Is this sleep paralysis? If so, how do I get to a lucid dream from this?

**ccrock4t** · 05-30-2012 02:32 AM

Hello. I was wondering if any of you could tell me if this was sleep paralysis:

I lie in my bed, and listen to some white noise. I lie in bed and relax. I have many urges to swallow, and so I do. Slowly but surely (in about 40 minutes), I find that my body is very heavy. (This was during an afternoon nap after getting 7 hours of sleep, going to school, and coming back home). With this heavy feeling, my eyelids are black. I continue counting to 100 and back down. I'm not sure what to do, because half the time I feel too aware of the physical world, and the other half I feel like I am starting to fall asleep normally, because I lose track of my counting. Sometimes I find a perfect middle, but it last for about 4 seconds before I need to swallow again. I believe this heaviness is sleep paralysis, although there aren't any lights, sounds, or creepy shadows. Is this sleep paralysis? If so, how do I get to a lucid dream from here? I literally don't see anything, except very few dull flashes of light. Help?

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that eventually I got fed up with my family tromping around the house, so I got up. I felt very heavy and a bit dizzy for a while, almost like I was in a heavy metal diving suit, but it eventually went away.

**smouse** · 05-30-2012 09:33 AM

well from personal experience and from pretty much everything I've seen on the site,(some one please correct me if I'm wrong :p ) the way you really know when your in SP is if your body is literally paralyzed. like you can't move anything no matter how hard you try. and it can be scary because its a weird feeling, and yes shadowy figures and stuff can be seen and often strange sounds, but not necessarily. Next time you believe your in sleep paralysis try to move a body part slightly, if you literally cannot move, you'll know for sure, its an indistinguishable feeling.(hence the word "paralysis"). As for getting to a dream from there, I've seen quite a few methods but mainly you just relax and wait till the strange SP fades away, then open your eyes or try to visualize a dream scape to enter. Also try reality checks after because you could think your awake lying in bed, but you might actually be dreaming. Hopefully someone else will explain it better, theres tons of tutorials and stuff you can find.

**dms111** · 05-30-2012 06:04 PM

Sorry but that wasn't sleep paralysis. That heaviness is just the feeling you get from laying down and relaxing for a period of time. SP only occurs when you've successfully fallen asleep while remaining conscious. This can be accompanied by strong visual and audible hallucinations. The reason we often have hallucinations is because the moment we reach SP a dream begins to form. We experience dream sensations while we are still aware of physical reality and interpret them as hallucinations. What we refer to as SP is really just the brief transition from awake to asleep, when our awareness shifts from the physical reality to dream reality.

**ccrock4t** · 05-30-2012 10:48 PM

So the real question is, what is the fastest way to sleep paralysis?

**Ctharlhie** · 06-01-2012 09:23 PM

It's counter intuitive to aim for sleep paralysis at all, particularly with a nap WILD you simply need to forget about your body completely. Carry on doing what you're doing with the counting, your mind wandering is a good thing, it shows you are indeed beginning to enter sleep.