Sleep Paralysis

[basimpson22]

Please share any of your sleep paraylsis experiences. The strangest episode for me was when I awoke in sleep paralysis and I sensed a presence beside me. Of course, with my muscles temporarily paralyzed, I couldn't turn to see if anything was actually there. I know there is a scientific explanation for this that many will have an urge to cut and paste here but, please, I just want to hear the strange (or not so strange) stories associated with this peculiar phenomenon.

Edited May 4, 2011 by Aristocrates

[william.scherk]

Please share any of your sleep paraylsis experiences. The strangest episode for me was when I awoke in sleep paralysis and I sensed a presence beside me. Of course, with my muscles temporarily paralyzed, I couldn't turn to see if anything was actually there. I know there is a scientific explanation for this that many will have an urge to cut and paste here but, please, I just want to hear the strange (or not so strange) stories associated with this peculiar phenomenon.

A good and brief introduction to the phenomena is the article Hypnagogia at Wikipedia. Great references and further reading suggestions.

[psychoanaleesis]

Well, I experienced it about four times. I remember it as being like in the movie Inception - a dream within a dream. I "woke up" thrice but it was probably because my REM sleep was disturbed because I was tired each time it occurred. You're right, I also had that scared feeling where you grit your teeth just to wake yourself completely. The Wikipedia entries are accurate enough.

By the way, what are you going to use this for?

[sbeaulieu]

I've had this occur once, back when I was stationed in Korea (wonder if it was all that awesome kimchi...). I remember just before waking up, my eyes were still closed and it felt like I was being held down completely by force. I woke up breathing quickly to find no one there. I tried with all my might to move my arms but they wouldn't budge. Still breathing I hard, I tried to hold my breath. Here's where it gets good.

I was waiting to hear a voice tell me I was no longer in control of my body...that I was possessed...haha! I attribute this to be my state of awakening and fear, never having experienced this sort of thing. I was literally saying to myself, "WFT is going on?"

To my relief, no voices coalesced. I relaxed a bit and my brain switched my body back on.

First thing I did while I still had control was hit the internet and looked up sleep paralysis. The coolest thing I remember from Wikipedia was that the brain switches off some motor functions to keep the body from moving around while sleeping. I'm guessing this is what's broken in sleep-walkers.

~ Shane

[Rich Engle]

There is a lot of data to study about it.

For me, I think I most likely had it happening many years before I recognized what the phenomena was, and it explains a lot, once one knows that it is a fairly natural, likely-to-recur state in humans.

It explains a good deal about people that thought they were abducted (due to the light phenomena that can take place).

In my case, it was mostly accompanied by very strange audio input. That is to say, being in the compromised, half-waking state, sounds would come to me. Probably normal ones--ambient stuff that was just happening around my environment, and so forth. But, they became very distorted, and sometimes assumed entirely different meanings to me--ones that I (viscerally, at least) took kind of seriously. Disturbing audio--very loud in the ears.

It still happens once in awhile, but at least I have some awareness of it, so when I am in the half-funk stage, I can cut it off now and again.

Very loud, distorted audio junk, though.

That is the audio side of it. I am a musician and audio pro, so of course I would be more sensitive to that side of it--most likely.

Visually, a lot of flashes and sometimes even incarnations--figures.

It's creepy shit, either way.

Best,

rde

Don't Get It Too Much These Days

[Extropy]

I never slept well. My mother says from birth to 3 I didn't sleep well. The during latency all cool.

I just turned 27, I still don't sleep very well specially when I don't exercise and become physically tired.

When I am mentally extenuated by physically not tired, I have to lay and try to sleep.

Eventually not REM, but some kind of sleep process settles and I lose consciousness / at least I cease to remember it clearly.

But during that extended lull, which can happen before or (in the case you're referring to) after the brief golden REM sleep, many weird things happen as consciousness, semiconciousness and sleep (deep sleep, unconscious) intertwine.

In many instances even routinely I have felt absolutely conscious of my physical needs such as thirst or the need to relief myself, while being semiconscious in all other aspects (such as pretending to be in another place, or actually feeling asleep).

I am aware of that, but if I wasn't I'd feel that "weight in the chest" that is so often described by sufferers of sleep paralysis.

You just need to recognize it for what it is, an intermediate category of sleep. It is probably not healthy but that's besides the point. You must realize that when you sleep normally you also experience that paralysis only you are at profound sleep so you don't care.

the problem is that since you are in semi sleep, you are aware of both worlds and that might be at first terrifying, and again probably unhealthy. Exercise more?

[theandresanchez]

The most significant experience I've had of this is when I stayed awake for most of three days, with only a short nap or two. Strangely, I felt less tired at the end of day 3 than at the end of day 1. It helped that I was very excited about things that I was looking into. When I finally went to sleep, I ended up waking up in sleep paralysis. While my mind was fully awake, I could not move the body. I had been studying lucid dreaming before, so I tried to "separate from the body", but I could not move my phantom limbs very far away from the bed and got frustrated, so I relaxed, stopped struggling, and immediately my body was de-paralysed. There were no visual or auditory sensations. I should try this again.

[basimpson22]

A couple months after posting this I actually had experienced a visual sensation. It was a flash of light just inside my peripheral vision. Hasn't happened since. I try to avoid waking up in sleep paralysis by sleeping on my side or stomach.

[BaalChatzaf]

A couple months after posting this I actually had experienced a visual sensation. It was a flash of light just inside my peripheral vision. Hasn't happened since. I try to avoid waking up in sleep paralysis by sleeping on my side or stomach.

That could have been caused by a cosmic ray. The astronauts get those constantly and frequently when in orbit beyond our atmosphere.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[theandresanchez]

A couple months after posting this I actually had experienced a visual sensation. It was a flash of light just inside my peripheral vision. Hasn't happened since. I try to avoid waking up in sleep paralysis by sleeping on my side or stomach.

Why would you want to avoid waking up in sleep paralysis?

[basimpson22]

A couple months after posting this I actually had experienced a visual sensation. It was a flash of light just inside my peripheral vision. Hasn't happened since. I try to avoid waking up in sleep paralysis by sleeping on my side or stomach.

Why would you want to avoid waking up in sleep paralysis?

Because it can be terrifying. In my last post I was talking about the flash of light just inside my peripheral vision. Well, many times in the past, what I sense is a man just 'outside' of my peripheral vision. Of course, when I finally come out of the paralysis and check things out, nobody's there.