Paralysis scare the shit out of you?

I've read a lot of different SP experiences but none that share the same path from consciousness to LD as my own. Perhaps I haven't taken in enough views of SP and tons of people share the same experience...I hope so. I get luc...really all the time..no big deal. I've been experimenting with WILDS for quite some time now and those also come quite easily, kind of. I have taken my concentration to SP many times but nothing happens. Everyone descibes all the colors they see and how eventually it just turns into a dreamscape. I see nothing but black and feel all my limbs but they are usless thus the term paralysis...but isnt that supposed to end? My mind basically becomes trapped in nothingness. It is without a doubt the worst feeling I can possibly think of.
So I tell myself I must be doing it wrong and It's normal to be scared so I concentrate until SP and just wait....wait....nothing, just black. Its really quite scary, sometimes I'm not even sure if I'm still breathing. Another difference in my SP or WILDS I guess is that everyone talks about what a delicate process iniciating a WILD is and it takes concentration all the way to the dream state. For me it is the opposite, I just concentrate on my breathing...it feels like I am totally aware and I'll never be able to fall asleep when SP grabs me with no warning at all. It's very jumpy and very hard to reverse. I descovered LD because of an ability to easily wake myself up while dreaming, I think most LDers can easily wake themselves up from a dream. However once SP grabs me, I'm screwed, it's like someone is physically throwing me into sleep and It's very hard to come out of. I guess I can still wake up in a realitivly short amount of time but it's much harder than waking up from a dream, And since Im paralyzed and see nothing It is much scarier.
To make an unessecarliy long story short, I have gotten to the point that WILDS and SP scare the shit out of me and I need help. ANY POINTERS?

Yeah dude, I get that alot. One ngiht I got it 3 times in a row when I was tryin' to catch some Z's. The worst though is when youre having this "SP" with a sort of "night terror" as to where you have a really bad sense of fear while you're sitting there like a vegetable. Haha.

I found, that trying your best to swing your head body left and right (like an angry screaming little boy) help you wake up. Just make sure that when you wake up, you get up, because you might fall asleep and have another one again. Try to calm yourself down then try goin' back to sleep.

hXc!

Sounds to me like your not into yar rem-stage yet, do you use WBTB?
Usualy HI hits you as soon as the rem sets in (correct me if im wrong)

About the reactivationg your body, try not to panic( yeh the obvious , seemingly useless but stil essencial tip, i know)
Try to start small, that always helps for me , just open yar eyes , then move yar jaw, then your head, you get the picture.

Though if im correct the darkness and the feeling of being trapped freak you out eh? (i can
get into that )
Though i think its just something you must overcome, if you start wilding when having those memories in yar head , theres no way to wild :P, it probably wil distract to much.

Just try to remember yar just in your room and the darkness is behind your eyelids, also that makes me realize the folowing:

If its feels like your trapped in darkness, it must feel like your there, in the darkness..so maby you advanced far beyond what you had thought :-P

Its easy for me to speak becouse i dont have the problem :|

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Originally posted by insomnia
Sounds to me like your not into yar rem-stage yet, do you use WBTB?
Usualy HI hits you as soon as the rem sets in (correct me if im wrong)

About the reactivationg your body, try not to panic( yeh the obvious , seemingly useless but stil essencial tip, i know)
Try to start small, that always helps for me , just open yar eyes , then move yar jaw, then your head, you get the picture.

Though if im correct the darkness and the feeling of being trapped freak you out eh? (i can
get into that )
Though i think its just something you must overcome, if you start wilding when having those memories in yar head , theres no way to wild :P, it probably wil distract to much.

Just try to remember yar just in your room and the darkness is behind your eyelids, also that makes me realize the folowing:

If its feels like your trapped in darkness, it must feel like your there, in the darkness..so maby you advanced far beyond what you had thought :-P

Its easy for me to speak becouse i dont have the problem :|

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Sounds about right, but I am no expert either. Is your room pitch black? Mabey leave a light on accross the room or a computer monitior or something to lighten the room a little but not enough to keep you up? IDK what to do to prevent sp from setting in, but it only happens to me before I become lucid, sort of like a pre-dream sign.

I also used to hate waking in SP, until I found a way of getting myself out of it quickly and easily. It's very simple, I just move my eyes sideways a few times, and it always wakes me up without fail. You could also try blinking very fast, that's worked for me a few times. SP is much easier to handle once you know you have a fail-safe way of getting out of it.

From the way you describe it, it sounds as though you have no auditory or visual hallucinations whatsoever? If this is the case, then in one sense it's actually something to be grateful for... being paralysed in pitch darkness is pretty bad, but imagine being paralysed and then seeing shadowy figures appear in your room and hearing voices whispering in your ear... not very nice. The thing to remember is that when you're in SP you're extremely close to entering a LD. Have you ever been in SP, fighting to move, and then found yourself sitting up in bed only to realise you're dreaming, and then waking in SP again? If this happens, you can do a RC and become lucid. If you have no imagery at all, then this might be the best way for you to become lucid. Concentrate on the sensations in your body during SP, and try to move, but move your dream-body, not your real body, if that makes sense.

I know it's difficult but you should try not to fight SP. Remind yourself of your goal to become lucid and stick with it, hopefully it should pay off.

I've only experience sleep paralysis once, but yeah, it was scary. Even though I already knew all about it, and knew the best thing to do was to remain calm and wait it out, I still panicked. It only lasted a few seconds though, fortunately.

Thank you for the tips but waking up from SP isnt really my goal. I can do that it just takes more time than waking from a dream. My real problem is becoming lucid after SP in a WILD. I have stuck with it before hoping to become lucid...sometimes I sit there for 3 minutes with nothing...and at that point I'm no longer sure If I'm breathing so I have to wake myself up. Is three minutes long enough because I sure as hell had enough after that amount of time.

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Originally Posted by youaredreaming

Thank you for the tips but waking up from SP isnt really my goal. I can do that it just takes more time than waking from a dream. My real problem is becoming lucid after SP in a WILD. I have stuck with it before hoping to become lucid...sometimes I sit there for 3 minutes with nothing...and at that point I'm no longer sure If I'm breathing so I have to wake myself up. Is three minutes long enough because I sure as hell had enough after that amount of time.
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You sound a lot like me. I too have been trying to WILD and I can get to SP almost 100% of the time. Problem is, like with you, I'm not entirely sure what to do when I get there. The longest I have managed to wait w/o waking myself up is around say 20 minutes. (My formula for this is as follows: Assuming my average breathing rate of 16-18 respirations per minute. Since counting is my chosen focus while trying to WILD, I count in time with my breathing. One time I had SP onset around 500 and woke myself up at 914. Thus we can take the total 914 and subtract the non-SP'd portion of 500 to get 414. Then take 414/18 and get 23. So between 20 and 24 minutes is a good estimate. It could be longer if I was breathing slow because of the relaxed state though). Anyway, as with you I just kind of lay there. All I a can see is darkness, though it does seem to take on a depth of sorts. I have trouble breathing when it first happens but if I don't fight it my body will take control of it on its own and it becomes deep and regular - like I was sleeping. As far as not being sure you are breathing, I've not had an experience like that however I imagine that you are still breathing. I'm no doctor and don't claim to be however, if you were truly not breathing then you would eventually pass out, at this point your brain stem (I think it's the brain stem that does it...) would take over breathing while you were unconcious. I'm pretty sure there isn't anything to worry about there, but if it really worries you, you could always ask a doctor. About the best advice I can give you is that you just gotta realize that this all happens when you go to sleep anyway. It's nothing you should be scared of.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(insomnia &#064; Jul 20 2006)</div>

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Sounds to me like your not into yar rem-stage yet, do you use WBTB?
Usualy HI hits you as soon as the rem sets in (correct me if im wrong)
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Yeah that&#39;s what I guessed was happening with me. I had been doing it when I initially went to bed. So I tried a WBTB+WILD and the same thing happened though.

That&#39;s about all I can offer, I hope I was of some help. I don&#39;t have a lot of experience and i&#39;m still very new to WILD but I will get it eventually and I think that&#39;s the secret. Get it one time and you&#39;ll at least have a clue. I hope someone comes in here with a super awesome answer... so I can borrow it >_>

I have blank SP&#39;s every so often, i never had them before until i got hit with my first one, the cherry breaker is always the worst but I have yet to have one were i actually seen and heard things, that would really freak me out, but at the same time it would be kind of cool, to see if i could control the hallucinations.

Its something you get use to, it doesn&#39;t bother me that much anymore because i know what it is and what my body is going through. Just imagine if that happened to you and you never heard of sleep paralysis before, you would probably think you died and gone to hell. But there is a bright side to SP it makes you realize that there is more to this world than what we can see feel and touch.

I&#39;ve only experienced it once, and it was just after I woke in the middle of the night. I wasn&#39;t quite sure what it was, but I took it as a challenge to push my legs as hard as I could (like lifting weights or something).

It didn&#39;t work, and I felt a little tired from the effort so I just lay there for a moment, and tried to think through things in my brain, reconnect my body to my brain or something. I tried moving my hand, and it moved :eek:

Certainly a very weird way to experience such a thing.

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Originally Posted by youaredreaming

I&#39;ve read a lot of different SP experiences but none that share the same path from consciousness to LD as my own. Perhaps I haven&#39;t taken in enough views of SP and tons of people share the same experience...I hope so. I get luc...really all the time..no big deal. I&#39;ve been experimenting with WILDS for quite some time now and those also come quite easily, kind of. I have taken my concentration to SP many times but nothing happens. Everyone descibes all the colors they see and how eventually it just turns into a dreamscape. I see nothing but black and feel all my limbs but they are usless thus the term paralysis...but isnt that supposed to end? My mind basically becomes trapped in nothingness. It is without a doubt the worst feeling I can possibly think of.
So I tell myself I must be doing it wrong and It&#39;s normal to be scared so I concentrate until SP and just wait....wait....nothing, just black. Its really quite scary, sometimes I&#39;m not even sure if I&#39;m still breathing. Another difference in my SP or WILDS I guess is that everyone talks about what a delicate process iniciating a WILD is and it takes concentration all the way to the dream state. For me it is the opposite, I just concentrate on my breathing...it feels like I am totally aware and I&#39;ll never be able to fall asleep when SP grabs me with no warning at all. It&#39;s very jumpy and very hard to reverse. I descovered LD because of an ability to easily wake myself up while dreaming, I think most LDers can easily wake themselves up from a dream. However once SP grabs me, I&#39;m screwed, it&#39;s like someone is physically throwing me into sleep and It&#39;s very hard to come out of. I guess I can still wake up in a realitivly short amount of time but it&#39;s much harder than waking up from a dream, And since Im paralyzed and see nothing It is much scarier.
To make an unessecarliy long story short, I have gotten to the point that WILDS and SP scare the shit out of me and I need help. ANY POINTERS?
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Yeah a very common thing really. You seem to have it as you Drift asleep. I often experience it while I am asleep and I feel as if I (well my mind atleast) am going to wake up
. However when I want to get up and rise from my bed the Scariest feeling of paralysis and inability to breathe takes hold of me. Often I can actually see my own head lying helplessly on my pillow not being able to awake. When i DO awake from that I&#39;ll be gasping for air with my eyes Hystirically wide open.

I found a method to counter the fear when experiencing this condition (Gained through an insight from a mushroom trip)

First know it is not abnormal and not at all dangerious for this to happen.
The next time you experience it Recognise it as that condition and tell yourself &#39;&#39;It&#39;s okay it won&#39;t do any harm&#39;&#39; and you will simply go back to sleep fearless. Since this condition, in my case anyway, usually seems to occur when I&#39;m SORT of just awakening out of a dream, but yet cannot REALLY awaken I could use this condition to recognise it as a sleep/dream-related phenomenon and thus come to the conclusion that I&#39;m asleep. This may give me instant lucidity as I decide to fall back asleep completely again :wink:

Thanx a bunch dude. I just realised this could be the best DreamSign ever, since when I felt it I always wanted to wake up: meaning I knew I was asleep and paralysed. Now I can use it to gain lucidity and quickly drift back into the dream Lucidly :content:

Im new here. Im not sure what SP stands for, but i think ive experienced it. Is that when you feel your half asleep and half awake and you cant move? And sometimes you try to move and you feel like you get stuck in a weird uncomfortable position?

Thats really scary. Once i thought "what if feathers starts falling in my face, that would be scary id feel suffocated" and 2 seconds later here comes the feathers. Then I start telling myself "its not real, its not real" then the feathers disappeared. So really, the best way to get through it is not think of anything and just try your best to wake up.

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Originally Posted by ConfusedDreamer

Im new here. Im not sure what SP stands for, but i think ive experienced it. Is that when you feel your half asleep and half awake and you cant move? And sometimes you try to move and you feel like you get stuck in a weird uncomfortable position?

Thats really scary. Once i thought "what if feathers starts falling in my face, that would be scary id feel suffocated" and 2 seconds later here comes the feathers. Then I start telling myself "its not real, its not real" then the feathers disappeared. So really, the best way to get through it is not think of anything and just try your best to wake up.
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SP stands for Sleep Paralysis. You almost certainly have experienced it, as it happens every night when you go to sleep. Usually you are unaware of this. However the point of WILD is staying aware and consciously entering the dream state. Thus while trying hard to wake up would be the quickest way out of it, that&#39;s counterproductive(for the purpose of WILD at least.) If you just wanted to avoid the situation all together, then your advice is prudent: stay calm and don&#39;t panic, and gradually you&#39;ll wake up.

Also :welcome: