Have You Ever Suffered From Sleep Paralysis?

Mua'dib

Mua'dib

Self-Banned
Sep 19, 2013
1,047
192
1,270
Because -while I have suffered some episodes in the past- I've never experienced something nearly as scary as described in this video made by a team of pshychiatrists:



My wife says she once saw an old man floating right next to her bed when she was little. Damn,all the nightmare like SP episodes always seem to be about a dark presence coming to harass you.That is some stright up scary sh1t...
 
Experienced these episodes three times. It's no fun at all. The first two times I had visions of green aliens surrounding my bed and speaking in a robotic voice. The third time, I was sleeping during the day on the couch and was only aware of my surroundings and my brother cooking in the kitchen, I was paralyzed and in my mind I was screaming for my brother to wake me up. It only lasted for like a minute at most. It's pretty scary.
 
Yeah, it's happened to me literally thousands of times starting from the age of 5 or so. It usually happens most often while sleeping on your back from my own experiences and from what I've read. I can't sleep in any position other than face down now since that's usually the only way I'm able to even fall asleep. I used to have dozens of my experiences posted on a personal blog about all the insanity I've endured because of it.

One of my worst and most reoccurring episode involves some alien-like creature that would stand in the doorway of my room and speak to me telepathically in reverse speech, all while causing an insane pain in my head that was so bad that it seems like I would pass out from the pain most of the times. Some of the times I was finally able to get out of bed and chase it out of the room. It was that disturbing that I could still see it after I was able to move again. I'd usually sit in a chair with the light on for several minutes until I'd completely snap out of it.

This has been happening for around 25 years or so. It rarely happens now that my mind and body have been trained to always sleep face down, but I still often have hallucinations every few nights.
 
It only happened to me once.. Happened a year ago, I woke up and a black shadow with a top hat was standing up and leaning over me.. Staring down at me.. I couldn't move or talk at all.. When it walked away I could finally move. Creepy s***.. Was hard to tell if it was a dream or what. But it seemed pretty real cause I could remember it vividly
 
Yeah. One morning I woke up in my room and my door opened, and a black figure just stood there, staring at me. It felt so real and and I couldn't move or cry out and my sound machine was flipping out. Then I finally snapped of it, my sound machine returned to normal, and it was gone.

Strange thing that creeped me out was my door remained open. I never opened it, and nobody else could have.
 
Damn, I was not alone. It happen to me (I think a dozen times since young) mostly when Ihave too much thoughts before I sleep.

Often there is some 'ghost' around like that seem to make me paralyse. Why is it so that Sleep pralyse often associated with some mystery figures?

Anyone knows.
 
I was up late the other night and watched this movie supposedly based on true events called "Shadow People" - you may want to avoid it...unless you WANT TO DIE! (you gotta see it to get the joke) o_O
 
I've had dreams where I couldn't wake up even though I knew I was dreaming.

I used to have lucid dreams all the time which were amazing.

Never really experienced this though. Oh actually, once as a kid I saw the Chewit monster stood by my bedroom door whilst I was fully awake. I was petrified but couldn't get up to turn the light on. Looking back, maybe that was sleep paralysis as I've never had an explanation for it before.
 
One time aliens abducted me and tried to make me believe it was just sleep paralysis, but I know better. They can't fool me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TeKPhaN
AM I the only one who never manage to actually eat in a dream. Sometimes, I will dream of going to a restaurant or some cafe for some food that I craved. Either some event happened or I woke up resulting in not being able to eat

Also do people have Pee dream if you know what I mean. When there is a need to pee (in real live), sometimes I will dream of gping for a pee. But for some reason, I never managed to pee, cause some perv was looking at me, or after I supposedly pee, but feel like peeing again. Something a long these lines.

After a while, I would woke up, & realize I need a pee (real life), & go to the toilet.
 
starseeker said:
AM I the only one who never manage to actually eat in a dream. Sometimes, I will dream of going to a restaurant or some cafe for some food that I craved. Either some event happened or I woke up resulting in not being able to eat

Also do people have Pee dream if you know what I mean. When there is a need to pee (in real live), sometimes I will dream of gping for a pee. But for some reason, I never managed to pee, cause some perv was looking at me, or after I supposedly pee, but feel like peeing again. Something a long these lines.

After a while, I would woke up, & realize I need a pee (real life), & go to the toilet.
Click to expand...
I've had dreams where I actually eat a lot, and when I wake up I swear I'm full.
 
Some funny thing that happen when I dream

I have inception moment before, in fact just recent. I woke up from a dream, & met this friend I dreamed, I told him I dream of him, not realizing it was also a dream.

I will instinctively gain conscious when I was about to fell over the bed.

I dreamt of Emma Watson. Last thing I remember was I was in her room...then I woke up...%/%/%/%@

When I was small, my grandma died one day suddenly at home. That night I dreamt she was alive & talking to us.

I dreamt of snowing, then I realised my window was not closed
 
InvisiTuck


Edit: When I was a kid I definitely had more dreams, nightmares/terrors than I do now. I rarely remember them now. That said, I do have sleep paralysis once in a while and it's so strange. Just laying there on the couch or whatever and you can see everything happening around you but can't move or speak. The most vivid I remember as a kid, my bedroom was at the end of a hall, and I remember waking and seeing a black shadow figure.

Edit: I remembered something that happened more recently. I woke up with a sensation on my left thigh. I looked at my phone and I had received a text message. I keep my phone in my left pocket so while sleeping, I must have heard the vibration and then felt it. Weird as hell.


As for InvisiTuck he definitely knows a lot on the subject. It's been a while but I've had some lengthy conversations with him over Live about lucid dreaming, etc.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Z A C K
I regularly dream about needing a piss when I need a piss. Don't think that's in any way out of the ordinary.

I often dream about being in a cake shop but not being able to eat when I go to bed hungry.

Best is lucid dreams. I read a book by a Mexican Indian about it when I was student. I used to have them all the time. The realisation that you're dreaming is exhilarating but takes a leap of faith (e.g. to punch some dude in the face when it feels real is weird, but confirms the dream state). Then its awesome. Just difficult not to wake up when you know you're dreaming and you really don't want to wake up.

I'm sure we've had decent threads on lucid dreams in the past. The problem is, I never have them any more. I think certain substances common to students may have helped at the time. I've never managed to self induce a lucid dream, it's always just been a realisation mid dream that a certain situation can't be real e.g. I can't be wearing that shirt because I know it's in the wash, this can't be real, I must be dreaming etc.
 
I used to lucid dream on a regular basis when I worked 3rd shift. Lucid dreaming is amazing because you can control your dream the second you realize youre just dreaming, its hard not to wake up at that moment though. I dont think I have experienced sleep paralysis on the level some of you have. Ive been scared by a dream and have been unable to move or speek, but Ive always waken up knowing it was just a dream.
 
  • Like
Reactions: morfeeis
during rem your large muscles are in a sense paralyze, most of the time when you are unable to shift from rem to wakefulness you become stuck so to speak. your mind is awake but your body is still stuck in rem sleep and therefor you feel as though you can move.

it has happened to me a few times, it's freak you out.

I had a professor who taught us how to enter a lucid state and i could only do it once or twice, after that i had a panic attack every time i tried, sucks cause it was awesome.

Sleep is a basic requirement of life and an important indicator of health. Not
surprisingly, the relation between sleep and psychopathology appears to be quite
complex. Certain problematic symptoms are known to impede sleep (e.g., chronic
worry and depressive ruminations), whereas others occur in the context of sleep (e.g.,
sleep terrors, nocturnal panic attacks, and sleep paralysis). The focus of this article is
on sleep paralysis (SP), a potentially frightening experience that can occur during the
onset of sleep or upon awakening.
Sleep paralysis is characterized by a period of time during which voluntary muscle
movement is inhibited, yet ocular and respiratory movements are intact and the
senses remain relatively clear (American Academy of Sleep Medicine [AASM],
2005). When SP occurs in otherwise healthy individuals, it is termed isolated sleep
paralysis(ISP). In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth
Edition Revised (DSM-IV-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000), ISP is
classified as a parasomnia not otherwise specified. Through the use of sleep studies,
inroads have been made towards understanding some of the origins of SP and ISP.
These conditions have been associated with rapid eye movement (REM) activity and
are often considered to result from a perseveration of aspects of REM sleep into
sleep transitions (AASM, 2005).
Prevalence Rates
A review of the SP and ISP literature indicates these episodes are not uncommon,
but their prevalence rates are quite variable across studies. For instance, the lifetime
prevalence rate in nonclinical samples ranges from 2.2% (Ohayon & Shapiro, 2000)
to 39.6% (Kotorii et al., 2001), and in clinical samples ranges from 7.4% (Ohayon &
Shapiro, 2000) to 50.0% (Bell, Hildreth, Jenkins, & Carter, 198:cool:. Given the wide
range of SP assessment methods (i.e., various self-report instruments and structured
interviews), differing definitions of sleep paralysis, and different levels of reported
detail, it is perhaps not surprising that the interstudy variability is so pronounced.
Further, differentiation between SP and ISP is obscured by the fact that individuals
with other conditions (especially narcolepsy, seizure disorder) were often not
documented and/or excluded from the samples, a factor making diagnosis of ISP
impossible. Few systematic demographic correlates have been found, yet some
evidence exists that persons of African descent may experience higher rates of SP
than those of European descent (e.g., Paradis, Friedman, & Hatch, 1997).
Associated Features
Sleep paralysis and isolated sleep paralysis episodes are often accompanied by
hallucinations that can be extremely vivid and sometimes disturbing. Cheyne,
Rueffer, and Newby-Clark (1999) found that these hallucinations reliably cluster
into three main categories: intruder, incubus (nocturnally assaulting demon), and
vestibular–motor. These categories are consistent with known aspects of low-level
neural mechanisms found in REM neurophysiology. For instance, the first two
categories are consistent with threat-activated vigilance systems that typically
involve the amygdala, and the third appears to be associated with REM stages that
Fearful Isolated Sleep Paralysis 1293
Journal of Clinical Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jclp
Click to expand...

added a snip from a paper fro anyone who cares to read more let me know i can get the full pdf.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: BraddersTheDog
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back