I was going to sleep last night, when I was jolted awake by a sudden feeling: that my breathing was “pausing,” and may not start back up again. Considering it some more, it was almost like my lungs were flattening out and completely empty, and feeling like they were hard to fill up again. I certainly found it a little more difficult than usual (as far as I could tell at the time) to take a really deep breath that would inflate my lungs.
Also as far as I could tell, I never had any breathing problems at any other time during the day - only when I was in bed (except maybe a LITTLE right now, but certainly nothing to the extent of last night). I’d felt something similar a couple of times before, also at bedtime. Putting a second pillow under my head and lying on my back instead of my side SEEMED to help. And obviously, I DID wake up last night, despite the fact that the feeling certainly made me feel like I could just stop breathing during the night and not start again.
Some factors that might be important: I’ve developed allergies in the past few years, but they’ve only manifested themselves in sneezing and runny nose, and I hadn’t felt any symptoms of late. There was a thunderstorm last night. As you can imply from the above, I sleep on my side.
So is it allergies? Posture? Imagination? Anyone have anything similar happen that I can draw on?
No, but I’ve never had snoring problems or anything sleep-related before; this only developed (if indeed it developed at all) in the past 4 days or so, with no ramp-up or warning. Besides, this happened when I was still (at least half) awake. Does anything with sleep apnea happen while one is awake?
Addendum: it also feels like my lungs are emptying “more than usual” when I breathe out.
This is called Sleep Paralysis and is completely normal. As you drift off to sleep your brain switches off its links to your voluntary muscles, so that you don’t (for instance) actually run in your sleep when you dream of running. Your heart and breathing rate slow. Sometimes this kicks in a little before you actually go to sleep, and that what you felt. It commonly feels like you have difficulty breathing, or something is sitting on you - which is thought to be the origin of the succubus myth that Ace309 alludes to.
SouledOut: No, you may be right; I thought back on it, and I can’t be certain how asleep I was at the time. I’m fairly sure I was at least 50% awake, but I can’t be certain.
Askance: Hmmm. So if that’s what it was, the trouble I thought I had breathing afterwards (or at least the similar feeling in the chest afterwards) was probably just in my head from the surprise of the experience?
It could be a bit of panic-induced difficulty after the fact. Don’t ever think about how you breathe… you’ll discover you can’t do it anymore!
I occasionally have something like this, and it has gotten worse over the past few years. A few years ago I had a bad case of bronchitis, and it feels like things never quite got back to normal. I have a couple in inhalers that I use sporadically (the one I should use twice a day I use twice a week, and the other one even less often) and it seems to have alleviated much of the problem, but once in a while I just start to feel like my lungs aren’t working. I’m not really seeing a doctor about it, since I don’t have a regular one; this is just a prescription from a clinic doctor that he set up to be renewed 4 times over a year ago and I haven’t used it up yet.
At least leaper didn’t “see” a hag sitting on his chest
Any idea why sleep paralysis doesn’t always work correctly? I’ve bruised myself a few times over the past year during nightmares because I’ve gotten ahold of one of my wrists and squeezed that hard…
Sleep paralysis also sometimes has accompanying hallucinations of human figures - the origins of many ghost or alien abduction stories, I reckon.
But they’re usually very passive visions - even though you see these figures, apparently quite clearly, there’s an accompanying feeling of comfort or disinterest with them, rather than panic or fear.
