For 9 years I slept in a room I was scared to death of, for some reason. This could be because I would watch the crime reports (they were on, I had no choice) before I went to bed (I was between 2 and 11 years of age at the time) and I would be scared, despite the fact that we lived in a neighborhood which was totally safe.
One night I had a dream I was being attacked by a man in a black balaclava, with a gun. The scene was my room, but I was alseep. I tried to open my eyes, but they were shut. I woke up in a cold sweat, but my eyes were still closed. I tried to open them"automatically" (i.e. via eye muscles) but it didn’t work, no matter how I tried. In the end, I pryed them open with my hands, blinked, panted withe fear, and fell back asleep. The next morning I woke up, my eyes were fine, and the problem has never occured again, whether in my sleep or in the daytime.
Luckily, I moved out of the country, and I never have to watch the crime reports again…
A few months ago I awoke in the middle of the night to find that my right hand had completely fallen asleep. In a half-sleep half-awake fit I began trying to wake up my hand. After a few seconds of violently shaking my hand with no result I began to bite the hand. I left teeth marks for a few days. I still have no clue why I did this.
Hey, can any of you guys tell me a good way to position myself before i go to sleep so that i can wake up with at least one of my limbs completely asleep?
Argh! This used to happen to me all the time throughout my teens and early 20’s. I dimly remember the first time I thought my arm was someone else’s – I was sleeping on my grandparent’s boat, and woke up to find a very cold arm in bed with me. In my case, I believe I did used to cut off the blood supply to my arm because it would be cold as well as completely paralyzed. This used to happen to me so often that I began to worry that I might be doing permanent damage to my arms. They seem OK now, and it hasn’t happened in many years.
er… I don’t know why you’d want to do this, but I used to accomplish it by lying on top of an arm, so my bicep was beneath my chest. Now that i’m not as skinny(!) as I used to be, this would be pretty difficult for me to do. How about wrapping a tight band around your arm and just waiting a while? Sooner or later your arm would turn funny colors and fall off, but before that you might get a sense of what it’s like.
hm… Could you be looking for a weird way to avoid waking up alone…? Just a guess.
Could be a common disease called myoclonus. If it only happens falling asleep or during sleep, you’re probably OK, but if it occurs frequently while awake, you should consult an expert. There are medical solutions. See more at www.myoclonus.com.
I’ve had it so long that it doesn’t bother my sleep. My wife and I go to sleep spooned together, and she’s gotten so used to it, it doesn’t even wake her!
I’ve done the exact same thing myself - as I generally go to sleep on my tummy, I have a tendancy (especially when its cold) to tuck my arms in under me … whatever why I did it, both arms were dead from the shoulder down… with them tucked in under me, I could barely move by myself… no doubt people in the rest of the house wondered at the noises coming from my room as I tried to flip myself over - and I doubt they believed they “but my arms died” story lol…
I also sit on one leg most of the time (bad for circulation I know) and have stood up to the answer the phone and fallen over - once cutting myself really badly lol… bet the doc’s in the emergency room didn’t believe the “but my leg died” story either when they saw the bruises on my face lol…
I hate the “pins and needles” feeling when you eventaully get some blood back in there though - god it makes me yelp…
I was alone asleep late one night, completely dark. I woke to a loud “smack!”. I waited a bit, then fell asleep again.
“Smack!”
This time I was seriously awake, something had just pounded on the wall of the room right next to my bed. Was someone in the other room?
I waited, terrified, motionless. Finally, the rational part of my brain had enough, and I flopped over to go back to sleep.
“Smack!”
I shot upright. Something hit me in the face. I whirled. “Smack!” on the wall again! I girlish mewling started trying to escape my lips. I whirled left and right. “Smack! Smack!” I felt something brush my hair. I screamed and punched on the reading light.
My right arm was dead asleep. Every time I had rolled over in my sleep, it flung out and smacked the wall hard. Waking up and looking about only caused more severe whirling of my dead arm.
GargoyleWB, you and Scotth take the prize. I haven’t laughed so hard in I don’t know how long, had tears running down my face.
I’ve had the dead arm thing where I’ve had to pick it up with the other hand to move it and dead leg(s) when I’ve fallen more than once, but for me the worst wasn’t a limb falling asleep it was the dentist and novacaine. It’s nor nearly as hilarious but here it is.
When I was a kid, invariably, dentist appoints were on friday mornings for some reason. Mom always managed to get us back to school in time for lunch. Friday lunch was cardboard pizza day, I always had pizza on friday. Do you have any idea how hard it is to bite/chew cardboard pizza when you have no control or feeling in half your mouth. Always chewed up half the inside of my cheek. The pizza wasn’t that good but was the best alternative, don’t know why I wouldn’t skip lunch on those days.
See I told you it wasn’t as funny.
Oh, about the sleeping orgasm…I don’t have them often but when I’ve been aware of them I was usually having sex in my dreams, really good sex.
I had exactly the same experience as the OP quite a few years ago, but I’m proud to say I never panicked. I came awake, turned my head to the left to see what was pressing against my cheek, and found … a hand.
:eek: There’s someone else in my bed! :eek:
So, I reached carefully across my body with my right hand and picked up the mysterious intruder. It was complete dead weight, along with the arm it was attached to; both were pale and stone-cold.
:eek: There’s a corpse in my bed! :eek:
Then, I looked past the arm, at the wall my twin bed is up against. There was no room for a person of the size this arm must’ve belonged to there!
:eek: There’s a severed arm in my bed!!! :eek:
Then, as I continued to lift the arm, I found the far end was attached to my shoulder.
WHEW!
I laughed for about five minutes straight, until the pain of the blood flow returning to that arm sobered me up. Man, did that hurt.
As for things people do in their sleep, some people have quite the sex lives. See http://sleepsex.org (Don’t worry. The link is completely safe.) Check out their forum for people with this “problem”.
Eck, the Someone Elses Hand Syndrome happens to me about once a month nowadays. And yeap, like everyone else it usually happens when I sleep with my hands under my pillow. The only problem is the painful pins ‘n’ needles sensation afterwards.
Quite frankly I like the early morning physical activity of trying to get my arm wake in the mornings. It makes everything else seem less painful and pointless
Years ago I was in the back of a car witha load of other kids being driven home from some school type thing, and didn’t realise I was crushing one of my legs, when we arrived at our destination, I opened the door [I was next to it] and went to step out of the car, I’d putmy foot on the ground, but couldn’t feel a thing, so I ended up arse over ears on the ground … word went round school the next day that I’d gotten drunk at the after school activities. How I didn’t end up expelled I’ll never know …
Another time I was in bed asleep lying on my left side, facing the wall, I don’t know what I was dreaming about, but I woke up and went to turn over - onto my left side - which I couldn’t do for obvious reasons, and I ended up headbutting the wall …
And another time during a sleep over at my cousin’s, my leg slid out of the bed, and down the gap between the bed and the wall without my realising. I woke up in the morning, and couldn’t feel my leg, figuratively or literally, I woke the whole house up screaming that my leg had been bitten off during the night …
When I was little, I used to sleep walk frequently. There was a span of time when I was 7-8 years old, that I would wake up every morning at 4 am on the couch downstairs. I somehow got from my bed upstairs, to the couch downstairs, in the dark, while sleeping, every night. I was afraid of the dark and also was convinced that Frankenstein lived in the downstairs coat closet, which I had to pass as I frantically attempted to make it alive back to my bed at 4:01 am each day. I was a stressed out kid.
Happen to me several times, the first when I was about 18.
It was a Saturday morning, and when I woke up–my entire arm was purple.
And limp. I had no control over it at all.
I started freaking and immediately jumped out of bed, my arm flailing around.
Then I grabbed my arm with my still-working hand and started “working” it. After a few seconds, I could move my fingers, and the color started returning.
This whole incident probably lasted no more than about 15 seconds, but the thought that my arm had started rotting off made it seem like 15 minutes.
Anyway, a number of times since then, I have awakened and found I couldn’t move one of my arms. Since then, I don’t bother even cutting on the light. I just move it out of the way with my free had, and everything’s OK pretty soon.
I deaden my arms fairly often in my sleep - at least twice a week!
(I think it’s usually from going to sleep on my side with my arm squished under me - or else sleeping on my back with my hands behind my head.
)
But one time I must have pinched something that caused the effect of a deadened chest! (I had my arms curled up on my chest)
Upshot is, I woke up in the morning, and took a deep breath - but couldn’t “feel the intake” (my breathing was fine).
Very very panicky! It took about ten minutes before I regained the normal sensation of breathing!
On other dead limbs - one time I was on the ferry, sitting crosslegged. Both limbs went out for the count - and then the ferry docked.
Walking was just the silliest feeling!
I felt like a Thunderbird puppet in slow motion.
My flatmate is a practical joker. There’s a standing rule in our flat that if anyone passes out unconscious then they’ve volunteered to be the next victim. (he uses the Rizla test to confirm their suitability for candidacy - stick a rolling paper to their leg, light it. If they wake up then they’re ineligible for jokes)
One day someone had passed out cold (after three or four days without sleep + many nights out, etc). My flatmate turned him around in his chair so that his legs were pointing to the ceiling and folded his arms beneath his back. He then proceeded to paper-mache (sp?) the guy and turn him into a model.
The guy woke up about 2 or 3 hours later, completely covered in paper-mache, unable to move, unable to feel his arms or legs, in a totally confused state!
After about 20 minutes, he began to realize that he wasnt a manequin and starting vociferously complaining. We put him upright but he was still completely unable to move his limbs.
I wish we’d had access to a camcorder!
I had the same experience described in the OP about a year ago, and unlike most of you on here, I’m embarrassed to say I freaked out good…
Basically, as I woke up and slowly became conscious, I was shocked to realise there was another man’s hand resting on my upper thigh*. I’m not sure if it was the close proximity to my private area, or if I’m just a wuss, but really this freaked me out and I threw the hand up away from me instinctively. I was then horrified to feel it slap back down again on my stomach. Immediately, I jumped out of the bed on impulse, tripped over my bedside table and head-butted my fish tank. I’m not sure if I actually knocked myself unconscious but it took what seemed a stunned age to recover, regain my senses and feel completely stupid. I had a nasty cut on my head too. The funny thing was there wasn’t really any conscious thought going on, it was all just impulse and the whole episode must have been over within five seconds.
Despite my shock and injuries, I, like many posters, still enjoyed playing “flopping and slapping” games with my lifeless arm once I realised what had happened. When it regained feeling I went back to feeling utterly embarrassed, however.
*Looking back, I figure I must have been kind of on my side with part of the arm under me, but I didn’t pay much attention to the details at the time.
Once in high school I dozed off in class. As I was waking up in a semi conscience state someone farted behind me. When I woke up fully, I got offended and gave the people behind me a dirty look. Well, they were laughing at ME, it could’ve been true. :o
- as I generally go to sleep on my tummy, I have a tendancy (especially when its cold) to tuck my arms in under me … whatever why I did it, both arms were dead from the shoulder down… with them tucked in under me, I could barely move by myself… no doubt people in the rest of the house wondered at the noises coming from my room as I tried to flip myself over 
