What happened to me yesterday? (Paralysis, hallucinations, vivid dreams)

Factual Questions
1

Last night, I stayed up until about 5 AM partying. I woke up the next morning at 9:30, went to my one class of the day, then went to lunch, where I ate pasta and a salad. I didn’t feel very well after eating this, so I went upstairs to a lounge, laid down on a couch with my hands behind my head, and fell asleep. Five minutes later I was awake, completely paralyzed; I felt the sensations of moving my arms and legs about, and felt it actually happening, yet nothing was moving at all. I saw my roomate and one of my friends come up to me and talk to me; one of them was telling me how there was Klezmer music playing from my record player and that he “didn’t want to listen to Klezmer music while we were getting high.”

Then I had the sudden and bizarre thought that the song “Poison Arrow” from ABC (which I know only from the soundtrack of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City) was actually about the Desert Storm general Norman Schwarzkopf. (This phenomenon has actually happened to me before, incidentally; one night, when on a certain unmentionable substance, I got it into my head that the line about “the lunatic on the grass” in Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was actually about GOLF [the “lunatic on the grass,” get it? Like, “he’s a real lunatic on the grass”, as in golf course.] The only difference is that Poison Arrow being about Norman Schwarzkopf makes no sense at all.

Then all of a sudden I heard someone shout “bourbon!” and I had this incredibly vivid mental image of a bourbon dispensor right on the wall of the hallway. After this, I saw a gigantic man, abnormally tall and hugely wide, try to squeeze through the doorway. To top the whole experience off, I had a vivid experience in which I was watching Brad Pitt explain how he had been cheating on his wife, go into Gwyneth Paltrow’s house, have sex with her, and then play fetch with her dog.

Between each of these experiences I was straight enough to write down what was going on. I wrote it all down in a notebook. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, the mysterious word “buyoes” was also written on the page (I think that the word came to me somehow and I felt it neccessary to write it down.)

Now tell me:

WHAT THE HELL CAUSED THESE INSANE THINGS TO HAPPEN TO ME?

Lest you think I’m storytelling, I’m not. I’m not trying to regale you with fanciful tales. This actually happened and I want to know why it did. My father suggested that pasta causes people to experience vivid dreams and hallucinations. Is this true?

2

…it sounds simply like you were tripping… since you are claiming to have been sober (if hungover)… it could be a flashback… or alternatively… perhaps it was a sleep/dream phenomenon… I’ve experienced very vivid dreams where I am paralyzed and seem to be wide awake… many seem to think this is an Outer-Body experience and/or Alien Abductions… (i’ve seen past discussions in here about it)… but it’s been explained away (on these boards) as some kind of dream experience when you are just barely asleep. Perhaps others will remember these discussions and be able to provide a link.

One thing you didn’t mention is whether or not your friends have verified the events in your more recent experience.

3

Oh, no, they were most definitely NOT actually there.

4

Sleep paralysis?

5

Sounds like it must have been that Sleep Paralysis then. Quite interesting, that page is. Except I don’t think I’ll be taking any great pains to stop it. It was pretty cool. How can you beat tripping without drugs?

6

What you had was a lucid dream. You may or may not have had your eyes open during this experience. What you “saw” could very well be a simple construct of your mind. The feeling of being frozen into place or “Sleep paralysis” is very common, almost universal, with this experience.

Welcome dreamer, this is something most people can not do. If you learn to control it it can be a pleasant recreational activity. It can also be the most frightening form of nightmare imaginable.

7

You experienced “sleep paralysis”. Make a search on these words in “general questions” (and perhaps IMHO and MPSIMS), and you’ll find plenty of threads on this topic.

Basically, you’re paralyzed when you’re dreaming (in order to avoid “enacting” your dreams), and generally, you wake up after a dream cycle. Normally, the dream should stop and the paralysis should dissapear before you wake up. But in some cases, it works the other way around, and you wake up unable to move and sometimes with vivid hallucinations.
Count yourself lucky since these hallucinations are generally frightening, with a feeling of a threatening presence or impeding doom, etc…
Apparently, there’s nothing to worry about, though I vaguely remember that in one at least of this thread, someone mentionned that in some cases, “sleep paralysis” can be related to other sleep problems or even epilepsy. But most people who mentionned experiencing it on this board (including some to whom it happens on a regular basis) didn’t mention any other adverse problem (of course, waking up paralyzed and seeing monsters sitting on your chest a couple times a week is certainly in itself a problem).
Some people also posted advices about how to avoid these experiences (some as simple as avoiding sleeping in a given position) or how to put an end more quickly to the paralysis and hallucinations. You should probably check them in case it would happen again.