Disturbing

[GlowingFaintly]

I really need an answer to this. How do I explain. I'm not a lucid dreamer, I'm interested in being a lucid dreamer and have tried but had no success yet. But for years, since i was a child, I have been having this experience on occasion and find it very frightening and thought someone here might know what it is. It usually happens when I lay down for a nap, I think I may have had it only once from when I have gone to bed. I think I wake up I certainly know that I' am asleep but I cannot move or open my eyes I try to open my eyes and open them a little way but not the whole way and they fight to close again. I cannot hear anything. I try to reach out and touch things and think that I can feel them but then realise that I have not moved my arm. On several occasion I think I have sat up and resumed by daily activities only to find myself back asleep a few minutes later. After a while I begin to become panicky until I finally wake up. At first I thought it might be sleep paralysis but it feels like a dream when I finally wake up. Sometimes there are odd occurrences. Once when I was a child I walked to my bedroom door, down the stairs and into the living room everyone was sitting around the table talking but then I realised they could not see me and went back to knowing I was asleep but when I woke and went downstairs everyone was in the same place, talking about the same thing. And once I tried to open my eyes and saw my mum knitting and when I woke she actually was. this morning included in this not being able to wake up, thing. I sat up thinking I was awake and my Mum was sitting at the bottom of the bed in a chair and was talking to me, I can't remember what she said but I know she said she was there to watch over me when my brother was not around. Another time I did the same thing and she was talking to someone in a cloak and the third time she was sitting where she always used to sit and I asked her, "you are not going anywhere this time are you?" and she replied "no I'm not going anywhere" I know this part was most likely just a dream but it has left me with a strong emotional response and an uneasy feeling, she was very vivid but I felt eerie maybe even a little disturbed and still do. My Mum passed five weeks ago. And today is her birthday and this morning, even though I had only just got up I couldn't keep my eyes open. Any ideas? I need answers.

[~Dreamer~]

I'm so sorry to hear about your mum. Have you heard of hypnagogic/hypnopompic states? They can occur when you're entering/exiting sleep, and can include sleep paralysis and hallucinations. I have very little experience with this myself, but there is lots of info on DV if you want to look into it. Another possibility is that you're just having false awakenings, where you dream that you have woken up. I sometimes get FA cycles, where I dream of waking up a few times in a row. Sometimes my own FAs include some dreamlike/nightmarish characteristics, which keep repeating themselves in each 'awakening'. The good news is, both hypnagogic imagery and false awakenings can be used as a gateway to lucid dreaming! Try to get in the habit of doing a reality check every time you wake up, to give you a better chance of catching false awakenings. Some people choose to spend time with the deceased in lucid dreams, so perhaps that's something you'd like to consider in the future. Best wishes on your journey!

[GlowingFaintly]

Thank you...^__^