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Sleep paralysis - who else has experienced this?

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TalkingMeatSuit

TalkingMeatSuit

Paranormal Maven
Lifelong sleep paralysis goin' on here, and figured I'd ask and see who else has had this and what your experiences have been like. I thought of this because last night I had sleep paralysis when trying to fall asleep.

Normally I get sleep paralysis when waking up at a random time from late night to early morning. Seldom have it happened when trying to fall asleep though. Last night I was meditating after laying down for bed. I've been more regular in my practice lately, and have found that it's great for slowing the heartrate, calming down in general, and other things like improving focus on the job.

Because I was relaxed from meditating, upon realizing that I was paralyzed I was able to remain calm for a bit before panicking out of it. During this time I noticed that the background noise seemed to get louder - like the rush of some river rapids if you've ever been near a big, fast-moving river before. I was afraid to start listening more carefully for some reason, which is what triggered me to start the suffocating, shitty feeling that you get when trying to snap out of SP.

After I was able to breath and move again I was sort irritated at myself for being a "scaredy cat" as the children say. I'm almost looking forward to the next time this happens now, to hopefully do some introspective Chris Columbus-ing. Perhaps this is the same thing as being in a deep hypnagogic state of some sort? Is this the same thing people describe when speaking of a loud buzzing noise that precedes going "out of body"?

I realize this may be a tad esoteric for some of ya but thanks for your time :)


TL;DR - What are your sleep paralysis experiences? I had a weird one last night.
 
I have them somewhat sporadically now and they are quite tame and at times somewhat pleasant with the twinkling piano keys and audio tones...I think I'm rebooting :) ...but about eight years ago I would have them on the level of three - four times a month and there were usually intense and involved hyperventilation. I've written about them in some of the other threads. I think I "cured" myself after one particular episode by just being pissed off. That is to say for whatever reason I never took the time to look into the "phenomena" and educate myself about it, if I had perhaps I wouldn't have suffered as much over the decades. Yes I said decades.
 
Mine got better once I started living with my wife. WHen I was a child, that Missing Time/ Alien abduction episode of Unsolved Mysteries scared the crap out of me and I had a lot of trouble sleeping. Once I realized that aliens were not going to abduct me, life got much better.
 
I wish we had a whole sub forum on sleep paralysis. I find it to be a very fascinating subject and like talking about it. What you didn't mention...probably because it wasn't necessary...was the whole old hag/abduction aspect of some of these cases. I mention this because this was discussed on a skeptic (not medical) web site and if I recall the site mentioned that that the old hag visitation seems to be most associated with the hypnagogic state and alien abduction most associated with the hypnopompic state, or maybe it was reversed, or maybe I just read into it too much, but if this observation held, then I find it even more fascinating. Why would be the body make a distinction between two different "intruders" and assign them to the two seperate phenomena? We have to have a sleep specialist on the paracast or dmr some day.
 
I've had it several times. Never had a really scary one, though a few have been unnerving. I've never felt the presence of anything, no alien, no entity or hag. Wait, actually one time I did sense there were aliens behind me out of sight, and it was like I woke up as part of a mass abduction but that episode was half out of body experience half sleep paralysis. My S.P when happening in isolation has never had any outside entities.

I discovered how I could successfully bring myself out of it when it happens, which entails a fair description which I've posted before. I'll only post it again if someone specifically asks, perhaps other people have their own techniques for ending a bout of S.P? I am glad I found a way because even though I've never been terrified, it is extremely unpleasant not being able to move like that.

Does anyone know of any way to 'take advantage' of S.P? I mean, say if being in a SP bout means you are in an altered state somehow, is there anyway to utilise it to maybe try to OBE or something 'else'? Just thinking!
 
tom1961 said:
I have had it happen a few times.
Mine is kind of boring I wake up and can't move.
Click to expand...

In that you should be grateful unless you like the feeling of your heart racing @ 1000rpm and struggling to breath like you are having an asthma attack.

Having said that I'd like to know if anyone remembers in their experiences what their first symptom was. Mine was always the sense of intrusion...i KNEW when i was about to have an attack before i woke up because i had the sense of my space being violated...but I would think from a physiological standpoint that symptom would come secondary in reaction to being incapacitated, unable to move.
 
It has happened to me about 5-10 times.
When it happens it is after I have slept for a long time.
I open my eyes and can't move. MY breathing is normal and my heart is not racing.
After a few minutes I am able to move.
It is upsetting but I don't seem to have any physical effects from it.
My wife is a heavy sleeper so she never knows that it is happening.
 
tom1961 said:
It has happened to me about 5-10 times.
When it happens it is after I have slept for a long time.
I open my eyes and can't move. MY breathing is normal and my heart is not racing.
After a few minutes I am able to move.
It is upsetting but I don't seem to have any physical effects from it.
My wife is a heavy sleeper so she never knows that it is happening.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much where I am now, a few years ago it was a much different story. In the end I beat it off psychologically by getting angry and fighting "it" off which dovetails nicely into the surronding mythology about the phenomena.

Now when it does happen (irregularly) i still know its happening and it is usually preceded by piano keys or tunes going down in scale from high to low and I still have the classic symptom of paralysis but I'm cooler about it and just wait it out.
 
I've written about mine here before as well. Without question my experiences of sleep paralysis in my teens and early 20's were easily the scariest events of my life. They don't call these Night Terrors for nothing. Mine featured everything from surreal abduction scenarios to serial killers stalking me. They often ended with sesnsations of hurtling through the air in whatever hallway was closest to my room at accelerating speeds about to smash through a door, but never reaching it. I would be screaming in desperation for help from whoever was sleeping in the room next to mine. Then I would hear my paralyzed, moaning body not able to open its mouth and then back to the hallway of obliteration so on until I would wake up in a state of sheer fear. I also can see how Alien Abductions could be manufactured here.

The first time this happened with another person in the bed beside me it was the woman I eventually married. She woke me in the middle of one of these episodes and the sense of being rescued was an experience I would equate with having one's life being saved - it was a major spiritual turning point - seriously. 20 years later I have still not ever had another sleep paralysis episode.
 
"... They often ended with sesnsations of
hurtling through the air in whatever
hallway was closest to my room at
accelerating speeds about to smash
through a door, but never reaching it. I
would be screaming in desperation for
help from whoever was sleeping in the
room next to mine...."

I am so glad you pointed this out because I now recall a handful of times I thought I felt this when I was still in my early teens but compared to the overall number of times I had a night terror it was minimal. I never did see anything like what some people report but at the time I felt it was because my assailants had gone and it was too late or I thwarted "their" attempts and awoke out of my spell so they split.
 
I've had plenty dreams that end with me falling a fair height. Obviously I either wake or the dream ends as I impact. Don't think for me it has ever been with sleep paralysis. I do get dreams with me flying quite often and I just love those ones. Funny thing is, usually each new flying dream I get involves a different method of getting airborne. I don't mean propulsion per se, only the initial thing that allows me to launch skyward. Once airborne I think I always am flying just with my body and no aid to speak of. The various methods of launch are usually really abstract and weird and I can only remember a couple although I am positive there are many more.

For example, one launch method involved me holding at arms length a kind of short curtain rail, the kind that had strings of beads hanging down, you know the kind that would often separate the public and private areas of a corner store or something. Anyway, I would have to hold this rail with the beads in front of me, holding the rail by one end so that the strings of beads made a kind of doorway. I would have to leap through the beads and up and away, having let go of the rail just as I did so. Because the rail obviously falls down, getting the timing was hard as it had to be spot on. So, even in the dream, there would be failed attempts mixed with successful ones. Often, something else pressing would be happening and I would be frantically trying to get the launch procedure correct so I could take off!

(Anyone here interpret dreams cos I reckon there is goldmine of personal issues in this one! lol):confused:
 
those happen to me as well but in the context of these abduction type feelings my movement was more horizontal, like I was shot out of a torpedo tube or otherwise being transported and there was no dream associated with it. I remember in fact there was little in the way of visual input i don't otherwise remember any details per say, but i could hear whispers and murmurs and i had a feeling of helplessness but not necessarily fear.

once...and I think this happened after I conquered this affliction...I had the distinct memory of being put in an upright position from a prone position on a table and with God as my witness there was a female voice saying "he's waking up" when I did awake my toes were curled into the edge of the bed frame like I was trying to grip it, think of a bird perching on a branch. I had to uncurl them with my hand.

I seem to remember some of dreams where I was uncontrollablly flying...for lack of a better word...rising toward ceiling and stopping at the ceiling. usually I awoke immediately and found my face almost pressed upon against the wall (my bed is up against the wall)
 
spookymulder said:
I seem to remember some of dreams where I was uncontrollablly flying...for lack of a better word...rising toward ceiling and stopping at the ceiling. usually I awoke immiedately and found my face almost pressed upon against the wall (my bed is up against the wall)
Click to expand...

Ok, that's pretty funny. In all my dreams where i'm flying i suddenly become lucid, am able to control the dream and then get so excited about flying and being lucid tha I wake up.

I like the torpedo analogy as that's exactly how I felt.

What's interesting about the dream space is the time dilation effect. In a second or two of real time, where your face is pressed against the wall, whole amazing journeys of personal flight across continents could have transpired in the dream time. I sincerely believe that much of the abduction phenomenon comes from the dream space and our altered perceptions of reality when we are inbetween various levels of consciousness.
 
Goggs Mackay said:
(Anyone here interpret dreams cos I reckon there is goldmine of personal issues in this one! lol):confused:
Click to expand...

The best science I've read about dreaming is that its primary function is to help us with skill acquisition and gaining new knowledge. Experiments with 24 hour amnesiacs helped to develop this theory. Most of our dreams are abouth the brain sifting through the memory bank of lived experiences to see if it can help you with the primary concerns of the day i.e. working hard to learn something new or trying to solve a personal dilemma or problem - hence the random weirdness of that space. It doesn't always make sense b/c the random access remote control unit is busy sending back info in imagery that it is only guessing at might be of some assistance. The scriptwriting for our dreams seems like it's being made up as we go along - except in the lucid moments. I would love to know what the mechanism is that calls up our image experience history to paint our dreams with.
 
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