I get that all the time, and it is hella scary. I attribute it to the massive quantity of ecstasy I consumed as a youth. But for me it always accompanied by a nightmare, and I realize that I’m not really asleep, and that I am having a nightmare, but I’m stuck in it and I can’t get out. I used to try to move or scream or something to break it, but I’m so used to it now that I just lay there and think, “Well, hell.”
Yikes! I’ve never heard of that. I hope now that I know of this I won’t subconsciously make it happen somehow… not being able to move sounds just terrible to me.
I started getting about a year ago, thats when my life started going to hell so I think it may be stress related. Just from reading the experiences here I start to panic. It is the worst feeling in the world. I hate when it happens. I always end up jumping out of bed whenever I try and get out of it. I’ve never tried just doing nothing though. The urge to panic and fight it is just so intense.
“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.”
—That’s exactly what happens to me! Isn’t it frustrating when you think you’ve managed to sit up and then realize, “Oh,crap, I’m still lying down asleep and I can’t breath?”
Interesting that it happens to back sleepers. While I switch to all sides during the night, each SP happened to me I was on my back at the time.
As for how to get out of it, in my experience the least difficult way to move is to try and snap your head from side to side. (Trying to yell, “No, no no!” at the same time)
'Course that hasn’t happened to me in a while. What’s happening now, interestingly enough, is the reverse: I’m not paralyzed enough.
SO’s getting pissed, it seems that if I dream I step forward, my leg twitches. If I’m reaching for something, my arm pops up. And, if I’m making some profound soliloquoy in my dream, which I often do, I’ll start speaking the last few words aloud. Yep, talking in my sleep. Hafta be careful what I dream about now.
Oh for the good old days.
I posted this in a thread in Great Debates.
So do any other SP’ers get the TRANSFORMER BUZZ ? ? ? ? ? ?
I get that too. Sometimes I imagine I can move, but it’s incredibly difficult and it’s like I’m dragging my body to make even the tiniest movements. And then I wake up and discover I haven’t moved. Only to realise I can barely move again and I’m dragging my body… over and over and over. I used to be terrified I would get caught in one of these loops forever. But now I recognise it (as much as you can when you’re in that state) and get frustrated but not so frightened any more. I’ve even managed to turn it into lucid dreaming on a few occasions.
The technical term for it is “hypnogogia”, and it’s a treatable sleep disorder. If it happens frequently (which it sounds like it might), see a sleep specialist, or a pulmonary specialiast with knowledge about sleep disorders.
Best of luck, sleep disorders can be pretty rough in their advanced stages (speaking from experience; I have narcolepsy and a severe apnea).
Cheers-
Hello again Chalk Pit. I don’t know why your post to my Temporal Lobe Epilepsy thread didn’t resonate more with me at the time. I guess I disregarded my own sleep paralysis episodes as being trivial in comparison.
But now that I think about it…
I’ve experienced similar grey areas between waking and dreaming. It was much more common when I was younger. (Perhaps it is just as common now, but I just don’t remember it when I wake up? I swear that I remember less dreams in general now, compared to when I was a kid.)
The closest I come to “buzzing” is a distinct ringing in my ears. The more aware I am of my altered state, the louder the tinnitus. I can somewhat replicate the sound when awake, during a good stretch or if I ball up my fists and toes and “squeeze” every muscle in my body as hard as I can. The sound is much fainter than when I’m wake-dreaming, but it is there. I suppose it might be a sign that I get very rigid and stiff when experiencing SP? I’ve never had the opportunity to have that corroberated.
When I was younger, and wanting to “get out” of the SP, I would will the sound louder and louder untill I finally woke up.
As an adult, I am more aware of when the episodes are happening, and they result in brief moments of quasi-dream control, punctuated by moments of normal dreaming. If I get too ambitious with trying to will my dreams, I wake up though. So close but not close enough…sometimes I curse my subconcious…friggin’ dream nazi 
Yeah thats it, like a buzzing in your head.
Thats how I started to control it, or at leats try to. I found I could let the buzzing get more intense, step by step, but still not go ‘fully under’. Unfortunately, its a VERY fine line between you controlling it, and it controlling you. I found that if I pushed it just a little too far, it would get me, and once you get to that point, the more you try o pull out, the more it takes you over, so you just have to give in.
Like I say, I dont really get it much anymore, but in my twenties, I was gettin it several times a day. I always thought that having a ghetto blaster next to my bed (switched off, but still on standby - so it buzzed a bit) may have had something to do with it. Since I changed my sleeping arrangements and no longer have any electrical equipment near my head, it has gone away.
This could of course be purely coincidental, as My life has changed a lot in other ways too, since I had SP badly.
Since I have known my wife, I have only been hit with SP a few times.
This rings home. Somehow I know that sleeping on my back makes me a) more likely to have dreams, and vivid dreams, b) more likely to have lucid dreams, and c) more likely to get sleep paralysis.
Coldfire This is just a guess, but I’d expext the commonality of experiencing sleep paralysis is the same as that of experiencing lucid dreams, i.e. 2 in 10 people.
I find it strange that different people experience it in different ways.
I, for example, never feel like I can’t breath. That bit is fine. For me it’s just like my whole body is disconnected from my brain, I can’t even move a finger. My eyes are open while it is happening (or maybe it’s the ‘seeing through the eylids’ phenomenon that I’ve heard lucid dreamers talk about, where you are actually just seeing a very accurate ‘simulation’ of your bedroom created by your brain)
I also never experience the ‘transformer effect’ or any sound at the same time as the SP. I do sometimes experience hypnagogic imagery (very,very strange characetures of people, very interesting too) but never while I am SPed.
I get it too. Nice to know I’m in such good company!
The first time it happened was only about seven years ago. Freaked me just about out of existence. I have epilepsy, and I thought it was some sort of seizure. I had an appointment with my neurologist later that week, and I asked him about it. I’d never heard of sleep paralysis before. He told me that it’s very common, and unless you hurt yourself trying to get out of it, it’s usually nothing to worry about.
As others have stated, though, it can be REALLY effin’ scary. And it does feel like an out of body experience. I tend to feel like I’m flying, really really fast, really really high, and not in control. It almost feels like I’m being yanked out of my body, against my will.
My episodes are almost always accompanied by nightmares. The last episode I had (just two nights ago, in fact) was not as scary, but it was war-related–I’m going to attribute that to the fact that I fell asleep on the couch while watching MSNBC. The one before that (about two weeks ago, I think) was the weirdest, though. Had the yanked-out-of-body thing, and then, I was a vampire-type-beast-thingy. I don’t know. I just remember other people in the dream, and swooping down on them, with the intent of causing great harm. Very icky.
Most of my SP episodes occur while I’m sleeping on my side, though. And more often than not, I’ll manage to wake myself up, but only for a second or two–then I’ll slip right back in, and whatever was going on picks right up where it left off. If I can manage to wake up enough to change position, though, that ends it.
Going with it, so far, hasn’t been much of an option for me. I’ve tried to control the flying thing, but the nightmares that I have with these things are really nothing I want to pursue. I know very little about lucid dreaming, but if the dreams I have would just get a little nicer, I’d probably try to work with it a little more.
Oh, gawd the BUZZING! I’d forgotten about that.
I don’t get a buzzing–I get a feeling more like every inch of my body is vibrating. Sometimes it feels like I’m spinning, which is really hard to describe.
This doesn’t happen every time I have a SP episode, but it does happen a good bit.
I don’t HEAR buzzing, I SEE buzzing. Everything I see seems to be encased in some sort of static interference? Sort of like if your tv reception isn’t good. That’s how I can tell it’s starting…I guess my regular dreams are clear and smooth but the sp ones are staticy and…oh I got it!!! It’s like the sensation you get when something (an arm, or leg, or foot) falls asleep and tingles? Only it’s sort of all over. Is this accurate for anyone else?
Get out of my head acrossthesea…I was in the middle of typing just that comparison last night, before I got interrupted.
I don’t have any memories of my “vision” being affected by the buzzing, but certainly the entire body feeling akin to your foot if you’ve sat on it for a couple of hours. The deep numbness that would cause you to fall on your face if you tried to walk on it too soon.
I have had sleep paralysis so many times that I am used to the sensation of not being able to move, and just wait it out. Even when I can distinctly feel someone sit down on the bed just out of my field of vision…
I’ve done this too, many times. It’s fun and I wish I could make it last longer; unfortunately it seems to occur only when I’m just at the point between being sleep and being awake, and I usually wake up. Sometimes though, I’m able to force it again and again.
But I don’t believe for even one moment that I’m actually out of my body, usually because I’ll often do this and find elements of the house or yard different, and therefore not real.
I get it occasionally, usually due to sleep deprivation. I don’t remember any “terrifying” episodes, but maybe that’s because I knew what sleep paralysis was before it ever happened to me. The first time it happened, I heard all these women and children laughing. Then the laughing turned into screaming, and then I heard bombs going off. That made me think, “I wonder if I can control my hallucinations!” Suddenly, I heard this awesome stereo rumble going from one ear to the other.
Another time it happened, I managed to make my ego “float” off to one side of my mental body. I could also hover over myself and spin around.
One time, I managed to sit up and float down to my floor, get up, and walk over to my door. I tried to turn my light on so I could see my body in bed, but my hand passed right through it. (That might be due to something called the “light switch” phenomenon that occurs in lucid dreams due to the supposed inability of the brain to change the level of lighting in a hallucination. Then again, it could very well be an effect created by my knowledge of that phenomenon.) So I went to my door, and somehow built up enough friction in my hand to open it. However, right after opening it, I felt the whole thing fade away just like a regular dream.
After “leaving my body” multiple times, I am still not convinced by New Age types that this constitutes any form of “astral projection,” or is anything other than a hallucination.