontaneously after a (negative) near death exp in my early 20's. I wonder if they are related?

I have some past lives/ astral travel MP3's (recc Dick Sutphen) its mostly extreme deep relaxation which in itself is pretty pleasant and floaty, they work the odd time too.

Michelletarian · 22-04-2013 6:38pm

If there's anything scarier than sleep paralysis, then I haven't ****ing found it.

Any tips on how to avoid it? People always think it's "cool" or "funny" when I relay to them what it's like... it's a feeling of terror nothing has ever matched for me :P

MaxWig · 09-10-2013 1:25pm

Michelletarian wrote: »

If there's anything scarier than sleep paralysis, then I haven't ****ing found it.

Any tips on how to avoid it? People always think it's "cool" or "funny" when I relay to them what it's like... it's a feeling of terror nothing has ever matched for me :P

Scariest experience I've ever had.

Been free of it about a year now.

Not sure, but I cut out coffee after 3pm around that time.
Used to be a demon for the stuff.

Sleep paralysis

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