Thread: What happened to me?

1. your body pretty much shut down for the night

2. waiting usually isn't good enough. Take a peek at some WILD techs. Personally, at that point I'd start visualizing to get into a dream.

3. I've always wondered that too. I'm sure theres someone round here with a good science link for it...

Originally Posted by tomahawk0122

I was going to sleep last night focusing on becoming lucid. As I lay in bed I suddenly realized my hands were asleep, then my arms and shoulders, then my feet and legs, then my chest head and neck. I could feel my pulse accelerate and my muscles twitch like crazy. HOWEVER, this whole time I was mentally conscious and thinking about my previous day. I know people are gonna say that I should've waited to see if I became lucid before I woke myself up but let my emphasize I laid there in that state for OVER AN HOUR and was not dreaming. I have a couple of questions that I'd appreciate those with knowledge helping me answer.
1. What the hell happened?
2. If I'd waited could I have lucid dreamed?
3. If hypothetically I'd waited and not fallen mentally asleep all night would my body act like I'd got 8 hours of sleep or 0 hours of sleep when I "woke up" for morning?

1) This is sleep paralysis. What happens is your central nervous system begins inhibition of monoamine neurotransmitter production. Residual acetylcholine continues and ilicits dream states and maintains reticular activation monitoring. This is a fancy way of saying; your body basically turns off everything including the ability to sense your limbs. The ability to sense your limbs is called proprioception. When you are falling asleep, the transmitters that help function proprioception are inhibited. Thus, you enter sleep paralysis.

2) You might have become lucid. It all depends on if you were perseverant enough through the transition to sleep. The fact is, you cannot maintain consciousness from waking life to sleep. However, the recency of your memory and the amount of attention will significantly influence your dreams.

3) If you are asking if you stayed awake during sleep paralysis would you be rejuvenated, the answer is no. The Journal of Neurology shows that you require REM sleep in order to maintain adenosine levels and related monoamine neurotransmitter production. Also, I am curious how long you could have even maintained such a state. Your body would likely just start neurotransmitter production again and the paralysis would fade away.

In fact, an article from the US Library of Medicine and Journal for Transculture Psychiatry suggests that sleep paralysis, cataplexy, is correlated to being abused and the later manifestation of severe mood disorders.

What you experienced is only experience in 0.8% of the general population. Feel lucky in that fact. However, pay attention to yourself as sleep paralysis is a biological sign of severe emotion issues (in a significant amount of cases, anyway).

Journal of Neurology: http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/52/6/1194
Transcultural Psychiatry:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/en...indexed=google

What do you think...? I hope this has been enlightening.
~

Thanks for that O'nus =)

I'd always secretly wished that you could somehow just rest the body without resting the mind. I guess thats not as feasible as some of us would wish.

The relation to severe disorders is actually very interesting however... Sorta frightening too.. XDBut we're producing it un-naturally so there should be no direct relation, correct?

Originally Posted by arby

Thanks for that O'nus =)

I'd always secretly wished that you could somehow just rest the body without resting the mind. I guess thats not as feasible as some of us would wish.

The relation to severe disorders is actually very interesting however... Sorta frightening too.. XDBut we're producing it un-naturally so there should be no direct relation, correct?

We don't even know what regulates sleep yet, for certain. Once we do and find a way to manipulate, I would love to hear people in the future say:

"I can't believe people used to sleep.. that's so stupid."
~

Hey thanks for clearing that up for me, It happened again last night but I'd break myself out of it eariler because I wanted to view these replies first. I'm happy to say I don't have serious emotional issues. And I'll def look into the wild techniques. Thanks, see ya.