Thread: Sleep Paralysis

It's sure sounds like sleep paralysis to me. I have some sleep disorders and I experience sleep paralysis regularly; at least once a week. Actually seeking treatment for sleep paralysis is what led me to learn about lucid dreaming in the first place.

Sometimes I awaken from dreaming into sleep paralysis, but usually it happens after waking up and then right before I go back to sleep, or before a nap.

The hallucinations can seem very real and are unnerving at times. It's different than in dreams because you know you're awake. Most of my hallucinations start with a weird vertigo feeling; like I'm spinning or like my bed is a raft bobbing on water. Then I usually hear sounds like whispers, hearing my name, or electric buzzing. Often it feels like something is touching my neck or breathing into my ear. The visual hallucinations can be frightening, but sometimes they're not scary; like shapes, speckles, colors, etc.

When this happens to me I just let it do it's thing. Trying to get up or move just causes panic. I just close my eyes, try to relax, and let it take over. Most of the time the hallucinations start very random then it sort of coalesces into a lucid dream; like you're spiraling off into some other dimension.

So the sleep paralysis can be a good thing if you want to lucid dream; you just have to put up with the initial chaos. It also helps to remind myself that I've never been injured during sleep paralysis. I hope this helps with any future experiences with sleep paralysis.

Wow SP once a week!
I suppose it would become less frightening the more it happens, but yeah it freaked me out pretty bad, though it's sort of exciting looking back on it, and that was the first time I can remember it happening.

Right as my dream about flying started to white out it felt like my legs were being drawn out from under me and were floating upside down. I don't remember hearing any noises though, just the visual hallucinations.

If it ever happens again I'll try to relax like you said.

SP is scary when your not used to it.
I got it the odd time for no reason back before I knew what it was and it scared the hell out of me lol.
now I try to get it every night in order to WILD and since experiencing it a lot more I've got used to it and even enjoy it.

yeah, I too get SP once a week, it used to be once ever few weeks, but since I've joined this site and have been WILDing and having LDs, the SP has really picked up. I still hate the feeling, I don't think you can ever get over that. But I have learned to control it and I've realized that some SPells are not as bad as others.

Just think of a pleasent dream scene and imagine yourself sinking through your mattress, soon you'll be in lucid land, then have some fun!

Very cool.
I've never been able to WILD very well, I can't seem to muster the will power to get out of bed briefly. Maybe I'll give it another go..as freaky as it was, the paralysis was kind of cool. (At least looking back on it is cool.) So maybe if I try WILDing again I'll get the SP again?

Anyone heard of anything else that seems to increase SP?

Yeah I know what you mean, it is pretty cool, and when you control it, it's wayyy better.

I dont know about increasing it, I always get it in the morning, usually when I'm in and out of sleep or tossing and turning ( yeah I'm opposite, I don't have to lie still to WILD)
Just force yourself to get up for few minutes, get some water, use the bathroom, or something and that should help

There are some factors that can increase sleep paralysis and hallucinations.

One is sleeping on your back. I usually sleep on my side, but often I'll sleep on my stomach and I almost always get sleep paralysis if I sleep that way; so it can depend on the person.

Another is irregular sleep patterns. This one really increases the odds for me.
Sometimes I'll crash for a few hours at my friend's after a night of drinking and then I'll go home and stay up a few hours to eat, shower, etc. After that I'm usually pretty tired still so I'll take a nap and before I fall asleep I'm almost always guaranteed to get sleep paralysis. I think it's a combo of the short amount of sleep and then going back to sleep at an unusual time.

For you that may be the case, but I still think there is no real proof on increasing or decreasing SP (other than meds). Mine hits me so randomly and I'm always lying on my back.

I do agree that it probably has to do with going back to sleep at an unusual time, but then again I"ve gotten it after a late night of partying, as well as after an early night to sleep..... it's a tricky thing this SP

Mine did happen upon waking from a spontaneous afternoon nap.

I'm not expecting it to happen very often, but if it ever does happen again I'm going to keep a record of the details. I guess it's pretty different from person to person, just like everything else.

Hello Friends......

Sleep paralysis consists of a period of inability to perform voluntary movements either at sleep onset (called hypnogogic or predormital form) or upon awakening (called hypnopompic or postdormtal form).

Sleep paralysis may also be referred to as isolated sleep paralysis, familial sleep paralysis, hynogogic or hypnopompic paralysis, predormital or postdormital paralysis

Thanks

^
Uh not sure I understand the point of that post....

I think he was stating the definition of SP

Ok, I don't want to make a new thread so I'll ask here

Last night I wanted to try and at least experiance SP as I never have. I laid down and started at 2:15am

Like normal, my limbs and body kind of go numb, or don't feel like they're there. I didn't get my normal HI, but I did get my flashes of pictures (I have a thread asking about the WILD technique as I think this is my subconcious dipping in and out of my dream state). I have a fan running, and sometimes the sound would fade out, but then come back. Then I started to feel a slight floating/ falling sensation. I got some better HI, but I think I may have been excited as I've never felt it, so I think I came out of the SP, if I was in it at all. I couldn't get back in, and looked at my clock and it was 2:45am

I know that everyone experiances SP diferently, but I've had that similar floating/ falling feeling after laying down for less than a min, but I wasn't even trying to sleep, I just get the feeling, like it's just HI. Could it be that I had just relaxed enough that I actually went into SP? I seemed to come out easily, and could move (The reason I came out was I grinned, lol, which I shouldn't have been able to do if I was really in SP... but maybe it was just light SP?)

I've had this sleep paralysis too. Once i woke up and someone knocked at my door and screamed. I freaked out but couldn't do anythin coudn't move or use my voice. I've also tried to be shot, very frightning. I was very scared of this and it was a reason why i stopped LD, beacause I had this to often. But now I'm trying again

Man, with my ex i had sp everynight, when we had sex she liked to lay on my chest but i dont like lying on my back but i didnt move cause i didnt want to wake up my ex, because all my muscles were relaxed cause of the sex i would enter sp like after 5 min, but i didnt know about sp back then so everytime it scared the shit out of me and i did everything to wake up.

Now im trying to get sp when im alone but everytime i get close to the moment i get to excited and then it fails

I have only had one experience with SP and it was pretty traumatic.

I was laying in bed having one of those nights where I just could not get to sleep. I'd feel myself drifting, sinking.. but then I'd come back to the surface and be totally awake.

Hours and hours passed. I was laying on my back. (I do not fall asleep on my back generally) When suddenly I felt this strange presence in the corner of my bedroom.

There was a dark shadow there. It was slowly moving closer and closer to me. It had an extremely evil energy about it. It approached the end of my bed and I was paralyzed. I could not blink, scream or even breath.

I tried to suck air in but I couldn't. Panic washed over me as this black shadow hovered over me, parallel with my body. I have never felt this afraid. This shadow was unbelievably powerful. It pressed it's energy into me with extreme force. Intense pressure on my chest, It had so much control over me, I felt violated. As though I were being raped. There was nothing I could do.

I felt like I was being slammed into the mattress.

I was so utterly terrified that I just couldn't handle it anymore. The thought came over me "I am going to die"

And once that thought completed.. the "shadow" released me. I sucked the air into my hungry lungs and hyperventilated for a bit.

I couldn't sleep in my room for a while because for the longest time I thought that experience was an encounter with an evil spirit who was trying to possess my body. That happened about 10 years ago. I'm 27 now and remember it like it was yesterday.

NOT my favourite experience in life, but interesting none the less.

I think I used to experience them as a child. I would be in my bed unable to move, with a rectangle approaching me. The rectangle displayed scary cartoons like witches and dragons, things that scared me. I don't remember much else, only knowing that they mostly happened after dreams.