Anyone experiance sleep paralysis?

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I got it quite often - I sometimes happen to invoke this state on purpose.

Experienced it often.
Don't know how often, because I sometimes try to provoke lucid dreaming by using the WILD method and it involves sleep paralyzis.

Don't have to try that as often as back then though, now lucid dreams also tend to be more frequent.

I don't find sleep paralysis scary at all.

I've never been scared any of the times I've experienced it.

Hello.

I have experienced it a few times in my life. It was very scary in that I thought I would never be able to move again.

In my country, it is sometimes (not really seriously) regarded as caused by a ghost or something and gets talked about in that context. And there is even a word for it in that context. Of course most people know it's not anything like that. But because of that, when I first experienced it, I had already known what it must be and decided not to try to move and kept quiet until I was able to move. Still, it was scary.

I've had episodes of hypnopompic and hypnagogic hallucinations that weren't scary too but unlike you they weren't the norm for me. Most of the times I've had scary ones but some have been very pleasant or neutral.


I started having sleep paralysis when I was about seventeen and it was very frequent at that time. The first week after onset I had it 4 out of 7 nights.

It gradually changed and eventually faded. Now I have nightmares in which I am experiencing sleep paralysis but I'm not in a hypnagogic or hypnopompic state I'm still asleep. I dream of waking up and experiencing sleep paralysis. This one time I had a dream within a dream in which someone told me to pray to the ghost king for protection. Then I woke up in my bed even though I was still asleep and I was very anxious and uncomfortable about doing it but I tried to pray to the ghost king. I was afraid to but I tried it. As soon as I did I experienced intense hypnopompic hallucinations of an evil presence while I was really still asleep and then the dream ended and a new one started.



At first I was getting both paralysis and hallucinations but later on I started moving in the middle of a paralysis episode while the hallucinations continued. Ever since then I've had hypnopompic/hypnagogic hallucinations without paralysis.


While falling asleep I might spend some time on the edge just before I drift off and I'll hear people talking. Usually they are just having an everyday conversation but I'm so zoned out that I can't pay much attention. Eventually I take note of the conversation in my head and it brings me back to a full waking state and then it stops after a sentence or two.



A funny thing happened during a time when I kept waking up with internal sensations. I felt like something was squirming inside me trying to take me over and possession was the first thing that entered my mind. I constricted my muscles as if I was trying to squeeze/crush it or pin it down where it was but I couldn't. Trying to fight it and not scream eventually led to me screaming but my voice changed depending on how much I fought. This was after I started having night hallucinations without paralysis because it wouldn't have been possible to scream before.


If I fought a lot and avoided screaming as long as possible my voice would get very deep and I'd sound like an animal when I screamed. It was freaky to hear an animalistic sound coming out of me as I screamed.


If I didn't fight at all and I screamed early on purpose my voice would be very high pitched. The reason I would scream early is because I eventually realized that screaming woke me up enough that the nightmare ended. I screamed early and woke up my dad. He didn't know it was me because I didn't sound like me. He thought it was Aunt Margauret who was living in our basement. He rushed downstairs to check on her only to find out she was still asleep and he went back upstairs confused.


I could hear him downstairs so I went down to confirm with him that it had happened again. He said "that was you?" He couldn't believe it was me because my voice was so different under the hypnopompic effects.



I also had one very pleasant experience in which I felt a benevolent presence in my room upon waking. I woke up with my eyes closed and I could feel the room temperature was so warm and cozy. The air around me was warm. I could feel a friendly comforting touch of two hands on my left and right knees. One hand was on each knee. It was like I was in the presence of an angel. As soon as I opened my eyes everything disappeared. The room didn't feel warm anymore and I couldn't feel anyone touching me. If I had known that would happen I would've stayed there with my eyes closed longer.



For me sleep paralysis can play on my worst fears but it can also be wish fulfilling and comforting. One time I was dealing with guilt and a lot of other stressful stuff and I wanted to talk to someone for comfort. While in a hypnopompic state my mind created a scenario in which I was having a telepathic conversation with a person I could see in my head who was comforting me from some other place in the world. My thoughts appeared in writing on the wall in front of me and this person's response to those thoughts also appeared in writing on the wall. My brain essentially created a person to comfort me.



I'm not sure if it's being in a knew environment or a co-incidence. I'm tempted to go with a paranormal explanation and say that the cottage my family rents in the summer has something attached to it but I realize that's unlikely. Everytime I go there I have sleep disturbances. Not all of them are sleep paralysis. Sometimes I wake up screaming something and I don't remember what it is but I don't just scream I say something. The stress of being in a new environment could cause that but I've gone to camps without having that problem.




The variety of the hypnagogic/hypnopompic hallucinations I've had is interesting. The experience has always been changing for me and it went through stages. Now I don't get it but I always liked it when it happened because even when it was scary it was surreal. I love any experience that's surreal.

I've had sleep paralysis a few times, especially when my sleep cycle is horribly messed up and I'm dead tired.

I experience this very often since my childhood. As a child I often woke up mute and that was really scary. I remember going to my parents room (when my body was awake) to tell them something was going wrong but unable to speak. It felt like the storm over my head. They could never explain me what was that phenomenon until I read many years later about sleep paralysis.
Otherwise I don't think that waking up paralyzed is scary, only that thing with the voice is. Luckily it never happened to me again since the age of 6-7.

i've experienced this as well. Each time, it is a terrifying experience because during it, my breathing is impaired. Usually my nose is stopped up and am dead tired. Sleeping on my back seems to make it worse. During the paralysis, I can only move one finger then try with all my might to move, but each time it feels like I will never move again. Scary Also, what if I get old and feeble and CAN'T MOVE?! !! It feels like a Herculean effort to actually wake up....

Tjr, I also have had what i'm assuming is sleep paralysis since I was very young, and have felt like there were moments where I could not breath, speak or move. It also happens almost exclusively when I'm sleeping on my back. In fact if I go back to sleep on my back it will keep happening until I turn over. It feels like I'm lying in a pool of molasses trying to lift my limbs out and getting sucked in.