Someone please help me - desperate to know what is happening before i go to sleep

Hi all, I'm sorry this thread is so long but I feel I have to explain my situation thoroughly in case there is someone out there who has similar experiences.

I have the most peculiar things happen to me just before I drift off to sleep which I have no control over. I am now 48 and I had my first "experience" when I was 26. I had a terrible headache that night and took a couple of codeine painkillers. As I was in that relaxed pre-sleep state the most strange & frightening experience occurred. I heard a loud cat-like screech and saw what looked like a very large & fat dark cat with a huge ugly head crouching on the end of my bed. Then I could see and feel my duvet cover being violently shaken up & down & it appeared the beast was doing it. I know I wasn't dreaming as I could see my digital clock which read just after 23.00. This fact really scared me because I knew I was awake & that this was really happening. Then, all of a sudden I felt the most hideous sensation which I find very difficult to describe. I felt my body (or more like my spiritual body) being pulled back through the narrow space under my bedhead, under the bed & back over again, repeatedly. I could feel the very uncomfortable sensation of severe butterflies in my stomach as this was going on. I was screaming really loudly but had the feeling I wasn't being heard & I had no way of stopping this from happening. When it stopped I jumped out of bed & ran into the lounge where my father was sitting as I was staying at my parents' place for a while. He recalled I looked petrified & was white as a sheet. I told him what happened & he put it down to a bad dream as a reaction to the codeine. I insisted I wasn't asleep but he told me I must have been. So I went back to bed & luckily drifted uneventfully into sleep. The next night I had a similar experience, only this time I felt my body was being lifted upwards & felt someone attacking me, hitting & trying to strangle me. I couldn't see anyone but could only feel what they were doing. So it wasn't the codeine.

I put it down to something weird about that room, but over the years I have had very similar (although also quite different) experiences in various places, even in the company of others. One person said they could hear me making whimpering sounds so that was my proof it really was going on. I told the person I was screaming loudly but my friend said she could only hear tiny whimpering.

These experiences have ranged from violent attacks, where I've felt myself being beaten black & blue, or my body being pulled out & dragged around whilst I've felt someone mocking me, & at other times some "being " giving me extreme sexual pleasures like I've never before experienced. Two nights ago I was raised up very suddenly & quickly to the ceiling & the more I thought about going higher, the higher I went & then came crashing down. I often know when one of these experiences is about to happen as a strange feeling & sound comes into my head, then off I go into this place of no control.

Anyone out there who can tell me what these experiences are or has had something similar? Any help would be most appreciated.

This sounds like very vivid Hypnagogic Imagery experienced in Sleep Paralysis. Everytime when we fall asleep, our bodies are paralyzed to make sure we don't thrash around in our sleep. Usually we lose consciousness before this happens, but sometimes we don't and we can be in for one hell of a ride.

I know it can be very frightening, but the only way to make them stop is to try to accept them. Embrace them if you can and KNOW it's all completely harmless. Try to see it as an amazing adventure or anything that might help you, because I assure you, you are 100% safe.

Also, it's more common to experience Sleep Paralysis when lying on your back and during naps.

I've had a couple, and the first time I tried to scream as loud as possible but could only produce a tiny moan. The only thing we can control is our breathing and if you want it to end quickly try breathing either very slowly or as fast as possible (it worked in my case).

There is a last thing about Sleep Paralysis which is actually a good thing. When you are in that state, you are VERY close to being asleep. Your body basicly is, so it's only your mind left. If you allow yourself to relax, and just ignore the sensations, a dream will form around you in seconds. If you're conscious when that happens you will be in a Lucid Dream. This is how most DEILD attempts are like.

If you have anything more you'd like to ask, don't hesitate to. And good luck!

*EDIT* One last note. I've experienced alot of hallucinations when I'm actually up and awake. This isn't in SP and imagine how crazy it would be to see something in your couch even though you're standing up. I countered this by starting to appreciate them. I wanted to have them and that made them almost go away. They are still very frightening when I experience them, but minutes after experiencing it, I shrug it off or even smile at the amazing thing I just experienced. It's all about attitute towards the experiences that counts.

Don't take in the bad, transform it into something good and take in all of that!

Thanks for reading & replying Matte87. I have done some reading about SP and it seems the closest description to what I go through, except that I thought with SP one normally wakes up whilst still paralysed, whereas these things happen to me when I haven't even reached the sleep state & never when I am waking up. Sometimes they occur if I am just sitting in a chair feeling dozey - I can feel the experience coming & have to fight against it. So I'm not 100% sure if it's SP.

You are right about accepting it though - over the years I have just given in to the experiences as I can do nothing about them. Sometimes, even during the very violent experiences, I have lain there and said to "whoever it is" - "Okay, bring it on - do what you like - you just don't scare me anymore!" But the thing is, it is rarely pleasant and I hate the fact it can just happen whenever it wants to. I'm not in the mood for another one tonight so I'm still up now at 04.15.

A question I have - why did it suddenly start when I was 26? What would have brought this on? I wasn't stressed or anything - life was pretty normal as far as I know.

It's nice to know I'm not alone in this - I've tried to talk to a few people about it but they all think it's weird. Wow, your visions whilst awake sound bizarre - that would be pretty scary I should think.

SP can happen when you fall asleep aswell as when you wake up. When you're feeling dozey, you're about to fall asleep and end up in the "inbetween" state instead. It's even more common to happen during naps than during the night or before bedtime (as you're usually so tired at night that you lose consciousness very fast.)

Why it started when you were 26 I can not say. Unless you started meditating or focusing on your awareness as you went to sleep, I would think it just happened by random. Although why it started from there might be because of the fact that you're afraid you will have them. When you lie there trying to sleep, and fear you will have one. You keep yourself awake just like anyone trying to WILD would do.

This applies when having a deep fear of having nightmares, especially a re-occuring one. You fear it will appear again and you end up actually inducing it by thinking of it as you go to sleep.

Perhaps trying some meditating when falling asleep will work, and if you want to lose consciousness as fast as possible then there's only one thing to do, work out until you're dead tired! :)

While it is more common for people to experience SP after waking up, it certainly happens while falling asleep as well. Many of us here on DV have experienced it because we actually try to induce it, believe it or not.

However, even in the case of falling into SP from an awake state, this more commonly happens after you have slept for a while already and have woken up in the middle of the night and gone back to bed. It also happens during naps in the daytime. Since it sounds like you often get this when falling asleep at the beginning of the night, I would look into your sleep schedule. Do you get a regular amount of sleep each night? Staying up until 4am is actually going to make it more likely SP will occur. If you do have a regular sleep schedule, you might look into seeing if you have sleep apnea, which would mean you are getting a less restful sleep than you should.

As I mentioned above, many of us here try to induce SP. That is because from there you can go into a lucid dream where you can control the dream and do what you want in it. Since you have had such negative experiences with SP, though, this may be tough. You may want to look into the entries on WILD on the Dreamviews site. With practice you could turn this terrifying experience into a wonderful and fun one.

OMG you've just jogged my memory now! When I was 23 my boyfriend at the time taught me a really good relaxation technique which he would use to try & induce OBE's. He had had a few of them. I had always wanted to have one so I used to try this technique but it never really worked as far as having OBE's goes. But perhaps that technique opened the pathway to what I went on to experience at 26 onwards. Sometimes the experiences do feel more like OBE's, esp. last night's one when I was going up to the ceiling and beyond - only I can't ever see myself. I rarely see anything (except for that awful cat that first time and a few grey hooded figures during another experience, but mostly I only ever feel very intense sensations like pain, humiliation, terror, amazement, & in rare cases extreme pleasure. By the way what do WILD & DEILD stand for - something to do with lucid dreaming I should think.

PS. You certainly speak excellent English for a Swede - better than many native English speakers.

Yes it's very likely that's why it began. Also OBE's aren't scientifically proven unlike Lucid Dreaming, but there are many people who believe they are just as real. I haven't had an OBE or Astral Projection myself, but from what I've read they feel very different from a Lucid Dream, and I would love to experience it one day.

WILD stands for Wake Induced Lucid Dream. It's when you go from a waking state into a dream, lucid ofcourse.

DEILD stands for Dream Exit Induced Lucid Dream. It's basicly a WILD, only you do it when you exit a dream and you lie completely still. This makes you go into SP very quickly and you don't have to wait for a long time before being able to do it. It's very effective when you're already Lucid. As you can prepare whilst still in the dream and you don't move a muscle.

Perlinfalcon is right, SP is a very valuable tool for a practicing WILD'er. She also gives some very good advice when it comes to your sleeping schedule.

And thank you! I really wish you the best of luck, but remember to try to stay positive and curious :)

Thanks Perlinfalcon. Wow I can't believe many of you here try to induce SP if that's what I suffer from. But like you say, it's probably only because my experiences are often bad. Other times though they are just uncomfortable - I feel rather like a silk scarf being pulled rapidly out of a magician's hat then whirling through some kind of crazy vortex till I arrive at "wherever" I'm going to be or "whoever" I,m going to be with - nearly always unseen places & unseen entities yet always strongly felt.

My sleep patterns can be erratic - I have always been an insomniac - even when really tired I often find it hard to sleep. And I may have a mild form of sleep apnoea - I often find myself taking a gasp of breath during near-sleep periods. Although sleep apnoea usually affects middle-aged over-weight
men & I'm a middle-aged slim female. But of course there are always exceptions to the rule. But with me, these experiences can happen when I'm extremely tired or just averagely tired. Sometimes I can have several in one week - other times I don't have them for months. It all seems pretty weird to me.

Also, do you know much about continuing a dream? That's one experience I do enjoy. Occasionally I've had a really great dream about some fantastic adventure or something & then I wake up, go back to sleep again & continue where I left off - it's great - just like reading or writing a book.

But I'm so so glad I've found this website - I no longer feel isolated & alone in this experience - it's very comforting believe me.