Sleep paralysis

[mattsonn]

Hi, my name is Matt, this is my first post here!

I saw in one of the older threads that some of you get sleep paralysis. I do too, and I just wanted to dedicate a thread to it so that we can share experiences.

I've been getting SP periodically since 9th grade in high school or so. Sometimes I'll get it a few times a week, and sometimes I'll go for months without.

Other info about my experiences:

* Can happen in any sleep position, but lying on my back is pretty much asking for it.
* The transition from being awake and normal to paralyzed takes maybe a second. Often it'll happen without me being aware of it until I try to move something.
* Once it's happened, I'm completely paralyzed from the neck down and 99% paralyzed above the neck. Can move tongue and jaw a little. Can crack eyelids open briefly sometimes.
* On the other hand, it becomes incredibly easy to pretend to move something. Many times, I will have sworn that I just moved my arm or rolled over, only to recieve sensory data a few seconds later that I didn't.
* Usually I will try to fight it with no success. If I'm close enough to my arm, I will try to bite it, which sometimes gets me out of it. Usually I just have to wait in discomfort for it to end.
* I will feel completely 100% conscious when it's happening, but when I try counting numbers to pass the time, it's hard for me to me to keep track (wait, am I really at 50 already?)
* If I'm stuck in that state for long enough, I'll often start hallucinating or slip in and out of dreams. When I wake up, sometimes it'll take a few seconds for the "dream chemicals" to clear my mind, and I'll briefly be able to see stuff that isn't really there (like lines forming on the wall or something)
* I never feel any sense of evil during SP. I don't feel fear either unless I'm on my back and having a hard time breathing. Still, it's an unpleasant experience and it feels unnatural. Like it's caused by a slight chemical imbalance in my brain. My mom had it too, but no one else so it's probably a recessive gene.

PARANORMAL?
* It's common for me to get the buzzing feeling while in SP.
* Once, early in high school, I "felt a presence" in my head ask me something along the lines if I wanted to be introduced to OBE's or not. I was too scared to answer, so I thought nothing, and eventually the presence left. The only reason why I haven't completely discounted that to imagination is because I've haven't been asked that since. Many times since then, I've tried to make myself have an OBE only to be completely stopped as if my body was like a ceiling.
* Also, it's common for me to go into REM immediately upon actually falling asleep.
* As with SP, it feels unnatural when this happens, the dream will have a vivid surreal quality to it, and I'll usually wake up after it ends before settling into a normal sleep pattern.
* Usually, there's absolutely no negativity in this dream, just 20-30 seconds of surreallness.
* Two or three times over the past several years, I have encountered beings in this initial dream that gave me extreme, raw terror. At least a notch above a bad nightmare. And what really separates them from an ordininary nightmare is that instead of being a mishmash of mixed up events, the dream will be very simple, short, and directed. While typing this, I started to describe my most recent one (happened about a year or two ago), but I stopped and erased it because I was getting serious chills just thinking about it. It's as vivid now as when it happened. This is the only reason why I don't completely scoff at Steve and Erin's encounters with evil beings.

[Erin Pavlina]

Hi Mattsonn,

What you're describing was a very common occurence for me in high school and still somewhat today as well.

when you're in the paralyzed state you can astral project. That's a good launching state for it. Body can't move, but ethereal body can.

Being asking you if you wanted help is consistent with my first experience

Encountering beings in that state is normal as well. PM me your experience if you don't want to discuss publicly and I'll be happy to hear it.

[mattsonn]

Erin gave me a good tip on astral projections: try to project yourself well away from your body, because the closer you are, the more you want to go back in it.

I tried it last night, but I messed up! I was lying on my back, waiting for sleep to come. I was paying so much attention to my body, that I could specifically feel the changes that were about to happen that would lead to SP:

* the small muscles in my body started to involuntarily relax (like the jaw of my mouth opening, etc)
* I coulf feel the circulation in my hands being reduced.
* I still felt completely awake, and my heart rate was still pretty high, which are tell-tale signs that you're about to go into SP.

Within seconds of getting my chance, I felt that my right hand, which was behind my neck to help support my head on the pillow, was getting it's circulation cut off and it was uncomfortable. Since the last thing you want to do is become paralyzed in an uncomfortable position, I reflexively moved my arm to the side of my body. Whoops, that snapped me right out of it. Feeling more comfortable, I patiently awaited for it to happen again. But instead, half an hour later, I got sleepy and just fell into a normal sleep on my back.

I'll try it again tonight. If it doesn't work again, then I just won't update until it does.

[Erin Pavlina]

Yes let us know what happens.

[JVR]

Hi Matt

I have regularly SP, although not as often as you (I think on average once a month for over 10 years now). A lot of your experiences sound familiar, like when I´m really fighting the SP I can be sure that I moved my arm, but when I wake up it proves to be an illusion.

I have only once had a negative experience and it was this morning (That´s why I went to this forum and found your thread ). I had SP and was shaking all over my body. I was sleeping alone, but suddenly I heard a women´s voice next to me talking to me. She said matter of factly:"You´re having a lot of nasty dreams lately, don´t you?" What really scared me on this was that the voice came outside of me and sounded really real, although at the same time I knew for sure that it could not be real. Also I heard noises coming from the other site of me, as if someone else was also in my room. So I fought to get out of the SP to be able to open my eyes and see what was there, but off course to no avail. At last I used Erin´s technique to guard yourself with bright shining light and a few moments later I woke up (with a splitting headache). Anyway, it was an unpleasant experience, but it was only the first I ever encountered. Maybe Erin or other experienced psychics can say if it is just my imagination running wild or something else?

Jeroen

[Erin Pavlina]

These experiences are referred to as hypnogogic (sp?) hallucinations. They are reported frequently. They happen during sleep paralysis, usually in the morning. You hear people in your house, in your room, on your bed. You can even feel someone on the bed with you moving around. You would swear they are really there but when you finally break free of the paralysis, they disappear and there is no evidence that they were ever there.

[JVR]

Thanks for the clarification Erin! So I´m sane after all...

Jeroen

[bamzone81]

hey ive had that happen to me but when it happened i thought i was awake cuz everything was the same. i was on my couch and i was talkin to someone bout alice cooper (idk y prolly cuz my dream was bout him and the rest of the band lol) and i told the guy to leave me alone cuz i wanted to sleep so i tried to go on my side but i felt something push down on my shoulder when i tried to move and felt somethin like holdin me down and i couldnt move and i was shakin so i tried to force myself to get up and when i did it was like i was sleep walkin yet consious. idk if this is relevant to what happened to you but it scared the crap out of me and after that it was only my arms or legs that sometimes i couldnt move. does anyone know y this happens??? gosh i just read some of the other replys and it seems like they mostly happen in the morning except the first one i had happened at 3 am and i think a different one did to..... but i did hav one at like 10am.

[aggie]

i have experienced sleep paralysis many times....sometimes at close intervals...sometimes months and months in between.

unfortunately, they are usually frightening experiences. as was mentioned in another thread about sp...i usually would pray or use the name of Jesus to break the sp.

this will usually work because i feel that i am usually in a vulnerable emotional or psychological state when i have the sp...and feel that there is an evil presence during them.

i have experienced the buzzing in the head, the feeling that something was holding me down, that there was a presence in the room...kind of a shadowy figure, that there was movement in the bed..one time like something was trying to lift me off the bed.

regardless i have always felt that if i did not break the sp that something horrible would happen to me.

[shapeshift6]

Hi my name is Peter and this is my first ever post. I have been suffering with sleep paralysis for as long as i can remember.There are times when i could slip in and out of the paralysed phase up to 10 or 11 times before i get to sleep fully.

I have experienced everything that people have mentioned here. These episodes are always very uncomfortable and sometimes completely terrifying. I always have the sense that there is an evil presence in the room and i feel extremely vunerable. Recently i have learned to control these episodes by taking long deep breaths when things start to get very intense.

I have had a few experiences which made me never want to fall asleep again. Once i heard (what i believed to be an evil spirit) shouting things at me in a language which i didn't understand, and the 'old hag' was quite common place in my early experiences.

Anyone experience things such as that? I try talking to some friends about it but they have never experienced it so they have no idea how scary it actually can be.

[aggie]

mattsonn,

just about everything you experienced with sp...i have.

it happened more in my teens and early twenties...

has happened sporadically over the years, mostly when feeling vulnerable or really stressed and confused about my life situation at a particular time.

maybe for that reason, every sp experience has been a terrifying one for me.

i had one obe when i was in my late teen, early 20's that was absolutely horrible...i felt it as a physical experience...not really painful but uncomfortable and scarey with little control over it.

in all cases, because i was "weak"...i felt open to evil trying to "take me over" or harm me.

[Sanchenuss]

Originally Posted by shapeshift6

Hi my name is Peter and this is my first ever post. I have been suffering with sleep paralysis for as long as i can remember.There are times when i could slip in and out of the paralysed phase up to 10 or 11 times before i get to sleep fully.

I have experienced everything that people have mentioned here. These episodes are always very uncomfortable and sometimes completely terrifying. I always have the sense that there is an evil presence in the room and i feel extremely vunerable. Recently i have learned to control these episodes by taking long deep breaths when things start to get very intense.

I have had a few experiences which made me never want to fall asleep again. Once i heard (what i believed to be an evil spirit) shouting things at me in a language which i didn't understand, and the 'old hag' was quite common place in my early experiences.

Anyone experience things such as that? I try talking to some friends about it but they have never experienced it so they have no idea how scary it actually can be.

Yeah. One night I had a choir of dead children screaming in my ears. Not fun. To my knowledge I am not a bad person but most sp experiences to me,if not all of them, have seemed very evil. I don't understand how these spirits would be allowed to torture me like this because I believe in God and of course he would have control over them. When I ask God to protect me, it does eventually but I don't understand why sp is initiated in the first place. It is possible that maybe it is a line of communication with God but any spirits are allowed to interfere and you never encounter any good spirits because the evil ones are located on earth and I never rise above that level. I think though that sp is when evil spirits are allowed to attack you at your most vunerable moment since most cultures all associate sp with being malevolent.

I have left my body before during this but nothing extrodinary has happened other than the sensation of floating. Once I floated about 30 feet from my body, became cold and went back because I was scared that I couldn't return. I have also left my body and descended under the floor into darkness. I have also experienced extreme physical pain usually piercing through the side of my chest during SP. I am saddened that I and others have to go through this and wish that there was a reason that surfaced. I can actually say that I have gone long periods without it occuring but I recently had a bad sp the other night. About 12 years ago in high school, I would have it almost everynight. I actually started going to bed intoxicated because when I did this the sp subsided.

[nonlocality]

I have been having Sleep Parlysis for a few years now. I am now 24.

I remember the first time I had it it scared me near to death. My mind awoke during sleep, and it felt like someone was moving over, towards me, and I couldn't move to get away. I am not easily scared but I looked it up on the net and discovered more about SP.

After this, I had SP experiences where I had lucidly felt like I had fallen off of my bed, and was crawling around on the floor, but with everything blurred, or if you were super drunk and time was massively distorting and I was disorientated. Once I felt myself crawling over my bedroom floor, exiting my room and falling down the stairs. This wasn't just like a normal dream, even like SP, but my mind thought I was -actually- moving around and I was scared that if I wasn't dreaming not to hurt myself. I was scared of falling out of a window or something or bashing into something in my room. Other times I just fall out of bed and manage to struggle with myself to wake me up from the experience. This, the scariest most vivid type of dream I have had happened a few times about 6 years ago. I slept walked a couple of times during this period too, each time I had been out drinking the night before, once I opened my parents bedroom door startling them, and told them I was going to the pub (this was about 6am), then apparently I just walked back to my bed and back to sleep.

Since then I have encountered sleep paralysis a fair bit in the last 6 years. Sometimes I get it once or twice a week, but sometimes go a couple of weeks or months without it. It usually occurs as I am drifting off to sleep in the morning, having already woken, and as I'm trying to get back to sleep, that is prime time for REM and SP, especially if I'm laying on my back. Sometimes I get it literally every time I start to fall asleep for about 3 or 4 times, and then either have to get up from bed or lay on my side to get rid of it. When I get it now, I realise I'm in an SP state, and basiclaly just try as hard as I can to open my eyes. Sometimes this can be very frustrating, sometimes scary as I can't breathe but because I know I'm in SP it just gets annoying now. I usually get it more when I am not smoking marijuana. I have found that smoking marijuana makes me alot less prone to SP, strange/scary dreams, lucid dreams, sleep walking and nightmares.

When I am next in SP, I would like to explore it a bit further. I think I am ready. I read up alot about this subject and people with similar experiences when it first happened to me, but I am interested in being able to control a dream, or astral project if you will. and OBE would be fine too.

Thanks, Darren. UK.

[modernthing]

for those experiencing "evil" feelings while having SP, dunno if this can help, but I've found out using drugs and drinking alcohol can reinforce that.

There was a time when I'd smoke plenty of weed, and I'd have these very vivid dreams (which I am certain were *NOT* dreams at all - not to mention the very unpleasant anxious dreams I'd get daily because of grass) where I was fighting my way out of places filled with horrible, nightmarish evil entities (I'd find my way out of those situations using prayers) and all this stopped when I quit smoking. I have had weird stuff happening to me after a few drinks too, so this is definitely linked. If you are tryingt to get more experience in regard to OBE and SP, avoiding these can reduce the spooky horrible looking stuff

[joedh1992]

i have had sleep porblems the same has urs and i have encoutnerd begins befor and it frightend the living ************************* out of me lol but i stopded geting it cus i do not sleep now so um i cant really help to much but i can give u soem of my expirinces with these outher world things that i looked etc

[Arv]

Hi All
Im new here, and reading up frantically on SP.
Im 43yrs young and had my second episode this morning 3am (im not happy)
I woke with 100% brain function, but totally paralyzed (cant even open eyes)
There was a heavy force over my entire body pushing down, and I feel the presence of something bad over me.
Im a large guy (powerful) and it takes a lot to scare me, but i must confess i was scared silly.
At first i thought i was slipping away and this is what it feels like, I could not even say good by to my wife who was so close she was touching me while we slept.
A series of emotional stages and confusion was overwhelming.
But the feeling i had throughout my body legs and arms was one of extreme tranquillity and relaxed to the point of numbness, but in a good way!
My head had a sound that was similar to radio interference and wind mixed together, and although i could here it , it wasn’t outside it was internal (in my head).
I was on my back with my fingers interlocked with hand on my belly, I was aware they were locked and could not move them.
My eyes could not open but the more i seemed to try the more scared and apprehensive i got.
I don’t drink or take any type of drugs.
And finally I cant help but feel this was some bad spirit or demon smothering me, please can someone confirm if my thoughts are a bit rash and farfetched, or is this common?

Many Thanks
Arv

[cindeyp]

Hi there, I am doing an IRP and PIP research on sleep paralysis and I'd appreciate it if you were able to help me! I was originally planning to make my statement about sleep paralysis and the impact it has on an individual's mental and physical well-being. Would you be able to point me in a direction and please help me find a hypothesis or thesis for this? Also, it'd be great if you could help me find a focus point. Please please help!! This is largely apart of my HSC mark!
THANK YOU SO MUCH IN ADVANCE!!

[Jon Tore]

Originally Posted by cindeyp

Hi there, I am doing an IRP and PIP research on sleep paralysis and I'd appreciate it if you were able to help me! I was originally planning to make my statement about sleep paralysis and the impact it has on an individual's mental and physical well-being. Would you be able to point me in a direction and please help me find a hypothesis or thesis for this? Also, it'd be great if you could help me find a focus point. Please please help!! This is largely apart of my HSC mark!
THANK YOU SO MUCH IN ADVANCE!!

I'm not sure what IRP and PIP research is, but I have much experience with sleep paralysis. For me, it's personally not invading my well-being, because to an extent, I'm happy that it has come so significantly into my life. What do you wish to find out? I don't know what causes sleep paralysis, and I've never found out, but I guess including "the cause of sleep paralysis" is relevant to a research about the well being of the ones who have it. Some people say it's related to sleep disorders, some people say it's the astral body for some reason not synchronizing with the human body, and one other explanation could be that when you increase your awareness, you became conscious in more situations. For example you stay conscious when you're "supposed" to drift back to sleep.

I could go on about explaining how nothing makes sense in sleep paralysis, but I'm not sure what you're after How can I help?

[jayboy229]

Matt I have been getting sleep paralsis for 5 years now. The first time it happened was in school and it really freaked me out. Over the next years it has been getting steadily worse once in awhile it will go away but when it comes back it happens about 10-25 times a night. I will be laying down and I will feel a weird feeling before I'm about to go to sleep this is when I know I'm going to have sleep paralysis. Its almost the instant I'm alseep I am awoken in my mind in a paralyssis state and the fight is on. I used to get stuck in this state from anywhere from a few seconds to even a drastic couple of hours before I awaken! Now when it happens I can sometimes force my eyes open and my vision is very blurry but I can see what's going on but yet my body is still paralyzed I attempt to force myself out of it and manage to do it somehow but when I do my head gets really hot and dizzy and I almost start falling right back into it this can happen a few times before I get up go to the bathroom and wait a few minutes before falling asleep. I get no sign of threat or scaredness when in this state. Sometimes I think that this happening is because of bad sleep schedules such as staying up all night or just a change in sleep pattterns. If anyone gets sp this way please let me know! Email or anything. Or even finding a way to stop this because I'm worried about what can happen from getting sp too much.. my brain feels very weird from it as it happens more often!
Thanks, jay hommes

[Gelfling]

Hi all,

Just thought I'd post my one and only experience of SP as well and see what people think!

So basically.....I woke up in the middle of the night, and knew I was in my room in bed but also felt like I was on an operating table in an alien spacecraft I was surrounded by aliens who were putting an implant into the back of my neck and I could hear lots of strange noises - the best way I think to describe the noises are like the sound of an automatic door opening on board a star trek ship or something! happening over and over, or like an electronic pulsing sound. As you can imagine I was terrified and the first thought I had was that I had been abducted by aliens however I was still aware that I was in my bedroom and my boyfriend was asleep next to me.

I had read previously that sleep paralysis could be the beginning of an AP experience but I was too frightened to try this and just wanted to snap out of it asap. After a while of trying in vain to move my body it eventually worked. I snuggled up into a tiny ball and went back to sleep, phew.

[AMM]

Hi new to the forum, was looking up SP and found a blog by Erin Pavlina on AP which lead me here. It amazes me to read so many stories that are so similar to my own. Please pm me if you can teach me anything! I've been having SP since I was in 4th grade.

* We were taking the TAAS test and if you finished early you could read, draw or put your head down. I put my head down and fell asleep on my desk. (What felt like 5 mins later but was actually about an 30 mins to an hour.) I remember my teacher asking me to wake up now but I couldn't move. She asked me again and I tried to pick my head up and I couldn't understand why my body wasn't responding to my thoughts. My teacher realized I was wasn't moving and I could hear her feet rush across the carpet over to me, and I kept thinking just pick your head up. She started to shake me gently while telling me to wake up. This was really freaking me out since I knew I wasn't responding physically but was very aware that I should have. She then panicked sent a student to get help and kept trying to wake me which she succeeded at. I was so scared i woke up crying and she took me to the nurse and waited with me till my mom got there. My mom took me home and "explained" to me that I had what she called a black out. She didn't know exactly how to explain it to me but basically told me what I already knew from experience. She didn't know why we had them or how to make them stop for good just how to come out of them faster. Which was through praying.

*I had the "black-outs" which was/is SP since then and still have them today in the present. Although it has been probably a few months since the last one. I don't like them, I don't want them and I still don't know a lot about them, but try to learn. Most the time they are pretty much the same experience. I wake up? My eyes are open but I can't move or talk and I'm very scared and feel threatned. I immediately want to get out of this trance. I usually pray and pray until I wake up, but sometimes I forget my prayer. If my husband is sleeping next to me I will try to breathe faster to wake him up so he will wake me up~*~*Like Millennium Mike said he does
My husband knows I experience this and knows to wake me if I start to do anything weird in my sleep.*

**I think I have had 2 OBE but not sure maybe I was hallucinating? It started off as SP but felt like it was lasting longer than any other times. I was visiting my aunt for the wknd and was sleeping on her floor in the living room. When it happened I tried to pray my way out but I couldn't. I decided I would have to go get my aunt and have her wake me up. I remember dragging myself and trying to crawl across the floor. When I finally made it to the threshold of her living room and hall which is right in front of her bed room, it felt like I hit glass wall. For some reason I couldn't cross over in to the hall, I couldn't leave the living room. It really felt like I was hitting a glass wall. I turned my head to see myself (body) sleeping on the floor and realized how it didn't make sense for ME to leave and get my Aunt to wake ME up! I then woke up gasping for air. I couldn't sleep the rest of the night, I turned the light on and tv and waited for morning. The next time this happened to me was the last time I had SP a few months ago but some other stuff happened to which needs other puzzle pieces first.**

***The 1st time I saw something like a hallucination was in summer 2009. I lived with in walking distance from my mom and brothers so we would visit each other often. One night my brothers were over my house(one was 14 one was 11) and they were playing the PS3 with my husband. I fell asleep from boredom on the couch watching them. When they decided to go home it was dark and late and I just happened to wake up at the same time. Our entertainment center w/ tv and game was on the opposite wall the couch was on. Anyways I woke up to them leaving out the door, I said wait let us drive you home its late and dark out. They started to say "No it's ok we live right there sis" but while they were talking to me and hubby I saw a little girl reaching for something just out of her reach on the top of the entertainment center. I asked my husband and brothers if they saw her and they said no and looked at me like I was crazy. So I just convinced myself I was half asleep half awake. Don't really know what to make of it to be completely honest though.***

****Another time I was having SP the most recent time, I "woke up" and again I couldn't pray myself awake like I normally could because I couldn't remember the prayer. I was starting to panic because I have said this prayer sooooo many times in my life and it had almost always worked before but now I couldn't remember the words. So then I started to telling my self over and over "Wake Up!" That wasn't working either and this was becoming the longest time I had SP. I thought it'll be over soon, just calm down, you'll completely wake up just wait. Well I waited and waited and still nothing seemed to be happening. (Waking up.) Then I heard a little girl giggling from what seemed to be the bottome left corner of my bed. Not menacing or threatening laughter but more like rude laughing or making fun of me laughing. Well that really spooked me! I just couldn't stay in that room anymore. So I started to trying to through myself off my bed so that maybe my husband would hear me hit the floor and come check on me. I kept trying and trying and finally I did make it to the floor. I also managed to drag my self across the floor from my bed to my bedroom door, then from there through my kitchen, and from my kitchen to the living room. Where I was throwing my arms at my husbands feet. I kept saying to him please hear me and help me wake up. He didn't hear me but he did keep moving his feet. And then I woke myself up and bolted out of my bed and straight for the living room. I told him what happened and he said he never heard or saw anything that the door to our bedroom was closed the whole time until I came running through it. But I knew what tv program he was watching before I came in there even though it was over by the time my whole self came into the room.***

Another time I had SP was when I was taking a nap about 9am-10am I "woke up" on my side and realized there was a little girl snuggled up to me. By the time I gasped in shock she was gone.

Also the only time I've EVER slept walked was not too long ago, and was also scary to me. I had watched a Movie with my hubby fell asleep as usual on the couch. He kept watching the movie My husband called out to me and I kept going, he called me again but I kept going. I made it to the island in our kitchen when I stopped looked down and said "Come'ere CAT!" as if I was very annoyed with it. My husband screamed my name this time which woke me up. I was so scared and I couldn't understand why I was standing in my kitchen or why my husband was yelling at me. I thought I had been in my bed sleeping. I was frozen stiff and couldn't move. He had to come to me and pick my up like a child and tell me everything was ok. He explained what has happened, and afterwards I laughed about it especially since we didn't have a cat!

Well thank you for reading this I know it's long didn't realize when I started how long it was going to be...If anybody can help me understand SP any better please help. Thank you

[RichGrad]

I've been having SP since I was 16... usually happens when I'm stressed although sometimes it happens out of the blue.

I was freaked out initially but now I've learned to deal with it.

Anyone knows what SP is all about? I don't think the doctors I've spoke to were ever able to answer that question adequately