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Sleep Paralysis

Last of the Fraggles

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Nov 9, 2006
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Had an episode of this last night and forgot just how scary it can be.

Staying in a hotel room on a business trip and was having all sorts of weird dreams anyway but heard a noise in my room that woke me up and saw a shadowy figure moving around the room and walking down the side of the bed towards the bedside table. Tried to say something or move but couldn't....summoned up all my strength to shout 'Hey' and managed to get out a feeble 'Heuugh' but think this was enough for my brain to kick in and register this for what it was and came out of it to find nobody in the room and my heart beating ten to the dozen.

Not fun, but bloody interesting.
 
It happened to me once about 5 years ago, and I had a big poster of Bob Dylan in my room, so even when it was all over, Bob Dylan's scary ass was still staring at me. I let out a huge scream and woke up my roommate. Not fun. But kind of funny still.
 
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REM sleep is characterized by paralysis of the voluntary muscles, which keeps you from acting out your dreams. The paralysis of of REM sleep carries over to the waking state for up to 10 minutes. If preceded by an unpleasant dream or hypnagogic experience, this can be frightening. Sleep paralysis can also occur as you are falling asleep.

Yes i copied that out of my textbook but i figured that it would explain it better then i would. I would probably confuse everyone lol. My only question is why does it only happen to some people? I have never had it happen to me and a number of my friends, i just happen to look it up the other day when my co-worker was talking about her roomate experiencing sleep paralysis and she apparently gets it all the time.
 
My husband would wish I experience sleep paralysis. Whenever I am having a nightmare I suddenly sit upright in bed (to let the bushmen out of the mattress, through my pillow, of course) or jump away screaming from the truck thundering towards me.
How would that work, if I should have been paralysed on a moment like this?
 
Femke said:
My husband would wish I experience sleep paralysis. Whenever I am having a nightmare I suddenly sit upright in bed (to let the bushmen out of the mattress, through my pillow, of course) or jump away screaming from the truck thundering towards me.
How would that work, if I should have been paralysed on a moment like this?
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thats what i was wondering
 
steph said:
My only question is why does it only happen to some people? I have never had it happen to me and a number of my friends, i just happen to look it up the other day when my co-worker was talking about her roomate experiencing sleep paralysis and she apparently gets it all the time.
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I've only had it happen twice, both times when sleeping after being very sleep deprived and exhausted. I suspect that if you abused your sleep cycle the way I used to, you'd have a good chance of experiencing it also.
 
yeh, i can see how that would effect it. I mean if your so exhausted that you can't "snap" out of REM sleep. That could also explain why only certain people get it, exhaustion effects people differently. I'm currently going on 3 hours and this is a usual occurance for me, but I've never had sleep paralysis. Maybe others just need more established sleeping patterns
 
Last of the Fraggles said:
Had an episode of this last night and forgot just how scary it can be.

Staying in a hotel room on a business trip and was having all sorts of weird dreams anyway but heard a noise in my room that woke me up and saw a shadowy figure moving around the room and walking down the side of the bed towards the bedside table. Tried to say something or move but couldn't....summoned up all my strength to shout 'Hey' and managed to get out a feeble 'Heuugh' but think this was enough for my brain to kick in and register this for what it was and came out of it to find nobody in the room and my heart beating ten to the dozen.

Not fun, but bloody interesting.
Click to expand...

I'm going to play Devil's advocate and say that what you are experiencing is entities from a parallel dimensions, because a lot of people experiences the same thing you did so it must be Negative lower level shadow entities from a parallel dimension that's there to feed off your fear, what else could it be?
 
Femke said:
My husband would wish I experience sleep paralysis. Whenever I am having a nightmare I suddenly sit upright in bed (to let the bushmen out of the mattress, through my pillow, of course) or jump away screaming from the truck thundering towards me.
How would that work, if I should have been paralysed on a moment like this?
Click to expand...
Just as the paralysis can continue longer than it should, it can also terminate too soon. Hence sleep walking.

ETA: Looks like it's a bit more complicated than that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_walking

More recent research has discovered that sleepwalking is actually a disorder of NREM (non-rapid eye movement) arousal.[3] Acting out a dream is the basis for a REM (rapid eye movement) sleep disorder called REM Behavior Disorder (or REM Sleep Behavior Disorder, RSBD).[3]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REM_Behavior_Disorder

The major and arguably only abnormal feature of RBD is loss of muscle atonia (paralysis) during otherwise intact REM sleep. This is the stage of sleep in which most vivid dreaming occurs. The loss of motor inhibition leads to a wide spectrum of behavioral release during sleep. This extends from simple limb twitches to more complex integrated movement, in which sufferers appear to be unconsciously acting out their dreams. These behaviors can be violent in nature and in some cases will result in injury to either the patient or their bed partner.
Click to expand...
 
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My wife has episodes of it, fortunately only at times of high stress. The last time was after her mother died. She has "something" come over and sit on her, preventing her from moving. She understands what it is and is not bothered by it.

Frying Dutchman, entities from a parallel dimension? Please tell me you're joking.
 
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Back in my mid twenties I had them every couple of mornings after my girlfriend would leave early for work - I had them a LOT, like every 2 or so days. The experiences were truly terrifying and ranged from auditory hallucinations to full-blown demonic encounters. Sometimes I'd just hear giggling around the bed and hands grabbing at me, other times I'd have some sort of demonic creature on my chest or lurking in the room making all sorts of horrible sounds.

The two most memorable ones go like this:

I'm dreaming that I'm in bed with my girlfriend and we start making out. Her face changes and next thing I know she's turned into something like Gollum from LOTR and we start fighting. The fury and hatred I could feel was phenomenal - I can't remember how it ends, it just... ends.

The other one goes like this: I wake up to a being made entirely out of fire hovering above me - but it's holding me above the bed, screaming fire at me. To top that off there's this incredibly loud noise that at the time felt physically painful to me*

*Most of my "terrors" begin with this noise and I've heard of other people who have the same sound. It's like the ringing in my ears after a loud concert but it's unbearably loud and feels like a vice around my skull. These days I can usually shake it off at the onset of the noise and they go no further than that.

Knowing more about what they are now and avoiding sleeping on my back seems to prevent the terrors from occurring but I still get the occasional one which doesn't amount to much - I did wake my fiancee the other night whimpering during one though (in my head I was screeeaaaaaming!).
 
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I'm sorry to hear that Last of the Fraggles. I hope it doesn't bother you again.

I had one episode of sleep paralysis about 20 years ago. I was taking MDMA recreationally at the time, which subsequently I have discovered that it is associated with sleep paralysis. It was very scary. I woke up but was unable to move or open my eyes. I thought there were beings in the room. I thought I couldn't breathe. This lasted for several minutes (I think). Then I woke up. I'm glad I go in for clean living these days. :)

Sleep paralysis was mentioned on this thread about alien abductions the other day:

Medicine side effect that cause alien abductions
 
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Hi Pixel,

Thanks for the links, that made sense. No matter how strange the experience, someone else already had it and found an explanation.

Femke
 
I've had SP many times, sometimes as a precursor to or accompanied by intense, vivid, consciously aware Lucid Dreams. All the standard things happen; something terrifies me, I can't move, etc. But the ones with the lucid dreaming allow me to be aware of what's happening and fight my way out of it

My personal theory about the stuff is that different people have different degrees of unresolved emotional conflicts, either from childhood or traumatic events, and/or both.

For me the SP summoned those demons and the LD gave me the ability to fight and overcome them. Hence, the term that you often hear about people, "He slew his demons."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming
 
I studied about it when I majored in psych. I suffer from it from time to time and KNOWING what is it is cold comfort when one is experiencing it. It is friggin horrible.
 
I've had the alien abduction sleep paralysis episode myself. Not pleasant at all. Gotta stop watching so much sci-fi.
 
My first experience was the worst. I was 8, maybe 9 years-old, sleeping on the pull-out couch that was my bed at my dad's place. I woke up, laying on my stomach with bony hands holding down my shoulders and tiny knees in the small of my back. My face was half-way into the pillow, it was somewhat suffocating. The thing on my back was breathing close to my exposed ear, a raspy sound that sometimes was almost words. After what seemed like hours of this, I manged to pry one eye open. Just above the arm of the couch was a face on the wall that was grimacing and laughing. I freaked, fainted and woke up the next morning, still in the same position with stiff aching muscles.

Years later, I was sleeping and my husband-to-be crawled into bed with me and snugged against my back, throwing a heavy arm over me that was a bit uncomfortable, but it was so nice having him there. Until I realized through my dream state that he was in Chicago and that whatever was in bed with me wasn't him. I struggled to wake up, to move, to protect myself and there was a horrible space of time where I couldn't. Finally, I managed to snap out of it, rolled out of bed, hit the floor and woke up. There was no one there.
 
I have never had one nor do I dream much these days that I can remember when awake. Is there something wrong with me? Am I alive or am I dreaming now? Take the red pill.
 
I wonder why sleeping on your back is strongly associated with these experiences (at least according to sleep research). I get weird lucid dream sequences whenever I am on my back, but never in any other sleeping position.

I've never had any of these "demonic" or alien hypnopompic hallucinations, thank goodness, but have seen things like animals in my room for a fraction of a second coming out of sleep.
 
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