Sleep Paralysis - Plain Weird or REALLY WEIRD!?

I've done that as well, but that's another story :)

It really does feel as if you're in some bardo state between, well, life and death. Exciting and scary in equal measure.

*dance to the day fear is gone*

during one "episode", i saw (i guess i was hallucinating?) a man who looked *exactly* like abraham lincoln. he wearing this big hat and scary look and it felt like he was holding me down, the evil bastard.

i've never seen a human figure (abe lincoln!!! wow!!) but have had my hand dragged down beneath the bed fighting with the rest of my body to stay from being sucked down... often, i could step 'outside' of my body and go up the hallway of my mum's house to tell her what was happening - next thing i'd be back in my body and then i'd to go my mum and re-iterate how terrible it was, only to realise i'd never been in to tell her in the first place.

other times i can hear children giggling and scrambling around my bed while paralysed, and once, 'they' poked me really hard in the ribs (something i HATE more than anything and those close to me know NEVER to do this as i have a violent reflex-action) so that i actually got so upset i was crying once i could move again. i've had a distinct sense of dark murky green and black tunnels that they're trying to pull you into - i've always managed to fight it somehow though.

it's a real relief to know that i'm not mad (although i rationalised it my own way for a long time) and there are others who've endured this phenomenon!!!!!! far out.

Most of my dream-time experiences are fraught with death and disaster, yet I awake most satisfied that I have had a wonderful adventure. Does this make me a psychopath in-the-waiting? I mean, could it be that one day I will just crack up and run around the office with my gun happily popping off everyone in sight?

But more to the point: I wake from my dreams believing sometimes that I have had a REAL experience. Some of those experiences influence my daily life in very real ways. I actually believe they have happened, but after waking am magically transformed back into this illusion of living.

There are many other worlds out there (or should I say: in me). I am confused as to which is the reality. Or are they both real?

I felt the same as you Jayne when it first happened to me - you're not alone! Google "Sleep Paralysis" and you'll soon find some interesting sites.

Interesting feedback everyone. Dream on!

Wow. Must be some magazine.

have just googled 'sleep paralysis' and i can't tell you how grateful i am to read all about the phenomenon - what a crazy thing that i was going through this for years, convinced i had the devil at my toes!!

thanks!!

i get this abt once a month now; had it much more often when younger (i associate it with drinking too much coffee) — a lot of them a basically set in the room i'm sleeping in... i'm fairly sure my eyes are open, because some of the information fed into the dream is provided by my actual surroundings

at a particular point i became so used to it that i began to recognise it as it happens within the dream, allowing me to take action as follows
v. DON'T struggle, but instead will yrself to fly - you get a kind of tingly feeling and slip out of the paralysis and cocooning, and (sometimers) dream you're flying, out of where you where anyway... and you wake yr heart not pounding
vi. this also occasionally leads to a sequence of waking up but only within the dream,

sometimes when you can't shout in the dream you actually are shouting in real life

haha i too find it more scary when i awake and can't feel toraneko's legs

I wake up in my bed. I don't know if I've been dreaming or not. I quickly discover that I'm unable to move my body. I am seriously immobilized: can't even wiggle my little finger. Every single time this has happened to me, I panic. In the back of my mind, I must realize that this has happened to me before, and that I've always snapped out of it, but somehow each time it's happening, I'm terrified that this will be the time when I never snap out of it. Usually what happens is that I strain mentally and physically to move, trying to rock myself from side to side, and invariably, after a few agonizing seconds, I suddenly am able to move again. The weirdest thing about it is that the whole thing happens while you're wide awake. I've never had any hallucinations or apparitions associated with it - just the simple inability to move.

I've also had the experience in dreams of being paralyzed or unable to move quickly enough to get away from something unpleasant, but that is a very different kind of experience, and much less disturbing once it's over.

don't remember ever having this but since it may only last for a short period i do not know.

Ive never had the paralysis that I can recall (judging on responses here I'm sure I'd know it if I had). But I have had situations where I've woken up and I hallucinate, presumably because my brain's still in alpha wave mode/REM sleep mode?

One night last year I woke up to find a huge black cat stitting on my desk at the other side of the room staring at me with glowing red eyes. I thought "is that my cat?" then realised it cant have been because the bedroom door was shut. I then panicked thinking "how the hell did another cat get in my room one storey up with the window shut OMG". I sat up and stared at it, and then it wasnt there any more. It was a rather evil cat presence too. Funny thing was, the glowing eyes were actually my modem lights which is why I know I hallucinated.

I also once woke up, got out of bed and went to the bathroom convinced my hair dryer had come to life and was flying about on its own, though I didnt SEE it doing this. I just knew it WAS somehow. Til I realised it wasnt, then I felt stupid and went back to bed.

I then actually woke up gasping/shrieking and could suddenly move. Oh god Ive never been so terrifed. It took me hours to get back to sleep cuz I was too scared to shut my eyes :( I'm now facking exhausted and its my first day back to work after my xmas break.. greatttt.

I've heard it's sometimes connected to this condition where you frequently stop breathing during the night, don't remember what it's called. But I don't have that thank god.

That would be the greatest bumper sticker.

This is called a sleep apnea, it's caused either by a physical obstruction in the throat or less commonly by some kind of minor electrical disturbance in the brain. Apparently the sleeper constantly stops breathing then wakes up without being conscious it's happening, and this can happen hundreds of times through the night. I don't know if it's related to sleep paralysis but it wouldn't be too surprising. Oh yeah, sleep apneas can also cause snoring and extreme sluggishness during the day, so any sleep paralysis sufferers might be advised to see a doctor / expert as there can be long term health problems I think.

Weird As Fuck.

I have sleep aponea big-style and it sucks really bad, I haven't quite reached the level of Edward Furlong at the start of Fight Club yet but sometimes it feels like it. And, like everything to do with the British Health Service, details on how bad it is on the body & soul are fuzzy, details on how to treat it are even fuzzier.
It seems I have to either lose a ton of weight or have the inside of my gullet all lasered to shit and of course waiting lists for London sleep hospitals are abnormally long.
Oh yea, the two things my (fairly comprehensive) health insurance doesn't cover? Dental & Sleep Aponea....

Odd that I should stumble upon this thread today, because I have an appointment with my Docs tonight about this problem, I am heart-sick of it.

On the sleep apnea thing, yes weight loss etc but have you considered seeing a naturopath? Sometimes a good herbal extract mixture, aimed at toning your nervous system, can be really helpful in relieving this problem.

Sorry, I shouldn't have responded at all, I don't wanna start a fight. I'm off now.

This *exactly* matches my last experience of it, down to the cat and everything.

Has anyone successfully achieved an OOBE/Astral Projection as a result of experiencing SP? I've come close a few times but it all gets a bit intense and I get too scared to go with the feeling. I remember reading something by Rudolf Steiner where he was saying that these apparations are "guardians of the threshold" to ward off the merely curious.

It happened after being in current house too, after being there for a month (bit of a pattern here, hadn't thought of it before) and it was pretty much the same MO.

Once my husband hit a sheep with his car and when he stopped the sheep just got up and ran away.

Sheep Paralysis is a big problem out on the Wiley, Windy Moors

They all feel so strangely real as well.

Trouble is if it is sleep apnea it must be the brain variety not the throat obstruction variety cos I'm not overweight and in fact until recently I was underweight. Can't seem to find much info about the other type of sleep apnea, must be a lot less common or something.

Oh well.

I don't feel like going into great detail about my sleep paralysis experiences because quite a few people have described them well enough already, but they used to happen to me very often. Not so much any more, but it's definitely related to how well I sleep. I'm much more likely to have a sleep paralysis incident if I drink too much coffee late in the day, because that creates a situation where my body's exhausted and will sleep, but my brain is still running too quickly.

(Incidentally, I'm bipolar, and without medication I'm often in a similar body-is-tired-but-brain-is-awake state. Sleep paralysis incidents also damn near stopped for me once I started taking meds for bipolar disorder.)

here, Narrator is describing for us the plot of the play Oedipa Maas and the lawyer Metzger have gone to see, cuz Oed suspects there may be clues to her current situation found in the play, The Courier's Tragedy, a jacobean revenge fantasy by Richard Wharfinger:

"Offstage there is the sound of footpads. Niccolo leaps to his feeth, staring up one of the radical aisles, hand frozen on the hilt of his sword. He trembles and cannot speak, only stutter, in what may be the shortest line ever written in blank verse: 'T-t-t-t-t...' As if breaking out of some dream's paralysis, he begins, each step an effort, to retreat."

i read this thread at the time, but it went completely out of my head. i had never experienced anything like what donna describes above at the time of reading, but it happened for the first time last night. so today i sort of half-remembered a thread from ages ago where people described experiences like this, and here it is...

just noticed this bit now. i think i woke up from a dream because i felt that i had been given a whack in the sides from something in the room. i had an unbelievable feeling of dread, and then i decided that the thing in the room with me had latched itself onto my back and was holding me down (i couldn't move, but i don't think i could physically feel anything on my back, i was just "aware" of its presence).

A few weeks ago, i found I could control my physical body while i was still dreaming. I could move my arms, roll over, and still maintain the lucid dream i was also having. I remember also physically saying "Oh my god" right after i discovered this. So i don't know what that paralysing agent was.

also, this isn't exactly the same thing, but it runs in the vein of scary-ass-sleep-related-shit: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/dreams-faq/part2/section-5.html

sleep paralysis sounds very scary.

I've had lucid dreams before that were difficult to wake up from, but never terror, or evil presences, or panic, or anything even remotely like that. i always snap out of it after a few minutes and think, "Cool."

How are you?

I thought I was growing out of it, but last night I had quite a bad one where I jumped out of bed screaming, "SHIT! FUCK!" and staggered around the room knocking a load of stuff over before I realised what was happening.

On other occasions, I remember clearly being terrified of something in the room with me, usually nothing specific, but once it was a large dragon floating up by the ceiling. Once I even managed to get out of my room before I woke out of it, but thankfully I've never got any further than that - the "terror" always wears off after a few seconds of waking.

Afterwards I don't remember the dreams at all, which is apparently quite normal for this condition.

Another weird thing is if I fall asleep listening to music, odds are I'll wake up in a panic and desperately try to switch it off, or else I'll imagine it's still playing long after the CD's finished. Once this happened with Bernard Herrman's Theme from Vertigo - not a pleasant experience.

"Oh yes, Sleep Paralysis, waking up to find your body paralysed, supposed to be absolutely terrifying."

She sounded like she was reciting her shopping list.

Anyway, for those ILXers who have some experience of SP and would prefer to avoid it, eat something half an hour or so before retiring. Going to bed hungry seems to be a surefire way of inducing SP.

Also, become a master of the occult arts.

I always sleep on my side, but that night I was so tired I dozed off on my back, so maybe that is a factor as mentioned upthread.

From what I've read, most alien abduction stories are thought to be instances of SP.

I think I had it this weekend, my wife said I started making really weird wailing noises, and I sort of remember trying to scream but not being able to. It's a very odd phenomenon, especially the way so many different cultures interpret it the same way.

I get sleep apnoea a bit too, woo me.

-- Doktor Strange (sata...), August 8th, 2005.

I experienced sleep paralysis for the first time while napping today and it r

i think this is true! its really crazy but its like a false dichotomy! reality is not ither or its either and or! why pans labyrinth has a grain of truth init. the fantasy and reality exists on a plane as one, like layers on a dvd disc, the transition only requires the right command with a correct button ie drug state, mind. what if the hard probl;em did not exist it is only a deficiency of our perceptions!

Anyway sleep paralysis fucking sucks. In my case it's always members of my immediate family standing over me or sitting on top of my chest. Make of that what you will. The last time it happened was last night.

aaYikes. Just had a nasty variant in which I thought I was being slowly dragged up towards the head of the bed by the evil squashing presence. I didn't feel so much physically paralysed as too mentally feeble to offer any resistance. I vaguely attributed it to a dog.

strangely i had a new variation of this too just last week. i think it might be too strange to describe.

I hate this shit. It only happens when taking too-long naps.

my ex mother-in-law told me of several occasions where she awoke from a nightmare to find she could not move. she felt as if something was pinning her down, and perceived it to be an 'evil force' holding her to the spot immobile.

this happened to me all the time, particularly from about the age of 19-26. I was not living a paricularly healthy lifestyle at the time and in retrospect I think most of this probably coincided with extended periods of extreme stress and sleeplessness; so the more exhausted I was the more likely it was for this to happen. hasn't happened in a while though.

my recent variation also involved a presence dragging me to one corner of the bed.

i was staying over at my friends place and had to sleep on the top bed of her kids bunk beds - her kids were away staying with their grandmother that night - and my other friend was sleeping in the bottom bunk. the room i was sleeping in was filled with toys.

the sleep paralysis involved me being dragged very slowly across the bed by a "presence". in the dream the presence was a huge toy marionette. even though i couldn't see it, in my head that's what it was. the marionette was dragging me to a position in the bed where i could see all the other toys in the room so that they could stare at me as, indeed, they did. i lay for some unknown length of time with these weird stuffed toys staring directly at me. the room is exactly, or almost exactly, as it is in reality.

my friend, on the bottom bunk, told me next day that i had been singing, or humming, in my sleep. i let it pass but, in fact the humming is actually a low sound i make in my throat when i'm attempting to revive myself from the sleep paralysis. my eyes are open and i cannot move any other part of my body but sometimes i can manage to wake myself from it by making noises which culminate in a shout.

anyway, yes, it's terrifying.

had this last night. apparently i kept calling out "sleazy" (been on a major tg kick since reading that wreckers of civillisation book). i can't remember what the nightmares involved, but it was terrifying and i guess peter christopherson was in there somewhere!

gahhhhhhhhh

went through a period of this a few years ago, am still prone to it when sleeping alone. not nice.

best justification for a series of meaningless one-night-stands ever! thx dude

one night stands while laying prone and terrified, emitting only the slightest of low breathy gasps.

enjoy those, then

In all one night stands ever...

This happens to me if I sleep on my back. I'm a side sleeper, so I have to be really wiped out to unintentionally fall asleep on my back, and I think the combo of overtired + backsleeping is what does it.

I don't always experience it as a negative thing - quite often it has been an exciting flying sensation - but the flying is usually followed by a sudden fall that I can't stop or wake from, which is scary. I've also had the terrifying crescendo noise and the evil-feeling presence speaking/yelling at me. As a kid they just seemed like regular nightmares, but now, most of the time I'm aware that I'm dreaming.

Likewise. It was a nightmare recently when I was suffering a bit from backpain which meant I could only sleep on my back... I was terrified the old sleep paralysis would strike again. But no.

omg huge paralysis moment last night. really heavy experience.

mixed in with some nighmarish realisation that i am now living above a funeral directors, strange shapes were lodged right in front of my face stopping me from moving. and something inside me kept wanting to know the name of the head ghost.

i remember waving my arms around, but not really, they were strangely fixed and stuck under my body on the bed. and then finally feeling real life tear into the dream. Feeling my arms i lay in bed, with a relief i could hear the name of the head ghost..

"Fat Pat"

I get these several times a month when I'm in the process of waking up, or if I try to nap. Crazy vibrating feelings all over my body, feel like I'm being held down, sometimes horrible, thronging auditory hallucinations or being convinced there is an intruder in my house. Every now and then I get a really sexy one, though. Those are fun. There may be a link to these and temporal lobe epilepsy.

Yeah the vibrating sensation/sound is the weirdest bit. I still get that sometimes, coming out of a dream I'll be aware of it fading off, like the sea drawing back from me.

But, I havent had any severe episodes like the couple above, since then. I dont smoke ganj anymore, I wondr if thats why.

after years of marveling at other people's stories of sleep paralysis with nothing to share myself, over the last few months I've had it appear and gradually get more regular and more intense. My room has quite a lot going on in terms of shadows and silhouettes, and lately I feel that I spend an hour or two a night (who knows how much time actually passes) every two or three nights frozen in bed engaged in some odd, distant, blurry staring contest with e.g. the silhouette of my coats on the back of the door which have now taken some human-ish form. It's become more 'real' and longer, and with more figures - and more clearly defined figures - around the room as the months have gone on. So ya if I disappear it'll be because I got eaten by ghosts.

I remember having a mild version of this (just a ''can't breathe, can't move my mouth or my breathing muscles'' thing, no shakes or demonic presences) on and off for a goodly while around age 21 or so. I don't remember it ever happening except in this one old house I lived in, leading me to conclude that either (a) it had something to do with actually obstructed/interrupted breathing (the house had mold or something, I had several long sinus infections there), (b) it was some other environmental thing, maybe the activities of my roommates or something causing me to be woken up at bad moments in my sleep cycle, or (c) the house was haunted, which might gibe with some of the other things that went on there. Anyway, it was quite frightening when it would happen because of course I couldn't manage to think ''hey this has happened before and notice how you always survive just fine.''

yeah, I've been trying to think about what physical or environmental changes could be the cause but I'm not coming up with much. It isn't the super terrifying thing that a lot of people have and when it's happening I feel I have enough consciousness to know that it's not ~real~ and can tell myself that if I open my eyes properly I'll see that, even if I don't have the physical control to actually do that, but nevertheless it's not very nice.

rip

nah if I keep riding on your street fight videos till dawn I should be safe.

i watched them now i cant fuckin sleep

could be precursor activity to an actual abduction attempt. i suggest handcuffing yourself to a bedpost.

Had this fairly regularly throughout my teens and early 20s and yeah, is pretty terrifying. Weirdly (or not?) it went away not long after I entered a serious relationship and started sharing a bed regularly. Now that I'm (common law) married, it doesn't bother me anymore. These things coincided too neatly for them to not be connected, I figure, but don't understand enough about the condition to know why this might be the case.

Hah, I didn't realize ILX had a sleep paralysis thread. I get quite a few sleep related questions as a neurologist, maybe I can clarify some terms we use.

Waking up unable to move anything but the eyes and breathing muscles = sleep paralysis. Often experienced as a weight forcing the body into the bed (paralysis of a not-numb body part feels "heavy" according to stroke victims and sufferers of ALS) -- probably related to the (normal) sense of sinking into the bed that often just precedes sleep, and which can be recruited by hypnotists etc.

A sensation of a presence, hearing voices, seeing things, or otherwise having a dreamlike experience extending into an awake state of consciousness = hypnopompic hallucinations (also called hypnogogic hallucinations when dreams begin just before you've actually fallen asleep vs hypnopompic for those that continue after you've woken up).

Jerking the legs or body forcefully in sleep (often waking yourself up in doing so) = sleep starts, a form of physiologic myoclonus. Tends to happen at transition points, falling asleep or falling back asleep (most of us wake up to light sleep several times a night without realizing it).

Rhythmic kicking motions in sleep that don't wake the sleeper but cause the bed partner to wake up = periodic limb movements of sleep. Often associated with restless legs syndrome.

An uncomfortable feeling in the legs associated with trying to fall asleep, which makes it hard to get to sleep and which is relieved by getting up and walking around or exercising = restless legs syndrome. Neurologists argue this a movement disorder that can be related to low blood iron stores. A controversial diagnosis sometimes thought to be a plot by drug companies to sell Requip.

Acting out dreams: running or punching or kicking IRL when you're doing so in a dream = REM sleep behavior disorder. This the opposite of sleep paralysis. There's a "switch" in the brainstem that's supposed to disconnect the brain from the descending motor pathways so you can dream (REM sleep is more similar to awake brain states than other sleep states) without moving (because the engine of the brain isn't engaged with the gears that move the body, more or less). In sleep paralysis, that switch gets stuck in the "off" position even when you wake up. So you're awake and would like to be able to use your body now, thank you, but the brain is disengaged. In REM sleep behavior disorder, even though you're still dreaming, the switch flips into the "on" position and your muscles lurch back to life. Often diagnosed by bed partner reports, can be dangerous if patient is in a place where they might hurt themselves while dreaming. Note that this is not the same thing as somnabulism (sleep walking), which happen in deep sleep states (stages 3-4), not while dreaming. Somniloquy (sleep talking) can happen while briefly awakening, or as part of REMSBD, but then the spoken words should also be dreamed.

Narcolepsy: a tendency to fragmented sleep caused by an instability of the brain system that keeps awake people awake, and sleeping people asleep. Narcoleptics sleep about the same amount in a 24 hour period as anyone else, but they can't stay asleep for more than a few hours. They pop awake quite refreshed, but a few hours later are compelled to fall asleep again. Because they're always sleep deprived, they start dreaming as soon as they fall asleep (all sleep deprived people do this, it's called sleep-onset REM) and often have hypnogogic hallucinations. Sleep paralysis and hypnopompic hallucinations are also associated, as is cataplexy.

Cataplexy is like sleep paralysis that starts while you're awake, but unlike sleep paralysis (which is very common), cataplexy happens almost exclusively to narcoleptics. A sudden shift in emotion (surprise and/or laughter, usually) triggers the brainstem paralysis switch to flip into the "off" position even though the person remains wide awake (normal brain waves) throughout. Can cause the person to collapse to the floor (in mild cases, knees buckle but the person doesn't fall). Usually recovers within a minute or two. There's some great videos of dogs with cataplexy on youtube.

Normal people: often get sleep starts (more common if very tired, or sedated), can sometimes get sleep onset REM or hypnogogic/pompic hallucinations (usually if very tired), can sometimes get sleep paralysis (often if REM sleep patterns disturbed, alarm set at an unusual time etc).

Narcolepsy is only diagnosed if you fall asleep all the time without being able to stop yourself, and have some of the associated conditions and/or a family history.

REM sleep behavior disorder can be the harbinger of a bad disease like Parkinson's, though it may predate any other features of the disease by decades and we can't do anything to stop Parkinson's or whatever from developing anyway. Happy thought.

If you get sleep paralysis or hypnopompic hallucinations one morning, I recommend you try to fall back asleep (assuming you're not absolutely terrified, some people have reported feelings of deep peace, spiritual uplift, and/or sexual arousal during sleep paralysis, so ymmv). When you wake up the second time, the paralysis switch will turn itself off properly and you'll be fine.

"I opened my eyes, and the before sun-lit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I felt a shock running through all my frame; nothing was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard; but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine. My arm hung over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely seated by my bedside. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand; yet ever thinking that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be broken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me; but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in confounding attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour I often puzzle myself with it."

In Scandinavian folklore, sleep paralysis is caused by a mare, a supernatural creature related to incubi and succubi. The mare is a damned woman, who is cursed and her body is carried mysteriously during sleep and without her noticing. In this state, she visits villagers to sit on their rib cages while they are asleep, causing them to experience nightmares. The Swedish film Marianne examines the folklore surrounding sleep paralysis.[22]

Folk belief in Newfoundland, South Carolina and Georgia describe the negative figure of the hag who leaves her physical body at night, and sits on the chest of her victim. The victim usually wakes with a feeling of terror, has difficulty breathing because of a perceived heavy invisible weight on his or her chest, and is unable to move i.e., experiences sleep paralysis. This nightmare experience is described as being "hag-ridden" in the Gullah lore. The "Old Hag" was a nightmare spirit in British and also Anglophone North American folklore.

In Fiji, the experience is interpreted as kana tevoro, being "eaten" by a demon. In many cases the demon can be the spirit of a recently dead relative who has come back for some unfinished business, or has come to communicate some important news to the living. Often persons sleeping near the afflicted person say kania, kania, "eat! eat!" in an attempt to prolong the possession for a chance to converse with the dead relative or spirit and seek answers as to why he or she has come back. The person waking up from the experience is often asked to immediately curse or chase the spirit of the dead relative, which sometimes involves literally speaking to the spirit and telling him or her to go away or using expletives.[citation needed]

In Nigeria, "ISP appears to be far more common and recurrent among people of African descent than among whites or Nigerian Africans,"[11] and is often referred to within African communities as "the Devil on your back."[23][24][25]

In Turkey sleep paralysis is called karabasan, and is similar to other stories of demonic visitation during sleep. A supernatural being, commonly known as a djinn (cin in Turkish), comes to the victim's room, holds him or her down hard enough not to allow any kind of movement, and starts to strangle the person. To get rid of the demonic creature, one needs to pray to Allah with certain lines from the Qur'an.

In Thailand it is believed that sleep paralysis and discomfort is caused by a ghost of the Thai folklore known as Phi Am (Thai: ผีอำ).[26] Some people claim that this spirit may even cause bruises.[27] Stories about this spirit are common in Thai comics.[28]

In the Southern states of the United States, elders refer to it as the "witch riding your back."[citation needed]

Yeah, if I get the right kind of patient (well educated, not too excitable) referred in for an episode of sleep paralysis (family doc is usually worried about seizure or stroke), I'll tell them about the succubi and show them the painting of the Night-Mare:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/John_Henry_Fuseli_-_The_Nightmare.JPG/741px-John_Henry_Fuseli_-_The_Nightmare.JPG

There was a time a few years ago where I got this all the fucking time. Felt like every other night. Along with other freaky sleep stuff like night terrors & this one weird dream that always involved like 5 or 6 false awakenings (this was the most common, it sounds funny but it was really horrible). I associate it with drink & drvqs & lack of sleep. It went away for the most part but it sometimes recurs if I'm stressed or have gone a week or so without sleep.

If you get sleep paralysis or hypnopompic hallucinations one morning, I recommend you try to fall back asleep. When you wake up the second time, the paralysis switch will turn itself off properly and you'll be fine.

hmm, I sometimes experience sleep paralysis 2 or 3 times in one night (I think 4 is my record). I'll wake up paralyzed, wait a minute for the paralysis to wear off, and fall right back asleep, and the process will repeat itself maybe half an hour later. does the "switch-flipping" only take place if you fall back asleep during paralysis rather than a few minutes afterwards?

(wonderfully informative post, btw)

Hmm, not sure. If sleep paralysis wears off after a minute I don't think there's any benefit to falling back asleep. I've had some patients tell me they stay paralyzed for 5-10 minutes when trying to wake up in the morning, they're the ones I encourage to go back to sleep if they can.

I haven't heard of people having so many episodes as you describe, but I'm sure that's still normal as long as your sleep pattern is otherwise OK. There's a lot about normal sleep that we still don't understand.

i experienced sleep paralysis once after staying up for two days. worst experience ever. i'm never skipping sleep ever again in my life it's not worth it.

in an odd turn of events, lately when I'm in a hypnopompic state the shadows and silhouettes in my room are no longer ominous presences but are rather sexy lady presences who I try to lure into bed. And I think I can move a bit (or maybe that sense is more dream state than awake state), so I think I may be spending my mornings sitting up in bed hitting on the coats hanging off the back of the door. I. Am not sure what to think about this.

I hate hate hate this it is fucking evil. And trying to explain it to people who haven't had makes you sound like a wannabe mental person. I've had to put up with:

An old woman crying about what 'they did to her'
A grinning black dog in a black top hat

(That was both in the same room which was an attic bedroom in a victorian house, I had vague ideas about granny flat, inheritance money, evil schemes? Fuck knows. Old woman didn't understand that there wasn't anything I could do.)

The worst one was a skeletal face that was looking at me, and had been looking at me for a very long time but I hadn't noticed it. It turned away smiling into the shadows by a tall cupboard.

I don't know about anyone else, but in trying to deal with this, I've found that some 'traditional' methods are still remarkably potent, such as when I move into a new room I light a candle and stamp around saying 'You can all fuck off back where you came from and if you come out at night I'll rip you apart'.

My bandmate has a song called "you hypnagogic jerk" which is the best title ever, and makes me think of this thread.

Also I think I want to steal the way-above sentence "well there's no use waking up now, I'll just be paralysed" for a song or something.

Havent had any episodes of this since that one weird patch. It was as if becoming aware it existed made it happen to me. Surely not.

can we talk about this documentary film, The Nightmare?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3317522/

It's by Rodney Ascher, the same guy who did Room 237 which was made of interviews with people who had very possibly over-thought The Shining. This is about sleep paralysis and night terrors. A very similar format with subjects describing and trying to make sense of these horrible experiences that happen to them at night, including recreations of visitations and visions. It's fairly disturbing stuff on the whole.

A lot of people seem to talk about 'shadow men' - groups of people who would stand by their beds and torment them. More than one described one of these shadow men wearing a hat, which ties in very strongly to things like Freddy Kruger and especially the creepypasta mythos of the slender man.

I wonder how much

I've never really had sleep paralysis before. Bad dreams, yes, and some very frightening ones, but not what I'd call unusual.

That said, I did once wake up one morning as a student in a state of panic and ran round the room believing I was in some sort of hellish dimension. I could see the outline of the room, but it was as though everything in it was in flames, and the overall sensation was one of extreme evil and panic. Once it subsided, I found myself sitting on the bed and hyperventilating. What had happened, was a CD of Autechre's Confield had started playing as an alarm and somehow the dissonant noises of 'Bine' hadn't been quite the pleasant wake-up call I'd planned.

unpleasant new dimension opening here: i still get get sleep paralysis now and then; very used to dealing with it, even in my sleep etc

two or three times recently i've had a paralysis dream quite unlike the normal ones (see description above)

in this new dream, i'm lying on my side in a box-like space -- it's lit, a colour-leaching yellow light, so i can see the shape of the space, a box-like tunnel, would large enough for me to crawl in if i could move at all: it is not cold, seems to have recesses up and down both sides, but in the dream i am (a) certain there is no exit, and (b) certain it is totally unconnected to and unreachable from any part of the world i know, or where anyone knows me

i cannot move, i cannot breathe -- actually there seems to be no air

as i wake into this space, someone or something (possibly me) is saying "fuck everything forever" -- my third certainty is that this is where you go when you die, everyone of us to a different space, to be alone forever

luckily the dream doesn't last long enough for me even to start panicking about not being able to breathe -- so far i've always woken straight out of it

Colour-leaching yellow light? Uh oh.

Time to consult the Bardo Thadol (Tibetan Book of the Dead).

The lights of the six Lokas will dawn again; into one of these worlds the soul must be born, and the light of the one he is destined for will shine more brightly than the others.

O Nobly Born, avoid the dull yellow light of the hells, and meditate upon the Clear Light instead; for it is still possible for you to achieve liberation and avoid rebirth.

I got hypnopompic hallucinations
for the first time in my life
this morning at 3AM
in a tent
in a thunderstorm

and I said, fuck this, and slept it off like a bad shroom trip.

Alien/ghost/shadow outside your tent?

bear say hi to me

mildly interesting addendum to my various entries above, re atrial fibbing (and bear say hi to me)

a couple of doctors and/or consultants have suggested that, prior to it becoming persistant last year, i've had intermittent heart arrhythmia all my life, undiagnosed -- and these episodes may be connected to it (which is why i always woke with my heart racing)

haven't had a repeat of the one described at 8 nov 2016, i'm glad to say -- thinking of that still makes me shudder :|

oops lol the thread link there should be to: the thread of ATRIAL FIBBING

one time i woke up only i wasn't entirely awake, like i had not yet opened my eyes but was conscious, and i felt this energy or wind or something cover me, like i was laying in a shallow stream or something, and it freaked me out in a claustrophobic way so i woke up suddenly. im pretty sure i was on the edge of lucid dreaming (something ive never experienced personally probably for reasons i just described).

MaresNest, I felt there was something slightly larger than a cat inside the tent, making the kind of noises you make when you're trying to be absolutely quiet, but I didn't get a good look at it. No slender man, no Krueger.

one of the reasons i now associate this with atrial fibbing is that the v first symptom of same is a similar kind of tingling

with the lucid-dreaming/flying sensation, the feeling is all over -- and yes, it's as if a medium were flowing over you or you were flying through the same medium, and yes, it also feels as if you could direct yrself out into the world and lucid-dream abt stuff

with the atrial fibbing, it's in my fingertips while i'm awake: it feels like an uploading of energy, like some out of a marvel film (ie that i could zap ppl with electric forces from my fingertips once the upload is complete) (sadly so far i have no been able to)

trying to remember what it was witches rubbed on their skins before they went flying: a hallucinogen which also activated the capillaries under the skin i think

This used to happen to me fairly regularly in my 30s, more than a decade ago, when I regularly wasn't getting enough nighttime sleep and taking early evening naps instead. But I never found the experience as terrifying as so many do - I'd just become aware that I was awake and couldn't move or open my eyes, and I'd just concentrate hard on getting my body to respond for about twenty seconds or however long it took to regain control. No hallucinations or sensation of spectral presences and no fear, just mild annoyance at worst and slight amusement at best: "Oh, THIS again..."

Have had regular trips of each of the described during a ten or longer year period of not sleeping well

Latest incarnations, rarer now tg, have all been waking while half hearing voices.

But sleeping a lot better this past few months so nothing further to report. Ghosts can't get u if you're in a deep slumber obv

Ghosts can't get u if you're in a deep slumber obv

Or if your feet are under the covers

i used to have nightmares that alligators lived at the bottom of the covers. i drew a picture of it but i think its lost. also i thought that octopuses would get me if i slept too close to the wall like there was a chasm between the end of blankets and the house. around this time my uncle died and used to visit the house all the time as a ghost. my whole family has stories about him.

imo the psychic energy can have a watery or plasmic effect. ghosts are something like fire to us corporeal beings. ever-shifting, flickering, a life state of constant flux. maybe this is tapping into some extra-sensory consciousness? i guess the other explanation is we are crazy. i think we can admit everyone has a different psychic/electo-chemical makeup, maybe some people are naturally in tune with a very real, incorporeal reality.

personally i have never seen a ghost and have only seen evidence that it's all in your head. but i have had strange experiences, i have had states of altered consciousness from time to time, and when i was not inebriated. others have had them too. if enough people are having these experiences, maybe it means that it is some kind of function of the human mind.

"imo the psychic energy can have a watery or plasmic effect. ghosts are something like fire to us corporeal beings. ever-shifting, flickering, a life state of constant flux. maybe this is tapping into some extra-sensory consciousness? i guess the other explanation is we are crazy."

Other explanation

Had a few instances over the years more when I was going out a lot and my sleep schedule was awful, the last one was about five years ago when I woke up in my dark bedroom and saw a black figure by the door that started to approach me and I couldn't move. Then it went away and the room lit up like someone was turning a dimmer switch - my shades were up and it was noon.

Now I occasionally get a pre-sleep version (hypnagogic hallucinations) and I'd have to get up for a few minutes because I felt like even though I knew the sounds and feelings weren't real I figured they'd lead to awful nightmares. Once I read about them as being similar to sleep paralysis it got better - now on the occasions I start to hear shit when I go to bed I know it just means I'm on the verge of sleep.

i guess the other explanation is we are crazy."

Other explanation

― jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Thursday, July 27, 2017 12:43 AM (eleven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

totally. my family has a history of schizophrenia and mental illness. i have had relatives the spent time in various facilities.

i dont know if i believe in this stuff or not. but my family does. and i have had some spooky experiences. and even if its just in my incorrect mind it's still a part of my life. it is cool to hear of other people having similar, or different, experiences.

my father is afflicted with something called Scintillating Scotoma.

Scintillating scotoma, also called visual migraine,[1] is the most common visual aura preceding migraine and was first described by 19th-century physician Hubert Airy (1838–1903). It may precede a migraine headache, but can also occur acephalgically (without headache). It is often confused with ocular migraine, which originates in the eyeball or socket.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma

he tells me he has seen things like this:

http://i.imgur.com/mbW2UZY.jpg

https://reviewofsystems.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/scintillating-scotoma.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_EU-fODbr4k/hqdefault.jpg

https://i.makeagif.com/media/6-10-2015/W_h-Et.gif

i get those bright zigzaggy ones now and then, rarely for any length of time: once (alarmingly) for a whole evening

never been a prelude to the headachey type of migraine (i get those too, but in totally unrelated circumstances)

I just enjoyed a full hour of these:
https://i.imgur.com/mw7wsHE.gif
Except they covered everything but the pagoda.
I've had a lifelong obsession with preparing for going blind one day because of this shit and today I learned it's a common & harmless condition :/

I get it too, except mine looks like someone went nuts with the clone tool in Photoshop and I get shimmering "content aware fill" gradually expanding to cover my vision. Happened at work a couple of times, I end up just having to sit at my desk and I can't work because I can't see!
Re the paralysis upthread, I was gonna weigh in all neurosciencey but Plasmon explained it perfectly a few posts back.