Feeling sleep paralysis pressure in a dream?

**kdellama** · 08-01-2012 05:56 PM

Hi everyone. I had a very strange experience this morning and I'm hoping some of you more experienced dreamers can shed some light on it.

I went to bed around midnight and had some vivid dreams followed by a false awakening (very frustrating because I woke up in my bed, wrote down EVERY detail of my previous dream, then woke up for real and couldn't remember half of it

). Then things got a little weird. It was about 5am and I decided to try a WILD - here are the events in order:

1. I focused on my breathing, thinking about nothing in particular - just observing thoughts
2. All of a sudden I was in some kind of game show within my mind where I would immediately have to answer a question with the first thing that came to mind. One example is "Name the person you would most like to punch" - then an image of the person I wanted to punch instantly appeared in my head (sorry I can't remember who it was).
3. I appeared in my backyard sitting on the grass and my two cats were fighting on top of the fence. This is an unusual occurrence so I turned towards the house to try and get my wife's attention. As soon as I turned my head there was an enormous amount of pressure on my head. It felt like it was being crushed but there was no pain. It was so uncomfortable that I panicked and lost the dream and was back in my bed.
Note - none of these experiences were lucid.
4. At this point I realized that the pressure might be sleep paralysis and was perfectly safe so I tried to focus on it. When I focused on the pressure I started hearing what sounded like radio broadcasts for a few seconds then I lost it.

The reason that I'm confused by this experience is that I have never heard of people feeling the effects of sleep paralysis in their dreams. Perhaps it wasn't quite a full blown dream yet?

Sorry for the long post and thank you for your time.

**Burke** · 08-02-2012 09:00 PM

When you were back in your bed do you know if this was still a dream? There's a possibility that it was actually you waking up and the pain in your head was just residual from the dream. The radio broadcast sounds were likely HH (hypnagogic hallucinations) which often accompany SP. You say you lost it which was likely you becoming too aware or just "waking up."

Also dreams can mimic waking life very well so it's quite possible one could experience SP in a dream.

**kdellama** · 08-02-2012 10:10 PM

Thank you for your response Burke. I am almost positive that I was not dreaming when I was back in bed, although I can't be certain since I didn't perform a reality check. When I was in bed I clearly remember thinking that I just had a dream. Then I tried focusing on that dream (and the pressure in my head) in an attempt to enter a lucid dream.

**Robot_Butler** · 08-03-2012 11:18 PM

Was this only a few moments after falling back to sleep? You could have been feeling sensations from your body. I get a lot of crossover when I first enter a dream, and when I am just about to wake up.

**jblb2424** · 08-05-2012 01:50 AM

My guess is that you were on the verge of waking up, causing you to feel the sleep paralysis in a dream. I had a few accounts when i became lucid and right when a dream was ending, i would feel paralyzed inside the dream and could hardly move. That would be my best guess. Good luck!

**kdellama** · 08-06-2012 07:23 PM

Robot_Butler - Yes, I believe it happened right after I fell asleep so it could have been crossover.

jblb2424 - I think this is the most likely explanation since the exact same sensation in my dream carried over to when I woke up in bed.

**blade5x** · 08-07-2012 05:43 PM

I've had that happen before. But when it has happened, it has usually resulted in me becoming paralyzed within the dream, with the dream ending shortly after. The same has happened in reverse, where I'd pull of a WILD, see my room around me, but have trouble initially moving around until I fully transitioned into the dream.

**zombiesarebad** · 08-08-2012 12:47 AM

i've experienced what i think was sleep paralysis while still dreaming as well... waking up though, rather than falling asleep.

in fact, just the other night i thought i was in sleep paralysis. It felt just like it, but it had to have been a dream because i was able to free one arm and use it to move my other arm.

i once also dreamt that i was driving down the pike (in a Lumina van of all things) when suddenly i became paralyzed... the paralysis felt just like good old SP. I began to black out and struggle to hold my head up to see where i was going.

**kdellama** · 08-08-2012 01:59 AM

Blade5x and zombiesarebad - your experiences are very similar to mine except I don't think I was paralyzed in my dream. I'm not sure because everything happened so fast. Towards the end of my dream I felt the pressure in my head but I think I could move, then when I was back in bed I had the pressure in my head and I couldn't move.