Thread: crOOk's journal

Ok, here I go... I'll try to make it short...

First time I experienced the phenomenom was when I was 17, I just came back from the USA where I had stayed for almost a year. Being back in Germany, I woke up a little earlier than usual and realized I couldn't move. I tried to scream which didn't work either and remained in terror for usually less than 30 seconds until I woke up in my room, with a pounding heart and covered in sweat. This starnge sensation was new to me back then and I was totally confused, not knowing what happened, feeling absolutely ridiculous talking about it because it might have just been a regular dream.
Well, these sort of dream sensations reoccured a number of times over the coming years, becoming more and more frequent, especially when I had not smoked enough cannabis. The phenomenom also changed and seemed to be interacting with the other, "normal" dreams.
The room was often made up by parts of rooms I had slept in before, other times it was the exact same room I slept in. The first thing I usually realized was that I couldn't move (besides maybe a tiny little bit, my arm or leg for example). This was most of the times accompanied by a floating sensation (for example I would feel like I was lying 5cm above the bed), buzzing sensations of my body, sometimes resulting in shaking of the eyes and my field of view, tremors of the whole body, also loud noises, usually buzzing or hissing, often multiple not clearly separatable sounds. Often this was accompanied by the strong sense of the presence of a threatening entity, which I was never able to see. Often the entity would be located outside of the room, downstairs, sometimes I could hear it in form of a loud stepping sound, like a large creature coming up the stairs or something.

I talked about this with one or two persons, who would not consider me insane for it. Smile I actually realized my friend had experienced the same thing when he was 16 himself, only once though.

I started to realize I could fight the Sleep paralysis (this is what I thought it might be after some research on the Internet) by cannabis administration before going to sleep. This worked fine for a couple of years with only occasional episodes of SP (?).

Now I have had plans to quit pot for a number of times and the reason why I usually picked up my old habits was sleep and only sleep. Besides the mentioned sensations I have had an extremely vivid dreaming life which would often keep me awake for the whole night, even on the weekends I would not be able to catch up on sleep, which made me extremely tired and resulted in an even unhealthier sympathomimetica abuse habit. I quickly realized this would not work and usually picked my cannabis habit back up.

Now I feel ready to confront myself with the sleep problems and the dreaming sensations and had to realize things got a lot worse.

I have been able to crystallize two different phenomenoms from the sleep paralysis (?) sensations. The first one makes me wake up in my room, unable to move, very similar to the thing I have described above. Sometimes I would notice weird things, like the lights flickering or it being bright outside although it should already be dark. This usually subsides and results in me waking up completely, with a feeling of intense fear to go back asleep.
The other one seems much more like a real dream. It consists of multiple false awakenings in a row, often resulting in me walking around the house, checking if I am finally awake etc. Usually everything is normal until a certain point. Like everything would seem like a normal day (normal dream without me realizing it) until something shocking happens... I'll name a few examples:
1) This is what usually happens, the cases 2-4 have only happened once. I wake up in my room or foten somewhere else and everything seems normal. I check my surroundings and something happens: Often I am accelerated to lightning speed and thrown against the wall or the bed turns around and lies on top of me. Sometimes I'm twisted around and similar things. It's always accompanied by buzzing sensations, electrical current going through my head and the feeling of my body being accelerated manifesting in a stomache pressure/cramp.
2) I wake up in my room after having a nightmare (regular old school kid's nightmare). I am scared to go back to bed and start walking downstairs. I walk into the bathroom and realize a plate with spaghetti that is standing there. This seems odd and I am overcome by intense fear!! The world around me begins to dissolve and the fear gets worse and worse. I wake up in my room.
3) I wake up in my room and sit up in my bed. Trolls or freaky little kids start walking in, I am overcome by intense fear and once again the world begins to dissolve. This is accompanied by the sensation of an acceleration, like the feeling you get in your stomache when you're in a rollercoaster. There's also a weird feeling in my head, like flashes or electrical current going through it, accompanied by weird noises (the same that are mentioned above). Again, I wake up in my room.
4) I wake up in my room, I go downstairs to use the bathroom. I sit down to take a dump, feeling enormously tired. I in that moment know of my sleeping problems and how I have been lying awake for multiple nights... My brother starts knocking on the door asking me to come out of the room. He talks to my other brother who was already visiting us before I went to sleep. I realize he should've been gone for a while and am confused. I ask them to leave, no: I beg (!) them to leave, I fall on the floor and tell them to leave me alone, I don't even know what day it is. I realize I am in need of help because I'm lying on the floor and wait for my family to comein and help me. The door is locked though and all of a sudden I am kicked by my family members through the closed door! I look throught he glass door and realize they're walking like spiders. The world around me once more begins to dissolve, accompanied by the same sensations mentioned above...