Freaky sleep paralysis

bean

Tuxy said it first: sleep paralysis is freaky stuff.

It used to happen to me every morning in the summer time about 8 years ago. For those who have not had the pleasure; after a long nights sleep you start to wake up. However there can be a point where you are awake an conscious able to remember and think etc.

Heres the thing......

your body is paralysed, for all intense purposes its still asleep. To make matters worse you panic a bit and naturally your heart beats faster but cause your body is asleep you are tidal beathing...fells like suffocation. You try to move an arm/leg or even say something cause if you do it generally snaps you out of it and wakes up your body. You get this feeling that when you are lying there and you feel you cannot breath that if you fall asleep again that you could die....its freaky.

Scientists have discoved that there are hormones that are responsible for awaking the body and another for the mind. Sometimes one starts before the other explaing sleep walking and alternatively sleep paralysis

Anyone else inflicted?

Dr. Loon

Yeah.....

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=531416&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending

ballooba

Night terrors thread, love when this comes up here.

Only happened me once ever.

Quatre Mains

I get pretty much the same thing every now and again during the night - its not much craic:(

Tazzle

I usually get them a few minutes/hours into my sleep cycle, only happens if I'm lying on my back I think. I quite enjoy them now The feeling and exhilaration, mmm.

Sometimes I can use them to lucid dream, I'll wake up with sleep paralysis, realise it and when I fall asleep the dream changes to my room and I know I'm asleep, I don't have enough control to leave my house or change scene, but I can wander around my house, there's no sound though and it's night of course, quite weird, and mirrors never show my reflection, that's definitely the freakiest bit.

penguinbloke

My cousin gets them.

One Summer while out camping she had one and pegged it out of a tent and sleep ran towards a rocky fall.

She would have gone over if my brother hadn't puked up all over me and my sleeping bag in the middle of the night. I got out of the tent as one tends to do in such a situation and tried to keep warm (while smelling strongly of vomit) for the rest of the night when I heard the uncle's tent open. The cousin came out, the way she was acting really scared the crap out of me more than anything else.

She didn't remember a thing the next morning.

clearz

Originally posted by Tazzle
I usually get them a few minutes/hours into my sleep cycle, only happens if I'm lying on my back I think. I quite enjoy them now The feeling and exhilaration, mmm.

Sometimes I can use them to lucid dream, I'll wake up with sleep paralysis, realise it and when I fall asleep the dream changes to my room and I know I'm asleep, I don't have enough control to leave my house or change scene, but I can wander around my house, there's no sound though and it's night of course, quite weird, and mirrors never show my reflection, that's definitely the freakiest bit.

Yea they used to freak me out but I think they are cool now. Got to lucid a few times from it. I get them when I drink way to much at the weekend usually about monday night or tuesday night.

lodgepole

I knew about the phenomenon the first time it happened to me, so for the first minute I was quite enjoying it. But a friend of mine woke up a few years ago and was actually paralysed (for over a year) so the panic crept in... Since then it's happened maybe a dozen times, and it's more of an inconvenience than anything else. It's effected my breathing on occasion, which really is ****ing scary.

clearz

Did anyone ever see The serpent and the rainbow. I bet you that is what that voodoo stuff does.

Lodgepole what aload of crap. Your mate was parylised for a year. Yea right.

CuLT

*shudders*

That's dead weird.
Hope it never happens to me.

Kastro

gen happens to one my arms in the morning.. its mad.. when it wakes up its a horribal feeling for a few mins.. like you can feel the nerves waking one by one... its also abastard when your woken to your fone ringing and you can move yer arms.. lol

Tazzle

Ah, the 'dead arm syndrome'

lodgepole

Originally posted by clearz
Lodgepole what aload of crap. Your mate was parylised for a year. Yea right.

Not as result of sleep paralysis, as a result of a damaged disc in his back. The paralysis just occured while he was sleeping and hence when he woke, he was paralysed. Believe me when I saw I really wouldn't be arsed making up something for the purposes of a web forum.

CuLT

Originally posted by Tazzle
Ah, the 'dead arm syndrome'

Now that I get very frequently, but that's just so much damn fun to play with. Now I just life the arm up and toss it around the place, weird feeling when your own arm hits you in the face and it's like somebody else did.

Dr. Loon

Originally posted by Tazzle
Ah, the 'dead arm syndrome'

Aye, that's not sleep paralysis, it's just a dead arm. Happens everyone, unless they don't sleep on their own arm.

Marq

Happens me all the time. Worst part for me is the feeling of suffocation, accompanied by panic, which makes it feel like my whole body is trying to shake, but can't. Like trying to burst out of my skin

Stark

Only had full paralysis happen to me once. Didn't panic much but there was the thought of "oh my god how am I going to get help?". The whole unconcious breathing experience was very interesting.

I used often get partial paralysis - severe disorientation etc. without knowing what it was. Thought I was awake, but in actual fact was still dreaming just more concious than normal (lucid). Once I identified it I found that I could get up, then stumble around in disorientation and blindess(yay fun) until I was a good distance from my bed and then I'd feel normal again.

Many people refer to the experience as "astral projection" (the astral being the "dreamworld") due to the feelings people sometimes get of splitting from their bodies often preceded by "vibrations" or "shakes" (you need to relax and calmly focus once you feel them coming on or else you panic and lose the experience).

Tusky

I suffered badly as a child from violent night terrors , I rarely get them anymore but what I have been getting altely is sleep paralysis , Night terrors and sleep parayysis aint the same thing. One is more the product of the other.

Lately when taking a nap during the day I wake up and cant move at all , its quite frightening.

It usually happens to people with very creative minds , one half of the brain shuts down while the creative side stays awake.I hate the ****ers.

Tazzle

Actually, it's apparently to do with hormones. There's a combination of 2 to wake you up, one arouses your consciousness and the other your motor functions.

Doc

The only time it ever happened to me was on a night when I had been talking about ghosts with friends until about 3 o’clock. When I woke up it felt as though some force had pined me to the bed using my covers. It really freaked me out. I thought a ghost was sitting on my chest. I was nearly convinced it was a ghost until someone told me about sleep paralysis. I still don’t want it to happen any more though.

eth0_

Originally posted by penguinbloke
My cousin gets them.

One Summer while out camping she had one and pegged it out of a tent and sleep ran towards a rocky fall.

That's not sleep paralysis, that's a night terror, they're two completely different things.

Saw a tv show about night terrors a while back, really scary stuff, there was one guy who had them practically every night, and often tried to throw himself out of the upstairs window of his house, because he was so terrified of whatever he was dreaming about.

I had sleep paralysis once, it's extremely scary, you feel like you're dying and you have no understanding that it's NOT real as you're half dreaming when it occurs. Hope it never happens again!

swiss

One of the stranger sleep experiences I had was early in the morning several months ago. My mind was somewhat conscious, and I was about to open my eyes when I realised they didn't respond. Furthurmore, I could feel my eyes darting back and forth in my socket, obviously in some sort of REM cycle.

I found it disturbing, so I concentrated on opening my eyes and managed to force them open. I was disappointed that I had ended so curious an experience so abruptly, so I tried to recreate it with partial success.

I rarely lucid dream but when I do I try to make the most of it, usually by taking off in flight (do my superman thing). I know I can end it by doing something off the wall like plummetting down a cliff, as the adreniline rush usually would wake me up.

bean

im just happy to know im not alone in my terrifying experience....the suffocation sensation is scary

munkeehaven

god i get them all the time...usually when i sleep during the day..its so freaky...ill be half awake lying on one sidd but i cant move and its like..you try to move but the actual movement doesnt happen for at leat 5 mins after you do it...like camera delay or something.....to be honest when i was younger one of my primary school teachers told me a lot of scary shtye about the devil and it scared the bejaysus out of me..ever since then i have a fair few dreams about this ''satan '' kind of guy trying to get me..so sometimes when i get sleep paralyisis i feel like someone is watching me..it scary:(

morlan

Originally posted by Doc
I woke up it felt as though some force had pined me to the bed using my covers. It really freaked me out. I thought a ghost was sitting on my chest. I was nearly convinced it was a ghost until someone told me about sleep paralysis. I still don’t want it to happen any more though.

And that was the night Doc lost his virginity...


Anyway, I used to get this alot during my acid taking days. I'd be drifting off asleep and then my brain would wake up but my body wouldn't. I could look around the room with my eyeballs but I couldn't move my head, couldn't speak or move at all. Eventually, my body would wake up and I would go listen to some tunes to calm down. Really scary

CareBear

Happened to me sunday nite. Was just drifting off when something that felt like a body started pushing against my back (was lying on my side). I got such a fright that I was actually paralysed with fear. I tried to move my arm and I eventually snapped out of it. :dunno:

Tazzle

With regards the previous few posters. This is where the myth of the incubus sprung from.

bush

I used to get them nearly every night a few years ago, only found out what they were awhile ago. Like someone else on this the
i learned to control them and was able to get out of my bed in the dream and run down the hall. Fairly scary when you first get em though

Blisterman

That happened to me once. This thread brought it back from my subconsciense.
Yeah, that was scary. It feels like your throat closed up.

tk123

i get these too and the freak me out!!! I feel like i'm pinned to the bed and there's like noise in my ears - it's hard to explain its like wind or like if you were in a crowd and it's really really loud. I try to move my lips or tap one of my fingers over and over to wakke myself up. It really freaks me out thou - how can you guys like it?!?!

Elessar

www.oberf.org

These experiences are often linked to out of body experiences (buzzing in the ears is a classic sign). You tend to get lucid dreams except you are fully conscious and aware of them. Some people can see their bodies sleeping on the bed, others cant. This has nearly happened to me a few times, though I manage to snap out of it before my body gets fully paralysed. (I'm a very light sleeper).

There's also a general discussion about it, over at the paranormal forum http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=164319