I usualy fight with all my will to ‘wake up’ from the sleep paralysis. Last night, for the first time (because I kept lapsing into near-sleep-paralysis over and over again and this conditioned me to not fear it) I gave in.
I entered a state where I couldn’t tell weither I was asleep or not. I thought "I think I am asleep, but I don’t want to risk flying by jumping off my bunk-bed in case I am not dreaming/asleep. Then I tried to move, it was as if my body was made of lead. I then tried to look at my watch (to do a reality check) I tried like hell to get my arm in front of my face.
I got it there, but it was vibrating (exactly like the short sequence of vibrating in ‘fight club’), I figured “I can’t see my watch to do the check, so I have to assume I am awake”. I then woke up and realized how bloody stupid that logic was (dream- reality check logic is often very stupid for me*)
I don’t wear my watch in bed (so the fact that it was on should have told me I am dreaming)
How often does an arm vibrate like that! (not very often)
[sub]*I could be doing a word reality check, seeing a word, trying to change the words, the words then change themselves rapidly, at this I STILL am not quite sure if I am dreaming. Other times I will use my watch to do a reality check, the watch will look insane, like some futuristic device with flashing lights, digital numbers, hands in weird places, yet this fails to kick me into lucid dream mode[/sub]
I’m sorry I don’t have any advice or personal experience to share, but the foremost thought in my mind is…yikes.
I have had dreams so real that when I woke up I started altering the day’s plans in accordance to the dream. I’ve also had dreams-within-dreams that made me doubt my sanity. But this…wow.
I HATE that dream paralysis thing. HATE it. Scares the everliving crap outta me every time. Someone told me when I was a teenager that the sensation is a precursor to having an out-of-body experience, and even though I am sensible enough to give that idea all the merit it deserves, when it happens, I still panic (because, as you noted, since when does SENSE have anything to do with it?)
I don’t know if this will help LifeOnWry, but my more ‘realistic’ view is that SP is the precursor to a Lucid dream (in which it can seem like you are having an out of body experience). And that Lucid Dreamers reccomend that you give in to the paralysis. It still scares the living daylights out of me though!
I always try to scream for my mother, and can’t. Once I actually managed to say the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, and that broke it. Last episode, my cat Conan jumped up on the bed. As soon as his little paws touched my leg, I came out of it.
Maybe one of these days, I’ll give in to it. My mom says I should.
I’ve experience that a couple of times too… its creepy.
A different variant:
I once had a dream that an invading alien species sucked the air from the room I was in as a way of killing me. I began to suffocate, finding it impossible to draw a breath. I began panicing and after a small eternity, woke up still unable to breath! PANIC!
Then I sheepishly realized I holding my breath, and must have been for quite some time… I layed there panting and light headed, feeling very stupid. If you can hold your breath while not conscious, is it possible to hold it to the point of death?
Seamonkey Under normal circumstances our bodies are paralyzed while we sleep. This is to stop us acting out our dreams.
Sleep Paralysis(or experiencing it when waking up) is caused by a delay in the de-activating of the perfectly normal paralysis. It is commonly experienced and harmless, but as you have seen (and know), that does not stop it being a terrifying experience.
Not very likely. You were on the verge of sleep, but not unconscious. Had you held it longer, you would have passed out cold and your autonomic nervous system would have taken over, restarting your breathing.
Your mind can only override your body as long as your mind isn’t blacked out.
It really is terrifying, isn’t it? I try to bang my hand against the headboard to wake myself up, but this rarely works. I usually wind up going back to sleep, but you are so panic-stricken and convinced you’re suffocating . . .
Giving in to it is the best thing, I think. Just drift back to sleep, it’s too scary and frustrating otherwise. Plus since you don’t tend to suffocate in normal sleep you’re probably better off letting your body take charge. You don’t ever actually move anywhere, do you, however real it feels?
But the thing is, you’re not thinking straight when it happens, you’re panicking. No matter how much I tell myself, “this is nothing, just go back to sleep,” my whole body is yelling, HEEEELLLLPPP!"
I have them everyonce in a while. Last time, I was dreaming that a ghost (like a succubous) was holding me down. I was screaming “help” and my wife woke me fully releasing me. Most of the time I get panicky at first then realize what’s going on. as soon as you accept it, you wake from it.
I get that all the time esp. when I am stressed. Sometimes it will happen 3 or 4 times in a row, always accompanied by extreme suffocation feelings. I seem to believe (when it is happening) that if someone (like my husband) were to touch me, I’d come out of it. Of course I can’t even scream for help to tell him it’s happening, and when I finally do pull out of it I feel so exhausted I fall back to sleep and have it happen again. I’ve never felt tempted to give in to it because when it happens I’m terrified and often having horrible visions.
I started having it when I was 11. My mother told me what it was because she always had it too. To my knowledge, noone else in my family ever heard of it. My husband has never experienced it. So why do some people get it and not others?
I am, admittedly, very wierd. I actually kind of like the SP. I didn’t used to until, on the advice of my doctor, started giving in to it. I’ve also learned to have a minor amount of control over it, so that I can change my “surroundings” and ease out of the paralysis.
Actually, that’s a fairly good description, that of a succubus. When I first heard of succubi and incubi, I thought, “ah… I think I know what that feels like.” Which makes me wonder if sleep paralysis inspired the idea of such creatures, or if not, I can see where the sensation would lend credence to such mythology.
To my knowledge I’ve never screamed during an episode, but I do remember trying to talk myself down from one. I kept repeating to myself, “Just move your finger, and it’ll go away.” The fact that I was unable to move my finger for what seemed like several hours (but was probably in fact only a few seconds) did NOT make me relax any better.
My boyfriend’s sister was having these episodes a few weeks ago, and had never heard of sleep paralysis, so I did some research on the subject, and it seemed to help.
This page is an excellent, comprehensive resource on the subject. It includes a good history of perceptions of the phenomenon. Their recommended method of prevention is to avoid stress, don’t eat late at night, keep a regular sleep schedule, and try not to sleep on your back. Research indicates that people sleeping on their backs have a five times more likely occurrence of sleep paralysis. However, I have no idea how I’d go about avoiding sleeping on my back.
Their methods for getting out of a sleep paralysis episode are as follows:
I’ve also read that doing research on the subject, especially reading personal accounts of others’ experiences with the phenomenon, is helpful in preventing the attacks. So far, my boyfriend’s sister has avoided any more episodes. The page linked to above has good additional resources, and a Google search on sleep paralysis reveals a world of information.
Wow. And here I thought I was just weird.
I have this experience infrequently, but often enough to completely freak me out.
Each time, I am unable to move and I am trying to scream for help. When I was a kid, I’d scream for my mom and now that I’m older, I scream for my husband. I’m screaming loudly in my brain but there’s no sound coming out of my mouth. Now that’s a scary sensation.
I have even gone so far as to imagine I can actually move my body–sometimes sitting up in bed or rolling out of bed and standing up, but when I finally snap out of it I am still lying down and haven’t moved an inch.
The whole thing is very unnerving and it always makes me wonder if that’s sort of what it feels like to die. Shudder
I had to not being able to scream thing, esp when I was little. Now I am more likely to not be able to wake up, either not being able to move or I keep opening my eyes and I am unable to keep them open. It’s like they are weighted down.
But I don’t usually find it scary, just annoying.