Help with Sleep Paralysis

Hi!, this is my first post on this website, and I'm posting this because I've been having some problems with sleep paralysis. First of all, what happens to me at night before I go to bed, is I will listen to some kind of meditation audio, or I will just focus on relaxing, and after about 10-15 minutes I will begin to feel my hands and arms tingle. It will intensify a little, and then my body will begin to feel a little heavy. Sometimes I will feel a pressure on my chest, and it will become difficult to breathe. Eventually I completely lose all feeling in my body and hypnogogia will intensify. (I will see bright, colorful lights, large stadiums, objects flying at me, etc.) At this point I start to freak out a little, because I can't feel my body and am unable to move, although I do kind of enjoy the feeling to some extent. But, my heart rate and breathing speed up. This feeling of just being completely disconnected from my body will only last for several seconds. What I think I'm experiencing is sleep paralysis, but maybe it is something else as I don't have very much experience with this, and it never lasts longer than about 10 seconds. So my questions are: Could what I'm experiencing be sleep paralysis? and, How can I make it last longer or use it to have a lucid dream? (I've never had a lucid dream before) Any advice is greatly appreciated :)

You definitely have the symptoms of sleep paralysis. The pressure on the chest, lack of feeling in the body, bright colors followed by hallucinations. It's usually by the time you have hallucinations that you your body is asleep and you can enter a dream. Just think imagine something and see if it will appear. Imagine, like, a pie and see if you can smell it. Imagine birds chirping, and if you can hear it, you're dreaming (since birds wouldn't be chirping at night).

Be grateful you can get that far, because I'm still working on it. Try GizEdwards video on WILD (wake induced lucid dream) tutorial on YouTube.

SP is not needed to WILD. Giz released a video later apologizing for that WILD video.

Yes, but the OP never mentioned WILD. He just wanted to know how to use sleep paralysis for dreaming.

Do people ever try to use SP for anything but WILD? Even you told him to look up a YouTube video about SP for WILD

http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...explained.html

Best thread on SP. ~~~ sorry if I wasnt helpful in previous post. :P

The only other thing I hear it's good for is out of body experiences/astral traveling. Other than being able to hallucinate without drugs, I can't think of a reason why someone would want to paralyze their body but keep the mind awake. Either way, I think SP is an easier form of WILD than those who can just meditate and then have a lucid dream. At least the former doesn't take as much practice to get into.

Did you read the thread I posted? It talks about that. I am not a fan of obe or AP, mostly because I think that it is just a type of dream. :P we have a section for stuffklike this though. It is beyond dreaming if you are interested in it. Most of the ataff on this site think of themselves at war with SP falsehoods. That thread sets a lot of it straight.

Not yet, but I have it saved since there's a lot to read. Who knows, it may prove interesting. But from what I know about OBEs and astral traveling, it's not as interesting as lucid dreaming (personally) because you can't control or interact with anything.

Yeah, sounds like a glowy real world. Lol. :P I'd rather create my own universe and destroy it. :banana:

Welcome Musicale!

Well, never mind SP, what you are describing sounds exactly like what happens a few seconds before a WILD. I think you are literally right on the brink. If you do this during an afternoon nap (prime WILDing time), you will probably fall straight into a LD. What I do to stay aware during the transition is to count "One, I'm dreaming. Two, I'm dreaming. Three, I'm dreaming..." until I'm in. I start counting as soon as my heart begins to race, and I will usually be in a dream before I reach 10.
Good luck!

Thank you everyone so much! You've been very helpful and answered my questions ;D Sibyline: That's VERY interesting about the WILDs, I will try your method and see what happens. So far I haven't been very successful with this technique, but I will keep trying!! Also, I'm in love with this website :)

So I tried to WILD during afternoon nap like you suggested, and I didn't QUITE get to having a LD but it was still a very interesting experience. I kept seeing this pretty vibrant blue color, and very realistic objects though I think I was half asleep because I can't remember too much. I do remember feeling this strange floating feeling but it didn't last for very long. I was able to keep that feeling of being disconnected from my body for longer periods of time, and I was able to bring it back when I lost it. I remembered to count too which definetly helped. I'm still not quite sure what is holding me back from an LD. Maybe I just need more practice.

Hey guys,
I'm getting good at DILD but in WILD, I can't get past the difficulty in breathing stage. I just keep getting messed up at that point.

^^ There's a difficulty in breathing stage during WILD?

Perhaps if you assure yourself that there really isn't such a stage (because there isn't), and, should you feel like you're having difficulty breathing during a WILD dive, take a pause to remind yourself that your body is breathing just fine, and what you are feeling is just a side-effect of your witness of the transition to sleep.

In other words: ignore stuff like this and keep the coming dream in mind, and these transitional speed bumps will eventually just not matter.

Actually I believe some people do experience difficulty breathing during WILD, as it is a part of sleep paralysis and has happened to me. Whenever I reach this stage I get really freaked out, and I think that's what messes everything up for me. imda1: What messes you up??

^^ For what it's worth:

If you have difficuly breathing during WILD, then you would also have difficulty breathing when falling asleep normally. This is because your body is doing the same things it ever does when it's falling asleep; the only difference is that during WILD you are consciously noticing those processes.

And yes, even during actual SP or REM atonia your body is breathing just fine, else WILD would be an extremely risky business (which it is not). That difficulty is a sensation, a hypnopompic illusion, as you consciously try to sort out the stuff your body is doing apparantly without you (because you're not supposed to be there, consciously).

Even if you believe you are having difficulty breathing (or anything else) during WILD, it wouldn't hurt to pause for a moment to tell yourself that your sleeping body is just fine, and try then to get past the sensation.

Or you can just ignore me and move on; I know these are very unpopular things to say.

Noo I see what you mean, so I guess the difficulty breathing is a mental thing and not a physical thing, even though it does feel very physical and realistic.

My theory on the feeling of having difficulty breathing is that my mind is awake and wants me to breathe in a pattern matching my awake state, while my body is asleep and breathing slowly. Reminding myself of this tends to send me right into a lucid dream, and then the unpleasant feeling is gone.