Thread: hi new member

Do you know whether you are actually awake or just dreaming? Does your husband see you trying to scream?

From my experience, this seems like sleep paralysis, not night terrors. With night terrors, most common in children, you wake up and scream but have no memory of screaming or the dream. With sleep paralysis, you are paralyzed and feel like you can't move, but in reality you are actually dreaming and feeling your body's natural paralysis keeping you from moving so that you don't act out your dreams in real life and hurt yourself.

I've had sleep paralysis since I was a teen, and so has my mom and brother. Your sleep paralysis episodes sounds a lot like my mother's. She has the same experience of trying to scream and my dad waking her up.

With my sleep paralysis, I try to move but can't or just barely can budge myself. I learned over time if I try really hard, I can roll myself onto the floor, and this is when I learned it's actually a dream, not waking life. In my sleep paralysis dreams, I usually feel a scary presence, like an intruder. These used to terrify me and I was afraid to fall back to sleep in the morning when I'd wake up or take naps. Now, I've overcome this! Since starting lucid dreaming, I become excited to dream and the excitement manifests itself in my sleep paralysis dreams and I try things like flying and exploring my dream world.

I think you should look more into lucid dreaming and try it out. It'll make these dreams so much less scarier knowing what's actually going on. Next time you experience this, tell yourself, this is just sleep paralysis, and calm down. Don't struggle. Then, just try to budge yourself off the bed. You'll either wake up or be able to explore your dream. Rationalization and knowledge is the best weapon against the fear we experience during sleep paralysis.

Best of luck to you and happy dreaming!

Welcome to DV joanne1012! That sounds like sleep paralysis, you can actually make it into a LD or an OBE, but I hope to see you around!

Welcome joanne1012, I agree with the others, lucid dreaming and other techniques could be a great for help you. But the most important thing I've learned that made my nightmare type dreams stop was the realization that it isn't an outer force controlling your dreams or haunting you in your dreams. I had a lucid dream and the very second I had paranoia my brain made these creepy beings enter the dream scene and that's when I realized it was a product of me and then the beings disappeared and the dream scene changed into something nice. You're in charge, and not trapped because you're in control.

just to say thank you for the advice, yes that is exactly what kind of dreams I am experiencing where yes I am paralysed and have to shout out as I said luckily my partner does wake me but I will try what you say though.

I will have a look at the lucid dreaming as well and to see if that will help
thanks joanne1012.

thanks for welcoming me as a member Narwal I will enjoy having a look on this website and yes I do think that I am having sleep paralysis joanne1012

Welcome to DV, hope to see you around the forums and perhaps on the chat.

You'll definitely learn a lot here, it's an awesome site and everyone is helpful.