Ghostly experience of sleep paralysis? Help!

[athinkerapoetanidiot]

Hi there,

I'm new to this forum so go easy on me. Basically the reason behind me posting this is due to a weird experience I had in the early hours of this morning.

After watching a film I retired to my bed where I tossed and turned. I never really felt I was sleeping and seemed to drift in and out of lucidness. During one such period I felt something clamber onto my bed. I assumed it was my cat who often comes and goes throughout the night. I was lying on my front when this happened and soon became aware due to the level of activity clambering on my bed and the different directions of where pressure was being applied on the mattress that this was not my cat....

My room had been exceedingly stuffy all night but suddenly and as if someone had opened a window wide open I felt as if a an icy breeze was washing over me. I started to panic and tried to lift myself up off my front. I couldn't do it, it was as if someone was lying on top of my back. As i tried to force myself up the "person" lying ontop of me said "Don't". Panicking I tried to scream but nothing would come out until I managed to stifle the sort of "Argh!" that comes from a severely retarded adult. This seemed to bring me alive again and I felt the pressure on top of me lift and a bizarre but almost pleasent sensation of warmth on my bottom. I did not move for a minute as I was frightened to turn round. I reached for my cat who was sleeping peacefully to the side of me. There was noone there.

My friend told me once about her experience of sleep paralysis where she had woken up 2 minutes before her body had and she couldnt move or speak nd felt encompassed by fear. I'm not sure if this explains what happened or not. I felt someone on top of me, i felt cold, I heard them talk to me.

Can anyone help shed any light on this?

Thanks,

Hannah

[Rockchick26]

I am thinking you were experiencing hypnogogic (is that the right word,anyone?) hallucinations. Basically you hear/see/feel things right as you are falling asleep and/or waking up,and the sleep paralysis is proof you were not fully awake. I have had this experience minus hearing a voice and feeling something on top of me,i guess i didnt feel the cold air either,but i have felt an evil presence around my bed,and i couldn't move and couldn't scream. The fact that your cat was lying peacefully there should have told you that nothing really was there (maybe i got your post wrong but i thought you were concerned maybe it was real?).

[Mayo]

Could be only imagination or could be something similar to Mara,

Mara (folklore) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Selmanito]

wow!

I had the exact same experience laying on my front but i saw this really white light and actually saw something, like a young girls feet (around age of 6-7) and she was wearing those kids shoes and all was white and couldnt look further up. I tried screaming for help, but still nothing came out of my mouth except a very low tone voice.

I dont really know what that is. "Scientifically", im sure they have some reason behind it relating to hallucinations or whatever just because the larger phenomena is not fully understood.

hmmm

[Mato Kinze]

I'll echo Rockchick. Hypnogogia combined with sleep paralysis is the likely culprit. That being said, I also believe that everything Tonal is a manifestation of something spiritual.

The voice you heard could have likely been your Dream Emissary, but to my knowledge, they don't incorporate in any way except as a voice - though I suppose they could. I've just never heard of that happening.

If it begins to happen more frequenlty, then you should really start working on your Dreaming and Seeing.

I've used Carlos Castaneda's "The Art of Dreaming" to help me in my Path.

[ogrekilleat]

It certainly could have been sleep paralysis, which I find I experience often when I'm tossing in and out of sleep, but only you can decide if you were awake enough to really be experiencing something outside of that.

As for me, I think I might believe in the "Old Hag" as a real outside force:

I've had many sleep paralysis related dreams, I'm very familiar with them. But recently, I had a strange experience when I was wide awake in bed (for various reasons I went to bed long before I was tired). Also I had moved my air mattress into a different room in the house, and my head was in line with the doorway to the room and, beyond that, an exterior door.

As I was laying there, thinking pleasant thoughts, I soon felt something pressing very heavily on my chest, and it was difficult to breath. I was terrified and it was a great struggle to sit up. As soon as I sat up, everything was fine. So I lay back down, and few a minutes later it happened again. Again, I was filled with terror and I had to struggle to rip myself into a sitting position.

I had a strong feeling that it was because I was in line with the doorways and thus "exposed", so I turned my bed around so I was sheltered by walls from the back door, and after that everything was fine...except of course that I was still scared.

[awakentransform]

This kind of sleep paralysis is common right before or right after leaving the body in astral projection. It seems to have something to do with the physical body and the astral body not being fully in alignment.

I have experienced this myself. It feels scary because you are trying to move the physical body. If it happens again, try to stay calm. Imagine yourself floating upward. Often when your in the paralysis state, this is enough to get your astral body out. Then you're free to explore! The key is to keep your mental and emotional state calm and simply focus on where you want to go, without trying to move your physical body.