Thread: what is SP?

Sleep Paralysis. When you fall asleep, your body naturally becomes paralyzed to stop yourself from acting out your dreams. Occasionally you're still conscious when this happens, and it can be frightening if you don't know what's going on.

When you say conscious, how conscious do you mean? Can you be fully awake?

Technically you can't be fully awake, 'cause if you're sleep paralyzed you're kind of by definition half asleep. You're also able to have dreamlike imagery...so definitely not fully awake. But you don't "feel" asleep either, and you can see things in the "real" world too, because your eyes are open. So it's an altered state of consciousness, but not as altered as being fully asleep and dreaming...probably closest thing would be being on hallucinogens.

On the contrary, you can be in a sense fully awake. I've woken up under sleep paralysis, eyes wide open, otherwise feeling fully awake with no other signs of hypnogogics. The paralysis passed in about 10 seconds, but I was beyond a doubt entirely conscious.

You can experience sleep paralysis while fully conscious, as consciousness is mental, while the paralysis itself is entirely physical.

However, the point ISC is trying to make, and its true, is that usually you will be in an altered state of consciousness while under SP.

okay, thanks! i knew what sleep paralasys is, i just wanted to know what SP stood for.





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