Sleep Paralysis.. just me?

[Sodium]

I used to watch my step duaghter sleepwalk. Now, that's even freakier.
She'll just get up in the middle of the night and starts playing or walk around..but she's asleep.

Once my brother supposedly saw me sleep walking and when he ask what I was doing I said I had to save my allies... at that time I used to play Age of Empires alot.. so I sat infront of the computer for a minute then I got up and went back to sleep.. Maybe I played it a bit tooo much....




You know how in a dream you scream but no sound comes out.. I shared a room with my sister so when it would happen I used to try to wake her up by calling out her name but she wouldnt get up. The next day she'd say she heard nothing.. also the last couple of times it happened I figured out that if I concentrate on moving my fingers and I'd wake up.

 

[Spare]

I used to watch my step duaghter sleepwalk. Now, that's even freakier.
She'll just get up in the middle of the night and starts playing or walk around..but she's asleep.

Once my brother supposedly saw me sleep walking and when he ask what I was doing I said I had to save my allies... at that time I used to play Age of Empires alot.. so I sat infront of the computer for a minute then I got up and went back to sleep.. Maybe I played it a bit tooo much....




You know how in a dream you scream but no sound comes out.. I shared a room with my sister so when it would happen I used to try to wake her up by calling out her name but she wouldnt get up. The next day she'd say she heard nothing.. also the last couple of times it happened I figured out that if I concentrate on moving my fingers and I'd wake up.

I once had a dream that I was eating some chocolate pudding. When I woke up the next morning there was a spoon on my nightstand. Spooky.

 

[Nyktimos]

Are you sure the malign feeling was not part of what caused it? While I don't believe in mainstream psychology or psychiatry, they do have a few facts straight. I have read before about people getting strange sights an smells and that the miss firing basically of the brain (though I bet there is more to that then just the brain) is causing a psychotic break away from reality.

I mean, not being able to move just by itself would be frightening and lead people into a fear state. From there the mind can run with it. I had some strange experiences with anxiety and panic attacks many years ago, before I learned how to cure it.

Fear can be very powerful.

I have had bouts of sleep paralysis where I don't experience any malign feelings, but most of the time I do. I know for a fact, that when I do experience a dark presence, that this does not result from the fear of being overall paralyzed. Sometimes, I've gotten so used to the experience, that I am not afraid. But, even unafraid, I do have these sort of experiences with this prescence. For me personally, I did not have a break from reality and I know for a fact that I didn't hallucinate out of fear.

Are we heading in the direction of questioning whether sleep paralysis and the associated sense of a presence are mental states. Because I don't like the idea that 'things' are going into people's rooms at night, causing them to 'wake up' in a paralysed state and then just staring at them. I'm open to a lot of things, but that's creepy.

I agree that the sense of evil presence doesn't seem to stem from the fear of being paralysed. It 'feels' quite seperate. That doesn't mean it is seperate. How's this? Perhaps in our distant ape-like ancestry we evolved a mechanistic which caused us to stop dead to better blend with our surroundings when we were being observed by a predator. Perhaps, if we dream about some predatory thing, sometimes the response kicks in. The hallucination is hypnopompic, because we are still slightly asleep.

This all sounds like toss. Back to the drawing board.

 

[Melanie]

Are you sure the malign feeling was not part of what caused it? While I don't believe in mainstream psychology or psychiatry, they do have a few facts straight. I have read before about people getting strange sights an smells and that the miss firing basically of the brain (though I bet there is more to that then just the brain) is causing a psychotic break away from reality.

I mean, not being able to move just by itself would be frightening and lead people into a fear state. From there the mind can run with it. I had some strange experiences with anxiety and panic attacks many years ago, before I learned how to cure it.

Fear can be very powerful.

I have had bouts of sleep paralysis where I don't experience any malign feelings, but most of the time I do. I know for a fact, that when I do experience a dark presence, that this does not result from the fear of being overall paralyzed. Sometimes, I've gotten so used to the experience, that I am not afraid. But, even unafraid, I do have these sort of experiences with this prescence. For me personally, I did not have a break from reality and I know for a fact that I didn't hallucinate out of fear.

Are we heading in the direction of questioning whether sleep paralysis and the associated sense of a presence are mental states. Because I don't like the idea that 'things' are going into people's rooms at night, causing them to 'wake up' in a paralysed state and then just staring at them. I'm open to a lot of things, but that's creepy.

I agree that the sense of evil presence doesn't seem to stem from the fear of being paralysed. It 'feels' quite seperate. That doesn't mean it is seperate. How's this? Perhaps in our distant ape-like ancestry we evolved a mechanistic which caused us to stop dead to better blend with our surroundings when we were being observed by a predator. Perhaps, if we dream about some predatory thing, sometimes the response kicks in. The hallucination is hypnopompic, because we are still slightly asleep.

This all sounds like toss. Back to the drawing board.

Well, although it is rather creepy, I am not completely closed-minded about the whole spiritual aspect of sleep paralysis. Your idea makes sense, but for me, the malign feeling always comes after being paralyzed, never before. Like you said before, why is it that it's always this malign feeling associated with sleep paralysis and that this "hallucination" is not of something far more pleasant that we are dreaming of. One instance I can recall, I was dreaming about my friend and I, we were in a classroom on the computer. I felt the sleep paralysis coming on and this "presence" was immediately sensed. It had absolutely nothing to do with my dream, so why was it that I didn't have a hallucination of my friend and I on the computer and why was it that the two seemed like two totally separate entities?

 

[Nyktimos]

Well, although it is rather creepy, I am not completely closed-minded about the whole spiritual aspect of sleep paralysis. Your idea makes sense, but for me, the malign feeling always comes after being paralyzed, never before. Like you said before, why is it that it's always this malign feeling associated with sleep paralysis and that this "hallucination" is not of something far more pleasant that we are dreaming of. One instance I can recall, I was dreaming about my friend and I, we were in a classroom on the computer. I felt the sleep paralysis coming on and this "presence" was immediately sensed. It had absolutely nothing to do with my dream, so why was it that I didn't have a hallucination of my friend and I on the computer and why was it that the two seemed like two totally separate entities?

I'm glad I'm not reading this in a dark room at midnight.

 

[stella]

i get sleep paralysis pretty bad, my first episode was as a teenager, i remember waking up and being unable to move, yet i could hear things moving about in my bedroom and a loud banging noise that seemed to be getting closer and closer. it was a truly terrifying experience. Now i tend to get it in the early hours of the morning, but not as bad as it was years ago, but i still experience it at least twice a week.

 

[Naval_Fluff]

i get sleep paralysis pretty bad, my first episode was as a teenager, i remember waking up and being unable to move, yet i could hear things moving about in my bedroom and a loud banging noise that seemed to be getting closer and closer. it was a truly terrifying experience. Now i tend to get it in the early hours of the morning, but not as bad as it was years ago, but i still experience it at least twice a week.

O.O There aren't any meds that can fix this kinda thing??? I mean, what can't they fix with meds nowadays

 

[Sodium]

Once I was lying down on my bed and I was facing the wall and I'm sure I was awake.. then I felt like something sit on my back for about 5 seconds. I was too freaked out so I didnt move till "it" got up... I turned around no one was there :S

 

[Naval_Fluff]

My cat does that all the time...I wake up and throw it off cause I think it's a spider

 

[Nyktimos]

My cat does that all the time...I wake up and throw it off cause I think it's a spider

Funny you should say that. I was sleeping on a friends sofa over night years ago, and when I woke in the morning I could feel a cat on my feet cleaning itself (cat owners will know exactly what that feels like). She had two cats and I expected to see one when I looked at the end of the sofa, but the moment I did the feeling went away and nothing was there. I lay down again and the feeling immediately returned. The whole end of the sofa where my feet was seemed to move with this cat preening. Every time I looked up the feeling went and nothing was there. Eventually I got up. Obviously, I told my friend and she had a story about a ginger tom that she kept seeing out of the corner of her eye, but she never saw directly. She claimed a neighbour said it had belonged to the previous owner of the flat. I'm much more comfortable with the idea that I'm steadily going insane. It fits the facts.

 

[PoWer2tHePeOpLE]

I went to bed to sleep at 11 years old one night. The next day I could not feel or use my legs. I was Paralysed from wast down and did not even have bladder control. All that was Paralysed has well. I nearly died. Has it also affected my lungs. I was on a machine that did the breathing for me at the hospital for a wail.

After 6 moths in a wheelchair and another 6 months on a zimmer frame I began to walk unaided again. Every day from that day I had to have phisopherpy. With out it I would not had been able to walk ever again.

I don't know if this has anything to do with Sleep Paralysis or not. What I do know is I went to bed a normal person and the next day I could not walk. I also know what ever it was it messed up my life ******* thing! Even now I hate the way this has left me. My right side of my body and leg grow back and recovered faster then my left. Has the right is stronger. Cos of that I got a limp and was walking uneven. That coursed my spine to twist as I was still growing. Now I have a real messed up twisted spine has well. So twisted that it pressers onto one of my lungs making it so I get out of breath faster then I should. And all this do to that one night.

Holy jesus christs smoking balls!! this has got to be the most unluckiest bullshit i have ever heard! and you say that no one including the doctors know what happened to you? fresia me! if there is some sort of afterlife and i can meet the 'administrator' responsible for handing out lots in life.. i will kick 'its' ass for you bluey. makes me wonder if there are any other documented cases of this kind of incident anywhere in the world. truly extrodinary stuff. peace to you bluey

when i was 5-7yrs old i woke up from a nightmare and was convinced my bed was being shaken by 'something', i remember lying there petrified and unable to open my eyes for fear of what i would see if i did. it felt like it went on for about a minute then the bed stopped shaking, i opened my eyes to see nothing but darkness. i sometimes wish i hadve had the courage to open my eyes just to see what it was.

when i was about the same age i also use to have regular nightmares about herds of stampeding wild animals running at me accompanied by a dull thudding sound. years later i realised that the whole nightmare was inspired by the sound of blood pumping in my ear as i lay on my side with my head against the pillow. the imagination of a little kid.. hehe. terrifying for years though.

i've always had nightmares and sleep terrors.. a lot less now and now as an adult nightmares tend to be less symbolic but rather reality based... like getting bashed in a dark alley. but when i was a kid i used to dream a lot about wild animals, vicious, salivating, bloodthirsty.. animals.. mostly the wild boar took centre stage.. ah..the pig piggy pig pig.. little *******!

then the symbolism started dissolving until i started dreaming about an invisible cloud, an energy, a presence of somesort.. it would bash down my door and pick me up in its chaos and spin me around like a doll, with this dream there was an accompaning feeling of complete fear, dread, chaos, disorder, doom... i would wake up screaming.

i developed a method of getting through nightmares when i was younger too.. whenever the atmsphere was nightmarish (after so many bad dreams it started becoming more obvious i was in a nightmare scenario) i would scream in my dream into the darkness.. kinda egging the evil to come and get it over with.. it did.. it rushed me, at me, into me... and i would wake up.

as for sleep paralysis i have experience 'dead limbs'.. arms usually and the first time it freaked me out completely!! hehe.. still prefer the dead limbs to the 'ball of chaos' (thats what i called it)

 

[Incognita]

I feel like im sinking into my bed and I see the black shadowy guy.. but sitting next to me on the bed.. and it just stares at me.. I think since I cant see its face. :S

Has anyone else expericenced it?



yep

 

[Sodium]

I feel like im sinking into my bed and I see the black shadowy guy.. but sitting next to me on the bed.. and it just stares at me.. I think since I cant see its face. :S

Has anyone else expericenced it?



yep

Thats exactly what happens to me..

 

[Brian]

I've never had sleep paralysis, but one time when I worked at my last job, I woke up to my phone ringing one morning because I was late and he was calling me. He's a good guy but I hated the job and so I had a habit of sleeping in unintentionally (which any employer has a right to be mad over, really). When I jumped out of bed in a panic and darted for the phone, my left arm was all...wobbly, and I could barely work it. I hadn't slept on it, though...it wasn't tingly. I remember I had to work the phone with my right hand because the left just wouldn't cooperate.