Ever had sleep paralysis before?

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It's when you wake up, and you've been maybe lying on your hand, and for some reason, you physically cannot move a muscle. It's a dead scary feeling, though I've learned to just lie there and wait for it to stop. If you try and make a sound, nothing comes out, and you literally cannot move. Not even turn your head.

I get the same thing.

I get this very often, with accompanying hallucinations (physical, visual and audio).

yep that happens to me a lot, it freaks me out!

All the time (especially after a lucid dream). Usually It's fine because I don't get any hallucinations with it, but when I do-- I almost always see the outline of a man on top of me. One one occasion it felt like I was being wrestled down, and on another, like I was being kissed, or having the breath sucked out of me.

I was told that this is due to interrupted sleep, we sleep in stages and if we're wakened or pulled out of one stage, then we have this problem with "being asleep but not really".
I had this chronically when my husband got up at 4am for work during a long stretch. It included "waking dreams" where I "saw" stuff.

I had a waking dream last night-dreamed, least i think i did, that my dad was in my room talking to me but I couldn't actually turn my head to look at him, or open my eyes, or my mouth to respond and he thought I was being rude!

Well I lie on my hand/arms often and usually sleep with contorted arm with my feet crossed. I get better quality sleep this way. I don't think it is this that cause sleep paralysis, though it used to cut circulation and give me dead arms. Sleep paralysis is said to be related to do with a mix up in the order you brain wakes up. Same as sleep shocks.

I have been getting something like sleep paralysis every since I've been trying a new medication . Except my eyes are close as well and I'm sort of half awake but can't move or open my eyes. They thing to do is not panic and try to chill or go back to sleep.

Never had it last long enough to find out if I'm paralyzed per se, but in transitioning from nightmares to waking states I sometimes have momentary, but vivid, auditory hallucinations. Only had auditory hallucinations, usually repetitive noises, but one time I heard screaming. It's kind of frightening, but can't help but think "That was wicked!" afterwards.

Yeah, it is annoying, but if you know what is going on and you relax, it does go away.

Just ONCE - with a visual hallucination of waterfalls, waterfalls everywhere. No idea how to interpret that, haha.

Not very often. It happens maybe once or twice per month, usually after sleeping late into the day. Usually I don't feel like I'm literally paralyzed. It’s more like I’m just too weak and sluggish to move more than a slight amount. It feels as though I’m continually being sucked into sleep against my will. Once it starts the only way to stop it is to get out of bed and walk around.

I've had auditory and tactile hallucinations a few times in my life. One time I thought I felt a tug on my blankets and I immediately thought someone was sitting on the bed next to me. It felt like there was an indent beside me. I also heard my name whispered. It was creepy. It took me a long time to gather the courage to force myself to roll over and prove to myself that there wasn't anybody there.

Last edited by marshall on 20 Dec 2007, 6:45 pm, edited 6 times in total.

Happens one night every week to me, and when it does, it typically happens 3-4 times every night. I get sleep paralysis before I fall asleep rather than when I wake up.

Sometimes I even get bizarre hallucinations (I thank God that only happens 2-3 times a year), such as a psycothic laugh, feel the presence of a malevolent beast, a weird buzzing sound and so on. I hate it!

I have felt as though I was paralyzed. I couldn't move at all. It's scary.

Heh, yep, I usually get it before I fall asleep, and very rarely when waking.

It's a pretty well documented phenomena and accounts for most of the reports of alien-abduction-from-bedroom stories that float around. It's entirely natural. Your body produces a chemical/hormone that insures your sleeping brain's stimulation won't cause your body to move - if you were dreaming that you were running and this chemical stop-cock hadn't been turned on, then your body would actually flail about trying to run --- from an evolutionary standpoint that would probably have been very unhealthy if you were sleeping in a tree (as our ancestors did).... Whoops... Fall... Splat!

The hallucinatory part is a separate side-effect --- sometimes it's perceived as weight or pressure, sometimes it's like flying. Often there is a feeling of extreme anxiety. The exact same feeling can be induced by electrical fields stimulating areas of the neo-cortex - there was a very good documentary about this several years ago, though the title escapes me. The experiment stimulated areas of the brain that normally showed high activity on the threshold of sleep, and subjects expressed unfocused fear.

The alien-abduction angle is interesting because it turns out that, prior to the cultural fixation with little grey men, these exact same experiences were attributed to various deities and icons of cultural folklore. I recall particularly that there was a common myth about the "Old Witch" who would apparently lay upon the helpless victim and suck the life from them. Flying saucers, it seems, are far more comprehensible to 20th/21st century minds than cauldron-stirring-crones, as the "Old Witch" has been quite thoroughly supplanted and generally forgotten.

At any rate, if it happens to you then remember that it's just a natural process. Try to enjoy what is, in my mind, and interesting experience.

Nick

I can't say Ive ever had sleep paralysis, as far as sleeping issues goes Ive got Sleep Apnea instead and get to sleep with a CPAP machine so I can actually stay breathing at night. I was being really tired all the time, and had started a delivery job at the beginning of this year and was having problems staying awake while driving, dosing off multiple time a day behind the wheel and coming close to multiple accidents I finally decided to get that checked out as my Mom has it too, finally got it diagnosed and have been using the CPAP since June, and it sure is one hell of an improvement on my energy during the day.