sleep paralysis? or...?

[rei]

a couple of times now i have had an odd sleep experience. first i will say, i am a very very deep sleeper, usually don't recall my dreams (yes i know dream recall can be incredibly valuable; my understanding is that i go very far from my body during sleep, which could mess with recall if it is like a galactic thing, because there is more 'astral distance' - if that makes sense).

back on topic... i think i've had this experience 3-4 times now, maybe more but i only remember 3-4 times. it is like i want to wake up from a dream - don't remember why or the content - but i have trouble waking up, like i am being pushed to stay there... it takes a lot of effort to finish waking up, but i never remember why i want to wake up (even in the moment it is happening), i only remember this feeling of wanting to wake and feeling coerced to stay in dreamtime. and then i don't want to go back to sleep immediately because i don't want to pick back up on whatever was bothersome enough to leave.

is this sleep paralysis or something else? anyone else here had this experience? do you have any suggestions for the best way to handle it - should the goal be to remember more about why i want to wake up, or should the goal be more about mastering the process so i can awaken the moment i want to? (if you think it is better to master the process, i'd appreciate suggestions for that as well.)

[Michelle]

If I have a sleep experience I don't understand or would like to explore further I meditate on it and ask for divine guidance during waking hours.

This way I become conscious of whatever is trying to get through and am free to move on.

[MiBeloved]

a couple of times now i have had an odd sleep experience. first i will say, i am a very very deep sleeper, usually don't recall my dreams (yes i know dream recall can be incredibly valuable; my understanding is that i go very far from my body during sleep, which could mess with recall if it is like a galactic thing, because there is more 'astral distance' - if that makes sense).


MiBeloved’s Response:
The distance from the body is a distance in consciousness. You might be right there in the body and still be very distant from its nerve circuitry. In some cases the astral body (dream form) does move thousands of miles away from the physical body but mostly it stays right near the physical form. So the distance is one of consciousness.
Deep sleep does not necessarily mean a distant astral body. It usually means that the connection between the astral consciousness and the physical one is shut down and the astral body has gone into standby mode such that the memory apparatus in the subconscious mind has blanked out. Without that the person cannot recall anything if there is an experience. It is like if you experience something and then forget it immediately after.

This actually happens. Yesterday I was speaking to someone and then suddenly the person wanted to make a special point and begin to explain something, and then just as suddenly the person stop and said, “O I can’t remember what I was going to say.”
But sometimes something else happens where you are talking to someone and suddenly they shift to something else and when you ask them about the first point, they stare at you if you were crazy. That happens because they lost touch with the memory as well as with the memory of the memory.

In both example the person was disconnected with a certain part of the mental apparatus and became distant from it.

How can we be sure of that? We can be sure because sometimes a person has a concussion of the skull and forgets everything even their dear relatives, and then sometimes a week or month or so after, they again remember everybody but they have no idea that they were indifferent to those relatives during the period of loss of memory.
So it is a fact that even though we go around with so much pomp as human beings, we are a composite and if that composite is disrupted, then there will be an idea, that we became crazy.
============================================

Rei wrote:
back on topic... i think i've had this experience 3-4 times now, maybe more but i only remember 3-4 times. it is like i want to wake up from a dream - don't remember why or the content - but i have trouble waking up, like i am being pushed to stay there... it takes a lot of effort to finish waking up, but i never remember why i want to wake up (even in the moment it is happening), i only remember this feeling of wanting to wake and feeling coerced to stay in dreamtime. and then i don't want to go back to sleep immediately because i don't want to pick back up on whatever was bothersome enough to leave.

is this sleep paralysis or something else? anyone else here had this experience? do you have any suggestions for the best way to handle it - should the goal be to remember more about why i want to wake up, or should the goal be more about mastering the process so i can awaken the moment i want to? (if you think it is better to master the process, i'd appreciate suggestions for that as well.)

MiBeloved’s Response:

This is sleep paralysis combined with instances of going to astral places which you do not like.
It is two separate things happening simultaneously, where you are in an astral place which is not to your liking and then you want to leave that place and wake up as a physical body here, but you find that you are unable to do so, and you feel that a force is drawing you back to the unwanted environment.

Sometimes when this happens, one wakes up as the physical body for a second or for 15 seconds or more, and then one is pulled back into the dream so to speak and one feels much discomfiture.

Sleep paralysis is the astral’s body’s inability to synchronize into the physical form fully. When this happens, one may become freaked out because it is not what one is used to, which is to wake up as a physical body. When this happens one wakes up as a subtle body only and as a subtle body which is trying its best to cause a physical body to act as itself. But since the subtle body is not properly synchronized, it cannot operate the gross body and so one might panic.


The thing to do is to take it easy at this stage and realize mentally that the bodies are not properly hooked up together and make an effort to cause that happen.


Usually one can manipulate the breath to do this but sometimes even that does not work as one finds that one is not able to control the breath fully. For example one might try to hold the breath for as long as possible and this might cause the astral body to jerk into the physical and synchronize itself. Or one might try to move an arm or leg since a sudden jerk of a limb will also cause the two systems to get in sync. But another method is to make a sound which would be heard by someone who is knowledgeable is in the vicinity of the gross body, they can come to it and shake it or touch it between the eyebrows and that will cause the two bodies get in sync.

That person will only hear moaning sounds since in a cataleptic trance the subtle body cannot use the voice box fully.


Usually the bodies do get in sync all by themselves but it is not nice since one feels awkward but just think that this will happen when the gross body finally dies, in the sense that you won't be able to move it anymore.


Factually you will no longer be in a position to wake up as it. You will be permanently left on the subtle side. And that is the mystery of death.

To master these processes you need to practice meditation and I recommended my recent book on the subject because it discusses this, gives many examples and has many diagrams about what to do in the mind when these things happen.

Meditation Pictorial (michaelbeloved)

[Susanna77]

It's sleep paralysis. I've had it for as long as I can remember. It's a nuisance. It gets worse when I am stressed or have a nap.

[rei]

Originally Posted by MiBeloved

It usually means that the connection between the astral consciousness and the physical one is shut down and the astral body has gone into standby mode such that the memory apparatus in the subconscious mind has blanked out. ...
This is sleep paralysis combined with instances of going to astral places which you do not like.
...
That person will only hear moaning sounds since in a cataleptic trance the subtle body cannot use the voice box fully.

interesting ideas MiBeloved. i would think the astral body is not in standby mode as much as conscious (waking state) recall processes are temporarily separated from the astral body, like more of the conscious awareness moves into the astral experience, rather than it seeming to be the other way around. or maybe this is what you meant. it seems to me science and metaphysics have absolutely no certainty about memory, so i find it curious that you seem so confident about this view. (i didn't really mean physical distance, only that the distance traveled by the astral body seems significant, and distance in the astral realm can't be related to physical/3d distance, but i do have faint memories of attending off-planet meetings that create some considerable energetic distance from my physical body... even though my awareness could still return to my physical form in a nanosecond.)

i have remembered times when i was moaning myself awake during these experiences, or perhaps moaning in protest of being frozen in the experience. i think these experiences remind me of how much i prefer to be in control of my conscious experiences... however, most people i know who experience sleep paralysis find it incredibly unpleasant, so i imagine i'm not the only one who prefers to have more control or ability to move my physical form upon expressing the intention.

about negative astrals (or self-identified unpleasant astral realms)...
i express intentions every night before i sleep. one of the intentions is that i will only travel to a realm, or to realms, fully aligned with divine light, where i will receive any and all healing, for any of my bodies, that is aligned with my highest good. so i find it peculiar that i would still end up in unpleasant ones (of course, one can argue that they are all aligned with divine light, but there is polarity implied in the intention, with attraction of the positive). could it be that my intentions have gotten too... automatic? i know rituals, etc., often lose power when they become rote. could that be the case here? should i change the wording of my intention to freshen it up? (asking others here as well, if they have an opinion about this.) (hmm... seems i may have just answered my own question )

thanks to all for existing or forthcoming replies.

[MiBeloved]

Quote:
Originally Posted by MiBeloved
It usually means that the connection between the astral consciousness and the physical one is shut down and the astral body has gone into standby mode such that the memory apparatus in the subconscious mind has blanked out. ...
This is sleep paralysis combined with instances of going to astral places which you do not like.
...That person will only hear moaning sounds since in a cataleptic trance the subtle body cannot use the voice box fully.

Rei wrote:
interesting ideas MiBeloved. i would think the astral body is not in standby mode as much as conscious (waking state) recall processes are temporarily separated from the astral body, like more of the conscious awareness moves into the astral experience, rather than it seeming to be the other way around. or maybe this is what you meant. it seems to me science and metaphysics have absolutely no certainty about memory, so i find it curious that you seem so confident about this view. (i didn't really mean physical distance, only that the distance traveled by the astral body seems significant, and distance in the astral realm can't be related to physical/3d distance, but i do have faint memories of attending off-planet meetings that create some considerable energetic distance from my physical body... even though my awareness could still return to my physical form in a nanosecond.)
====================

MiBeloved’s Response:

To some extent what you said above is correct in that more of the conscious awareness moves into the astral experience during astral projection and some dream states, and as a result when the time comes to shift that conscious awareness into the physical system, there might be a mismatch and the shift might not occur or it might occur partially and then one will freak out as there will be a sleep paralysis session.
My ideas about memory come from careful study of the psychic operations in meditation using the Patanjali Yoga system and the system explained by Krishna in Bhagavad Gita.
This is purely a psychic study. It wasn’t done with instruments as science would do, or with medical equipment and bias and the medical professionals do.


Rei wrote:
i have remembered times when i was moaning myself awake during these experiences, or perhaps moaning in protest of being frozen in the experience. i think these experiences remind me of how much i prefer to be in control of my conscious experiences... however, most people i know who experience sleep paralysis find it incredibly unpleasant, so i imagine i'm not the only one who prefers to have more control or ability to move my physical form upon expressing the intention.

===================
MiBeloved’s Response:
Wanting to control everything and having our positive thinking and law-of-attraction gurus tell us that we can, does not in any way budge the reality of the fact that we are not going to be absolute controllers, now or in the distant future. The best thing is to come to terms with our lack of control and to figure out the extent of our control. Whatever we can under control, we may successful endeavor to achieve but they are some things which will elude our grasp forever.
But in reference to what we are discussing please keep in mind that for millions of years life was going on this planet without our control, so now it is ludicrous when we begin to dream of absolute control of ourselves or our lives. It is a good effort and why not try for it but to be real, we have to face the fact that so much is out of our grasp and will remain so.

The astral body was being released from the gross body on a daily basis since these two bodies became fused and so it is best to study how this detachment and fusion occurs. If we can understand the psychic mechanism which controls this, then perhaps we can learn how to work between the lines and get a little more control but I don’t know about absolute control. In fact if you cannot observe how this system operates then the question of control is even a bigger joke in a way. We have to try to observe the natural psychic system which operates this, just as on the physical end, the medical experts are trying to figure out how REM sleep/dream occurs.

Sleep paralysis is unpleasant because it is not what we are used to and it is not what we feel we should naturally be encumbered by. Instinct says that when you are conscious of yourself as a physical body, you should operate it by your will power and desire, but actually if you ever see infants learn how to walk, you will realize that in infancy, we were, in a sense, in a state of paralysis because the body was not yet fully in tune with our will power. Its wiring system was not yet complete and so when a child gives the order from in his brain to lift one leg, the foot may not move an inch and so the child loses balance and falls and cries.

Nature is only going to give in to us so much and then only at certain stages of our development.
Many men find that later in life they cannot get an erection and it is a most embarrassing thing for those men who were sexually-active all their lives, so for that reason Viagra sells like candy. We can’t expect that nature will just given in to all our desires and always respond to our will and when she does not, we shouldn’t feel undone.


Rei wrote:
about negative astrals (or self-identified unpleasant astral realms)...
i express intentions every night before i sleep. one of the intentions is that i will only travel to a realm, or to realms, fully aligned with divine light, where i will receive any and all healing, for any of my bodies, that is aligned with my highest good. so i find it peculiar that i would still end up in unpleasant ones (of course, one can argue that they are all aligned with divine light, but there is polarity implied in the intention, with attraction of the positive). could it be that my intentions have gotten too... automatic? i know rituals, etc., often lose power when they become rote. could that be the case here? should i change the wording of my intention to freshen it up? (asking others here as well, if they have an opinion about this.) (hmm... seems i may have just answered my own question )

thanks to all for existing or forthcoming replies.


MiBeloved's Response:
Intentions and affirmations are all well and good but if your subconscious is not affected by those or if it just doesn’t even care about those, they will have little or no effect.
These intentions are being affirmed in the conscious rational mind and that is okay, but how does the subconscious mind regard that mind. Does the subconscious mind care a hoot about that mind? And how can the conscious mind enforce itself upon the subconscious mind?

Is there a way of penetrating the subconscious so that the intentions and affirmations force it do whatever is desired?
Try to realize that when you are dealing with astral projection and dreaming states, much of that is under the auspicious of the subconscious, thus unless your intention/aphorism method can manhandle the subconscious you will get sporadic results in the least.

How about cleaning up the subconscious mind. If that mind had divine light in it and if that mind had healing energy or was primarily attracted to that, then your aphorisms and intentions would work like magic, but obvious the subconscious is more or less gravitating towards what is unwanted in the astral world.

So my suggestion is that either you go back to the books and instructions and let them give you a method which penetrates the subconscious. Or you take a serious look at that psychic compartment and see if you can reform it or change it so that it loses interest in the negative astral aspects.

[rei]

Originally Posted by MiBeloved

If that mind had divine light in it and if that mind had healing energy or was primarily attracted to that, then your aphorisms and intentions would work like magic, but obvious the subconscious is more or less gravitating towards what is unwanted in the astral world.

this is not about forcing conscious awareness onto the subconscious. it is a partnership. i think there is more than one way to look at it... if i have not had this experience many times, then i do sense that my pre-sleep intentions are aligned with my own subconscious. for all i know, i want to get out of the dream state because - though it is a fully divine lighted realm - i don't like the lesson being taught in that moment (but since i include the statement about the experience being aligned with my highest good, i may attract a healing experience that seems unpleasant, but is in my energy's best interest). as i said in my last post, intentions that become automatic often lose their power, so i think it is a case of freshening it up.

i did give some thought to your statement about the subconscious, but when i ask about it, i do not get an affirmative response from my source of intuition. that idea feels very foreign.

i did not really mean absolute control... more just the idea of 'i think - i want to move my right arm - and my right arm moves' that sort of thing. still your ideas about this are interesting, i am just not sure they all apply to my own particular experience. hmm... yes i asked again, about the subconscious alignment. i am not resisting the natural tendencies of my subconscious. my intention supports it. but the intention has come out on autopilot the last couple of weeks, so this is showing me the usefulness of revisioning my nightly intentions. thank you for your perspective MiBeloved.

[MiBeloved]

Good luck!

I like your idea about partnership and it has its time and place but sometimes the other partner is completely turned off, like when a man has to resort to viagra.

But yes, it is really great to approach it in that way.

[Arlene deWinter]

I found this usually peceeeds out of body episodes.

When I was growing up, I was often visited by the Spirit of the Woods. I would have a sleep paralysis and at some point manage to get my eyes "open" and I would see the spirit standing there.

I think there are levels of OBE's. These are the most powerful.

Hope it helps,
Arlene deWinter

WINTERSPELLS: A Magical Life in Faery Witchcraft

[MiBeloved]

Originally Posted by Arlene deWinter

I found this usually peceeeds out of body episodes.

When I was growing up, I was often visited by the Spirit of the Woods. I would have a sleep paralysis and at some point manage to get my eyes "open" and I would see the spirit standing there.

I think there are levels of OBE's. These are the most powerful.

Hope it helps,
Arlene deWinter

WINTERSPELLS: A Magical Life in Faery Witchcraft

On a close examination of your experience, there are a few questions and a few corresponding answers:

Were you getting the physical eyes open, or were the astral eyes alone opening? And you were assuming that the physical eyes were opening? Sometimes in a lucid dream or astral projection which occurs near the physical body, the person involved will make an astral movement which may or may not be mimicked by the physical system.
For instance when there is an astral sex experience and the physical system has secretion? Or when there is such an experience and upon awaking one finds that the physical system gives no indication or proof of the experience.

Sometimes such an astral experience is so pronounced that even though the physical system was not involved, the person will feel that it is. This is due to strong physical reliance and the resulting conditioning.

If you were seeing something astral (Spirit of the Woods), then it definitely means that you were pierceiving through the subtle body but it could also mean that you were seeing through the subtle eyes while they were interspaced into the physical ones. Or it could mean that it was just the subtle eyes and you were not particular to differentiate which was which.

[rei]

MiBeloved, i took her reply to mean she used her non-physical eyes, her inner vision, astral body vision or psychic sight.

Arlene, thank you for your post. it helps me to know there is a potentially rewarding reason for the experience, and i value the views from people with many different perspectives. the diversity brings richness i think.