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Sleep Paralysis

Rail Tracer

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One thing that could be even scarier than a nightmare is the sleep paralysis itself. Depending on what chemicals are active at the time your body is still around REM sleep while on sleep paralysis, it could be the most horrifying (the word doesn't go far enough,) annoying, or just plain strange. During the phrase, your brain sends chemicals to your body to prevent you from doing something stupid while you are asleep (like hitting yourself or grabbing something) thereby paralyzing you. When you wake up, another chemical sets in/another part of your brains becomes active, and that chemical can be described as part of your sleep paralysis.

In my case, I only had it once that I can think of. It was to the point that my fear reached a new high. It was to the point that I felt like I might actually get hurt or be killed. Objects (clothes and shadows) in my room started turning into horrifying images. Ghastly images like the tales of aggressive ghosts haunting a home to hurt people who intrude. Instead of not being able to see them, they were there, and they were ready to get me. I can't fully describe it but menacing, terror, ghastly, and probably a whole multitude of adjectives and adverbs could be used to describe what had happened. It was just terror like there was never before. In a scale of 1-10, it would be 10 or higher. It was threatening. At the same time, I could not move, I could not talk(no yelling or screaming.) The only thing that actually moved was my eyes. It was at that time, I told myself that these images weren't real. I shut my eyes hoping that these images would disappear by the time I open my eyes again.

Has anyone actually have gone through the scenario of sleep paralysis or more than just one episode?

[YOUTUBE="xCSqT5nZ9n4"]Sleep Paralysis[/YOUTUBE]
Wiki -Sleep Paralysis
 

Such Irony

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I've had it happen to me a few times when I was just waking up from a dream. I knew that I was waking up and eventually the paralysis would pass but I still found it scary.
 

skylights

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edit - i've watched the video now, they seem to think that everything you sense while in sleep paralysis is dreamt. it's definitely not. i am 100% sure that i have sensed actual occurrences while paralyzed.



yes, i've had it multiple times. probably around 10-15 that i can remember, though i imagine also more times that i don't remember. it usually happens when i am so tired that i fall asleep in a weird way - like i fall "too fast", if that makes sense. my consciousness is still awake but i am not. and then it's occasionally happened in the middle of the night.

and it's terrifying. really a complete bitch.

the way i experience it, is that i am conscious, but i cannot move at all. i am in a sort of completely dark, empty void. i do not have any sensation of movement, nor of anything impacting my body. no alien encounters. it's just me and my brain, and sometimes a very tenuous connection to the outside world. my eyes cannot open, my limbs will not move. i can hear but i cannot see. i do not have any memory of particular touch sensations, but i do remember once being able to smell my mom's cooking.

at first, i was terrified that i would die. that i would just stop breathing, and no one would know. i am still very scared that i could get stuck there. the first few times, i tried "tearing" my way out of it. yelling and screaming in my head. trying to force my body to move. the worst is when you can hear or smell things happening outside of you, but you can't respond at all. once my mom was asking me things, and i couldn't respond. i wanted to. she ended up being like, "aw, you're really asleep", and left. inside i was screaming NO I'M NOT, SHAKE ME OR SOMETHING, COME BACK

i have not had it very recently, thank god. i've taken to being as calm as possible and just focusing on my breath while trying to move my fingers and toes, which usually seems to work after a while. i always know where i am, and now i still panic a little, but i have a fairly good grasp of what's going on. the hard part is just waiting... waiting to wake up. being afraid with every additional moment that i am going to be trapped there forever. i have not tried swallowing, i will try to remember that next time. it's close enough to involuntary that it might actually work.

i have no idea how long it actually lasts, though. there is no sense of time in the void.
 

Rail Tracer

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skylights: Ohhh god, I just hope you don't experience being able to see everything, but start hallucinating that everything around you turns into something menacing. For me, I could see everything and breathe (at a fast pace,) but I can't hear and can't move. I still get goosebumps just thinking about what just happened. I mean, my next scary nightmare does not even compared to what happened. I think, if it ever does happen again, I might end up calming down and closing my eye once more so that it passes by. But then again, I hope it does not happen.

I don't know how long the time went by, but I calmed myself back to sleep because I finally found that everything that I was trying to do was useless. And whatever I can't see, I can let it go by.
 

kyuuei

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It happens to me more than I care to admit.
 

/DG/

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once my mom was asking me things, and i couldn't respond. i wanted to. she ended up being like, "aw, you're really asleep", and left. inside i was screaming NO I'M NOT, SHAKE ME OR SOMETHING, COME BACK

Wow... that sounds scary. D:

I think it's only happened to me once. I became aware that I was dreaming and wanted to get out. The dream stopped but I couldn't move. I tried so hard to open my eyes, but they felt as if they were cemented shut. My arms were at my sides and I tried with all of my might to move them. After a few moments of straining, I was able to move one of my arms just a little bit, then I was able to swing it across my body. I turned around, sat up quickly, and opened my eyes.

No hallucinations, though.

The good thing about sleep paralysis is that you eventually come out of it. With something like locked-in syndrome, you can stay that way forever.
 

Orangey

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I have it on a near-daily basis, and have hallucinated shadows of people and full conversations. On one occasion, it slipped into a full hallucination in which my consciousness was floating away from my body and I could see my body lying there (with the tremors and the feeling of terror still intact.)

It's annoying because it takes a tremendous exertion of will to force myself awake when it's happening, and once I am finally awake, I have to go get a drink, splash water on my face, and then run in place or stretch in order to make sure I don't immediately slip back into it as soon as I try to sleep again.
 

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happened to me once in really nasty way(never heard of sleep paralysis at the time) and not really sure if the other time was me falling asleep, then waking up and being in sleep paralysis or just a really weird and realistic feeling dream.

first time i woke up in the middle of night, while still sleeping i had a feeling that there was someone outside my bedroom(door was open), i woke up and was going to sit up and looked at the door. while i was half way sitting up i got paralyzed and saw this old guy at my bedroom door staring at me, it looked like some demon or satan in old mans body. i couldnt do anything but stare him into eyes, i dunno if i could have blinked my eyes, was too scared to even try. i was totally panicking, my mind was going like WTF is this and i would have shat my pants if i were able to do that, i started thinking stuff like if i have gone insane(as i dont believe in supernatural), but thought that if i were going insane i wouldnt be thinking if i went insane, finally i came to conclusion that it is most likely some kind of demon, i thought about possibility of it taking my soul, me going to hell and stuff like that, finally i just gave up and thought that if i die now then it will happen and theres nothing i can do about it. its a really terrifying feeling to give up on life and accept your death. and i was looking deep into that guys eyes this whole time that felt like 40sec-1min. it felt like it had the control on me and thats why i couldnt move. well after accepting my death, it faded away and turned to a jacket thats hanging near the door in my bedroom. paralysis went away, couldnt go back to sleep(it was like 4am) and was really shaky rest of the night. it was maybe like week or two later when i found out about sleep paralysis.

other time happened like 3 weeks ago. it wasnt scary at all, i just fell asleep, woke up still half asleep and felt like im floating over my bed, going up and down from like feet over my bed to near the roof, couldnt move, but it was kinda cool, so i wouldnt even wanted to move and possibly ruin it. i knew that it was some sort of sleep paralysis thing or something while it was happening, so i just enjoyed the ride :yes:

when my mate was in army, there was this guy who had this happen like every morning, but he didnt have any hallucinations, just the paralysis. when they noticed this happening to him they woke him up from it by touching him and he got off that at the exact same moment as someone touched him.
 

Beargryllz

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I really, really wish I could experience this, even once.
 
F

figsfiggyfigs

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I think I've commented in regards to this subject before...

When I was younger I had it happen so often, it was almost nightly. At one point I just learned to let it "run its course".... It can get pretty horrible... Screaming, laughing, all sorts of shiz.

It has stopped for a while now....
 

Fan.of.Devin

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I experience it several times a month, but I knew all about it (through research on sleep and lucid dreaming) before it had happened to me for the first time, so it never really alarmed me at all.
I usually just fall into sleep, if it happens in the middle of the night.
If it happens in the morning, it only take about fifteen seconds or so to snap out of it.
 

Beargryllz

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*discretely slides you a hit of DMT* :whistling:

This stuff gets a lot of celebrity endorsements, and I've seen that it's quite easy to make. I suppose I don't have much of a choice. Dreams are lackluster lately.
 

Xenon

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The hallucinations and other strange experiences people can experience in the state in between sleep and wakefulness are called hypnagogic (when falling asleep) or hypnopompic (while waking from sleep) experiences. I've had them at times. I started getting them around ten years ago, when I was experiencing a lot of anxiety during the day. They come much more rarely now. They seem to be triggered by sleep deprivation, or changes in my sleep schedule. It was scary when it started happening and I didn't know what the hell was going on with me. I'm not so freaked out now that I know what it is. I just think, "Oh, it's this shit again" and wait for it to be over. I read that you can sometimes break out of it by moving a small muscle, like a finger or something, and it seems to work when I remember to do it.

There's an academic website about these experiences here:

Sleep Paralysis and Associated Experiences

If you look at their Sleep Experiences Scale, you can see examples of commonly reported experiences. I haven't had visual or auditory hallucinations but I've had most of the tactile ones described (sensations of floating, moving up and down, numbness, vibrating, tingling, falling, spinning). I've also had the "false awakenings", the sense of intense dread, and the "out of body" experiences described.
 

Rail Tracer

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This stuff gets a lot of celebrity endorsements, and I've seen that it's quite easy to make. I suppose I don't have much of a choice. Dreams are lackluster lately.

Sure, if you are willing to feel terror like you have never before and experience what I experienced :D. Not sure why you would be willing to experience what I experienced.

edit - i've watched the video now, they seem to think that everything you sense while in sleep paralysis is dreamt. it's definitely not. i am 100% sure that i have sensed actual occurrences while paralyzed.
In some ways, it was a dream, but it was also not a dream. The terror I felt was completely real, but the hallucinations I got, at some point, I knew that they weren't "real"(after all, the image that created it was my jacket and baseball cap) as I knew that the real images was not "that thing that was so threatening."
 
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violaine

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Fascinating. Thanks for posting the clip, Takeru. I've never experienced anything like this. This seems truly terrifying in certain instances. Makes me wonder about a book I read once about alien abduction. (Communion, by Whitley Strieber.) The author's experiences sound as though they could have most definitely been a result of sleep paralysis.
 

skylights

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oh sidenote - yeah i don't mean that everything i sense is real, just that some things are real :)

skylights: Ohhh god, I just hope you don't experience being able to see everything, but start hallucinating that everything around you turns into something menacing. For me, I could see everything and breathe (at a fast pace,) but I can't hear and can't move. I still get goosebumps just thinking about what just happened. I mean, my next scary nightmare does not even compared to what happened. I think, if it ever does happen again, I might end up calming down and closing my eye once more so that it passes by. But then again, I hope it does not happen.

I don't know how long the time went by, but I calmed myself back to sleep because I finally found that everything that I was trying to do was useless. And whatever I can't see, I can let it go by.

ughh, that sounds terrifying too.

I have it on a near-daily basis, and have hallucinated shadows of people and full conversations. On one occasion, it slipped into a full hallucination in which my consciousness was floating away from my body and I could see my body lying there (with the tremors and the feeling of terror still intact.)

It's annoying because it takes a tremendous exertion of will to force myself awake when it's happening, and once I am finally awake, I have to go get a drink, splash water on my face, and then run in place or stretch in order to make sure I don't immediately slip back into it as soon as I try to sleep again.

yeah, definitely. i hate when you feel yourself falling asleep and you're like, oh, shit, this again lol
 

Xenon

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Fascinating. Thanks for posting the clip, Takeru. I've never experienced anything like this. This seems truly terrifying in certain instances. Makes me wonder about a book I read once about alien abduction. (Communion, by Whitley Strieber.) The author's experiences sound as though they could have most definitely been a result of sleep paralysis.

Yeah, a number of neuropsychologists and sleep disorder experts believe it's the cause of reported encounters of aliens or spirit guides, or out of body experiences that can occur in that state. I haven't encountered aliens or anything, but from what I've experienced in that state, it does feel different from dreaming when you're fully asleep. It doesn't exactly feel dreamlike, it feels clearer than that. I can see why people would be convinced their experiences are real.
 

Totenkindly

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Yeah, a number of neuropsychologists and sleep disorder experts believe it's the cause of reported encounters of aliens or spirit guides, or out of body experiences that can occur in that state.

Yes, and the succubus/incubus experiences as well.

Kinda jealous in that I'm someone who likes to experience things in order to understand them, but my experiences are not nearly as extensive as some of yours here.

I have had sleep paralysis a number of times in my life (as described by others in this thread -- I'm awake but can't move, blink, whatever, no matter how I struggle), but none of the hallucinations, really.

Hallucinations would be frightening if you didn't know they were hallucinations.
 

Usehername

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Eek. Are any of you concerned that you might find the blanket or pillow on top of your mouth and nose, and instead of waking up and moving it, you would be stuck, and die a terrifying death? <shudder>

I've never experienced this. Apparently Sheryl Crow gets it all the time.
 
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