did I have sleep paralysis?

**marokji** · 11-07-2012 06:58 PM

I'm not so sure if it was sleep paralysis that i was experiencing,so please help me out

(first time ever)

So I stayed up all night reading manga and went to sleep at 7am. I slept for a while (didn't dream, it was all black, or maybe i just couldn't remember) and then i heard this really loud noise, then I focused on the noise and slowly i could hear that it was an anchor lady talking, it was really loud. I thought i forgot to turn off the tv or something so i opened my eyes and got up. But i couldn't move, and i felt something heavy on my stomach. I thought i was having sleep paralysis to i held my breath for 10 seconds and fair enough i was ableto move again. And i saw that the tv wasn't turned on.

The thing is, I wasn't sure if i COULDN'T move or i was just sleepy and DIDN'T want to move. It felt like i didn't have enough strength to move and i wasn't connected to my body at all. And i heard that people usually feel something heavy on their chest, but i felt it on my stomach, it also tickled as well.

**Carrot** · 11-08-2012 01:48 PM

Unable to move your body no matter how hard you tried and hallucinations are common things in sleep paralysis. The sound you heard might be a hallucination. Whereas the term "paralysis" has already indicated to you why you can't move, because you're in a paralysis.

Sleep paralysis occurs when you mind wakes up before your body wakes. Your body is usually in a paralysis when we sleep so as to prevent us from acting out the actions in our dreams. We don't notice the paralysis because we are asleep, however if we woke up before our body does, we'll start feeling the sleep paralysis sensation.

**gab** · 11-08-2012 10:21 PM

The noise, voices, feeling of any part of body being heavy, these are all sensations you can experience as you falling asleep. These are not SP.

SP is, when you wake up and you try to move but you can't. No matter how hard you try, you can't move. SP is usually accompanied with fear. People usually try to cry out for help, but can't.

You can break out of it the way you did - by changing your breathing - this will let your body know that you not asleep any more and will release the SP. You can also try to wiggle the tips of your fingers and toes.

But if you just feel that because your body is heavy that you maybe couldn't move, that's not really SP. I sounds like a very relaxed state, when you don't even care enough to try and move to see if you could.

If you trying to know about SP because you have heard that you need it to lucid dream, no worries. You don't need SP to lucid dream. But you will notice these sensations, because you are trying to get your body to fall asleep while your mind is still awake. Hope this helps.