Sleep Paralysis

so its 12:57 AM and i just woke up from a weird dream into a fairly intense state of sleep paralysis. in case you dont know sleep paralysis ( specifically postdormital paralysis in my case) is like when your mind wakes up from sleeping but your body remains asleep and you cant move anything or talk, yell. nothing.

its scary as fuck the first time it happens, especially since almost no one knows what it is before they have it. this is about the fourth time i’ve had it and i started having it on occasion about two years ago.i consider myself lucky thought because ive never had the scary ass hallucinations that go along with some people’s SP.

i was just wondering if anyone hear has has experiences with this 'cause i think it would be interesting to see other peoples anecdotes and knowledge on the subject. i just googled some info about it and found that apparently SP is sorta related to lucid dreams. which is interesting because ive been having lucid dreams too on occasion since i was about 11…

I’ve had it happen, weirded me out the first couple times. Still creeps me out when it happens, but usually after the first half second I know whats going on and relax, kind of pull myself out of it. Never really get hallucinations, but sometimes I feel my body freeze while im dreaming vividly and then wake up.

Same dream happened 3 times, some dude rings my old house’s doorbell to kidnap me and I go to answer the door. Right when I grab the doorknob I know im screwed. Last time I remember thinking “Wtf? This dude needs a new hobby” as he carried me away. Every time I had the paralysis happen, after the first time I wasn’t so freaked out. I seem to have it regularly happen when I am drifting into sleep but want to stay awake.

Weird feeling, but its never lasted more then a few seconds so it doesn’t bother me. I am a horrible sleeper though for what thats worth. I wake up multiple times throughout the night and don’t ever get 8 hours, even if I go to bed early. I just wake up early.

damn that sucks man lol. ive never been a very good sleeper either. always had an overactive mind and since i was little i always had trouble falling asleep, although ive gotten much better. and thats a weird dream too. i think after having it that many times i would have gone lucid and been like fuck this guy and pulled out a 12 gauge and blasted him through the door lol. ive done a couple things like that in dreams. the one i had tonight was pretty weird tho.

the thing about tonight though was that i had the paralysis in a double dream. 0.o. in the initial dream i was beginning to wake up into a second dream in which i had sleep paralysis. but i managed to avoid that second dream by falling asleep back into the initial dream where i dreamt that i was awake and dicussing the problem of SP with a friend mine. he proposed something as a solution to make it go away and i replied by saying someting like “no you dont understand. the problem isnt there, its all up here” as i tapped my head with a small screwdriver (i dont remember where the scredriver was from) and then i woke up in the real world.

also i had thought about hopefully having a lucid dream tonight before i went to sleep and maybe that had something to with it.

damn that sucks man lol. ive never been a very good sleeper either. always had an overactive mind and since i was little i always had trouble falling asleep, although ive gotten much better. and thats a weird dream too. i think after having it that many times i would have gone lucid and been like fuck this guy and pulled out a 12 gauge and blasted him through the door lol. ive done a couple things like that in dreams. the one i had tonight was pretty weird tho.

the thing about tonight though was that i had the paralysis in a double dream. 0.o. in the initial dream i was beginning to wake up into a second dream in which i had sleep paralysis. but i managed to avoid that second dream by falling asleep back into the initial dream where i dreamt that i was awake and dicussing the problem of SP with a friend mine.

he proposed something as a solution to make it go away and i replied by saying someting like “no you dont understand. the problem isnt there, its all up here” as i tapped my head with a small screwdriver (i dont remember where the scredriver was from) and then i woke up in the real world.

also i had thought about hopefully having a lucid dream tonight before i went to sleep and maybe that had something to with it.

Ive had SP several times. I generally sleep on my stomach and the only times I have had SP was when waking up in the morning from laying on my back. It’s a strange feeling but I always just focus on moving an arm or a leg and after 30 seconds or so I snap out of it.

Has anyone seen the movie ‘Awake’? It has that crybaby guy from the more recent Star Wars movies.

[quote]GreatAjax wrote:
so its 12:57 AM and i just woke up from a weird dream into a fairly intense state of sleep paralysis. in case you dont know sleep paralysis ( specifically postdormital paralysis in my case) is like when your mind wakes up from sleeping but your body remains asleep and you cant move anything or talk, yell. nothing. its scary as fuck the first time it happens, especially since almost no one knows what it is before they have it. this is about the fourth time i’ve had it and i started having it on occasion about two years ago.i consider myself lucky thought because ive never had the scary ass hallucinations that go along with some people’s SP.

i was just wondering if anyone hear has has experiences with this 'cause i think it would be interesting to see other peoples anecdotes and knowledge on the subject. i just googled some info about it and found that apparently SP is sorta related to lucid dreams. which is interesting because ive been having lucid dreams too on occasion since i was about 11…[/quote]

I had them constantly for 15 years starting at high-school. Never hallucinated while my eyes where open, but had some distortion/morphing of what I was seeing. The only way I know to get out is to force myself back to sleep state, then once there, force myself awake. Going back to sleep state hurts. Hard to articulate how it hurt, but it hurt in my brain: a strong painful vibration in the front of my head and my cerebellum. There’s also a feeling of panic independent of my conscious self. I have them about 2 times a year now.

Never this but sometimes I feel like I’m falling and I’m pretty sure I’ve done flips in my sleep. As a kid, I sleep walked a few times. I seemed to outgrow it though.

Was once having a dream about that freaky demonic fawn from Pan’s labyrinth. Then I woke up, but I couldn’t move. And the fucking fawn was in the fucking room beckoning me and telling me to come with it. I couldn’t move, so it then came over to my bed, grabbed me and started shaking me, but I still couldn’t move or do shit. Eventually he faded away and I slowly began to regain movement in my limbs. Not before some freaky ass beeping sound played for no fucking reason.

Scariest fucking experience of my life and I’m surprised I’m still able to sleep on my own after the ordeal.

I get it quite a bit. I also get an intense ringing/burrowing feeling in my ear. Like something is trying to get into my brain and screaming at the same time. I evetually relax as I try to resist this feeling…then finally a leg explodes up off the bed…I lucid dream quite a bit and have had about 2 experiences with astral projection.

[quote]GreatAjax wrote:
so its 12:57 AM and i just woke up from a weird dream into a fairly intense state of sleep paralysis. in case you dont know sleep paralysis ( specifically postdormital paralysis in my case) is like when your mind wakes up from sleeping but your body remains asleep and you cant move anything or talk, yell. nothing.

its scary as fuck the first time it happens, especially since almost no one knows what it is before they have it. this is about the fourth time i’ve had it and i started having it on occasion about two years ago.i consider myself lucky thought because ive never had the scary ass hallucinations that go along with some people’s SP.

i was just wondering if anyone hear has has experiences with this 'cause i think it would be interesting to see other peoples anecdotes and knowledge on the subject. i just googled some info about it and found that apparently SP is sorta related to lucid dreams. which is interesting because ive been having lucid dreams too on occasion since i was about 11…[/quote]

Interesting. I’m not the only one then.
It happens to me only when I sleep during the day. I wake up but can’t move or make a sound. I can’t open my eyes, the eyelids feel heavy. I generally start freaking out, and I don’t know how long I stay in that state. When I wake up, I’m sweating like crazy and breathing very heavily. It doesn’t happen all that often, and scares the fuck out of me everytime it happens.

@waylander- holy shit! thats fucking terrifying lol.

im lucky ive never had any hallucinations although i saw a black blob on the ceiling/wall of my room this time. not scary though. whenever i get it i just concentrate on constantly moving my hands and feet and slowy i regain movement in my lower legs and forears and soon after i get it bac in the rest of my body. my sister has also had it a couple times where she hallucinated that she was pulled up out of her bed by some invisible force, flipped over so she was facing the floor, flipped back up and dropped on her bed. crazy.

also i think that pretty strange that it would hurt to go back to sleep. i read that thats a good way to go into a lucid dream.

I’ve had a good many episodes of this and what I now know to be lucid dreaming. Some of the worst were when I used to have nightmares of going head first through the chipper we used for work, but instead of dying, I’d go right through the wheel getting chopped up and spit out the chute into the back of the truck. Then I’d wake up paralyzed, terrified, and thinking that I had been chopped into a zillion little pieces.

[quote]qsar wrote:
a strong painful vibration in the front of my head and my cerebellum
[/quote]
I get this exact same shit. That, plus the paralysis, auditory hallucinations, and eventually visual hallucinations if I manage to get my eyes open.
The first time it happened I was scared shitless. I thought a demon was trying to possess me… the harder I fought the more intense the buzzing/vibrating/screaming sensation got.
I get these about once or twice a month. Now when it happens though, I know the drill and just ride it out.
I find it almost exclusively happens after I wake up, get up, and then go back to bed. And usually if I’ve eaten something during that time.

I’ve had it happen many times. Sometimes I felt like I was awake, couldn’t move or breathe. Like others said, it took like 30 seconds or maybe less to snap out of it. I don’t like it at all.

I didn’t realize you could hallucinate after waking up while in sleep paralysis. That sounds crazy.

I’ve had it once when I was in high school. Fell asleep on the couch, woke up, couldn’t move at all. Started freaking out but was eventually able to somehow roll back and forth. Eventually rolled off the couch and was able to move shortly afterward. It’s pretty scary when you wake up and can’t move and have no idea that sleep paralysis exists.

I think the other post got deleted so my first comment is missing. I feel screwed because some of you are able to get out of this state so quickly. Mine lasts 5-10 minutes where I slip in and out of hallucinations and awake paralysis. I told my wife that if she hears me groaning really loudly while napping she needs to come shake me because I’m actually trying to yell really loudly.

A few times while in that state I decided to put all my mental energy into moving or saying something. With tremendous determination I once raised my arm about 4 inches. Trying to scream as strongly as I could I think a wasp of air vaguely resembling words came out of my mouth once. Extremely frustrating though so I don’t try anymore.

The worse is when I dream I become paralyzed in an accident or assault and in a smooth seamless transition, I open my eyes in paralysis state, I get extremely panicked convinced it really happened. I keep telling myself, “this can’t be real, this can’t be real,…” Horrible!

[quote]qsar wrote:
A few times while in that state I decided to put all my mental energy into moving or saying something. With tremendous determination I once raised my arm about 4 inches. Trying to scream as strongly as I could I think a wasp of air vaguely resembling words came out of my mouth once. Extremely frustrating though so I don’t try anymore.

The worse is when I dream I become paralyzed in an accident or assault and in a smooth seamless transition, I open my eyes in paralysis state, I get extremely panicked convinced it really happened. I keep telling myself, “this can’t be real, this can’t be real,…” Horrible!
[/quote]

Shut up brain or I’ll stab you with a q-tip.

[quote]BeefEater wrote:
I think the other post got deleted so my first comment is missing. I feel screwed because some of you are able to get out of this state so quickly. Mine lasts 5-10 minutes where I slip in and out of hallucinations and awake paralysis. I told my wife that if she hears me groaning really loudly while napping she needs to come shake me because I’m actually trying to yell really loudly.[/quote]
Don’t worry, I’m in the same boat. Mine usually last at LEAST 10 minutes.