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Sleeping Paralysis

Ryokan

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Ryokan
Joined
Nov 17, 2004
Messages
10,862
Location
Norway
Last friday I experienced something I had never experienced before.

While sleeping, I suddenly became awake and found I couldn't move my arms or legs no matter how hard I tried. Then I felt someone crawling on top of me, starting with my legs and crawling upwards towards my head. I tried to scream, but couldn't utter a sound. It was so frightening and frustrating you wouldn't believe it. Then, after a short while, the paralysis ended. Slowly, I regained motion of my arms, legs and the rest of my body. I turned on the light, looked around.... and found exactly nothing! (Well, except for a confused cat sleeping at the foot of my bed.)

So I turned off the lights and went (reluctantly) back to sleep.

Later that night, it happened again!

I have never experienced anything remotely like this before. Has anyone else?

My anus was quite allright the day after, so I know it wasn't aliens. I'm already a heathen, so it was most likely not a demon.

Anyone want to speculate what visited me that night? :p
 
Oh, I forgot to mention. I'm not 100% sure it really happened, more like 95%. It could've been a dream.

Circulation? Blood circulation?

My theory is sleep deprivation, I hadn't slept much that week.
 
Are you sure your cat wasn't stealing your breath? Aren't they known to do that? :c1:
 
Darat said:
Ryokan - you have my sympathy - I've suffered from it all my life. It is absolutely bloody terrifying isn't it?! Makes you realise how easy it would be to believe in evil spirits doesn't it?

A site that is a good overview and has some good links: http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/paralysis.html
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Terrifying? I'll admit I've never been more frightened in my life.

Wow, what that site describes is exactly what I experienced! It seems I experienced the 'Hag Phenomena'.

But yes, the first thing I thought when I realised it wasn't real was, 'wow, if I had been the least bit woo, I would've believed it was aliens, demons, ghosts or something like that.'
 
My wife has the opposite problem: sometimes her brain doesn't shut down the connection to her body after she falls asleep. She talks, walks, does things around the house, and even tries to hold conversations while effectively asleep. She's called people on the phone, written e-mails and journal entries, and even admonished me to do things like put the teakupple in the left hand kitchen. Also, when this connection isn't shut down properly, people like her get "restless leg syndrome" which is the creepy crawly feeling going just up the legs. Constantly. For hours.

She's also had episodes of Hypnagogic hallucinations associated with sleep paralysis, seeing her niece who came in to wake her from a nap as a Chupacabra. No, she realized it was an hallucination afterward, but it gave her a start.
 
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I've experienced sleep paralysis before, it's the absolute worst. Your mind borders on the subconcious so you're not fully awake, and you hallucinate the worst things.

My experience involved being completely unable to move and having a demonic entity screaming in my face. The moment I awoke it went away, and I regained movement.

While during the experience I thought I was going to lose my mind, when I awoke I understood what had happened.

I can only imagine what someone with a less critical mind concerning these things would conclude, and how it would affect their life.
 
bagtaggar said:
While during the experience I thought I was going to lose my mind, when I awoke I understood what had happened.
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Yeah, ditto. Once I realised it wasn't real, I got back to sleep again. It happened again later the same night, and I was equally terrified. But, once over, I had no problems going back to sleep.

I googled "sleeping paralysis" but most of the sites it found was either junk or woo. That says something, I guess.
 
Count me as another who's experienced it. First time at about 16

Except I thought I woke up thinking I had screamed. It got worse, since I thought I screamed, I was expecting someone to come help, which never came.
 
It's happened to me once. No hallucinations, just the weird feeling of trying to move but not being able to. It was incredibly scary

In Carl Sagans "The Demon Haunted World", he devotes several chapters to sleep paralysis and how it relates to reports of alien abductions, demonic possessions, etc. It's quite fascinating.
 
Ryokan - take comfort from the fact that you are not alone in your suffering! I seem to recall that around 30% of people suffer from sleep paralysis at one tme or another. I've had several episodes, and I agree - the first time is terrifying. Tends to happen to me when I am overly tired, or stressed. The last time it happened, I had an "out-of-body" hallucination, which was quite the oddest thing I've ever experienced.
 
I'm pretty lucky--while I experience sleep paralysis fairly regularly, I've fortunately missed on the terror and shortness of breath. Instead I mostly feel somewhat aggravated--"Bugger! Not sleep paralysis AGAIN!" I do get the false wakings, though, and occasional very vivid episodes somewhere between dreams and hallucinations.

Anyway, you're definitely not alone in the thought that if you were the slightest bit woo, this would be pure alien/demon/whatever fodder. I don't believe any tale of the supernatural that happens in bed anymore, but I can't really blame people who experience it and turn to a supernatual explanation--if you don't know what sleep paralysis is, it's pretty freakin' bizarre.

If you find yourself stuck again, one thing I've found that sometimes breaks my paralysis is concentrating on needing to go to the bathroom. We're so well conditioned to get out of bed when nature calls that it seems to hit the mental override (although it could just be me!)
 
I have had night terror but fortunately they left me after I started taking Zoloft. I also now treat my sleep apnea which was causing me to recall dreams more frequently, and to frequently experience half awake dreaming.(I have only had one expisode in two months as opposed to twice a week, my favorite is when I asked my wife if she was annoyed because 'there is a two donut hornswogler in the corner'.)

It also points out that I think is call hypnogoia or something like it, most experience of ghosts , OOBEs and other wierd stuff happens when people are falling asleep or waking up.
 
Fengirl said:
The last time it happened, I had an "out-of-body" hallucination, which was quite the oddest thing I've ever experienced.
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I too have had a few of these episodes. I've woken up paralysed thinking I’m screaming in the corner of the room. I'm actually paralysed in bed with, invariably, a cold hand holding onto my arm! I'm totally aware of what’s going on and even enjoy it at first until I become paranoid and think I’ll be stuck this way for eternity.

A recent episode, like Fengirl, was an out of body experience. I floated up to just below the ceiling and hovered above my real body. A strange feeling where my sense of self position (usually in my head I think) became corrupted by 6 foot. This again was fascinating until the paranoia set in.

One more thing, It tends to happen to me if I'm having a kip when i don't normally sleep - eg Afternoon. (I said kip!)
 
UrsulaV said:
If you find yourself stuck again, one thing I've found that sometimes breaks my paralysis is concentrating on needing to go to the bathroom. We're so well conditioned to get out of bed when nature calls that it seems to hit the mental override (although it could just be me!)
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I experienced it again last night.

I've read lots of advice on what to do, like thinking about going to the toilet or remaining calm and concentrating on moving my arms.

But believe me, in the utter terror I felt, all I could think was 'OMG, I can't move and something is lying on top of me!' and 'OMG, I'm going to die!'

This time was much worse than last time. I have concluded that the second experience was a dream. It just didn't feel real, and it wasn't really scary, although it was exactly the same as the first one. Most likely, the experience made a profound impact on me, and my brain had to go through it in my dreams to try and make sense of it. In the first experience, last friday, it started out with panic when I found I couldn't move, and then gradually turned to terror as I felt something crawl slowly up my body.

In the second experience, the thing on top of me was already there when I woke up! It was total panic, utter terror, hopelesness and the feeling that I was going to die right away.

I'm glad that others here have experienced the same thing that I have, it's a great comfort. I don't think anyone who hasn't experienced this can understand what it is. The feeling og utter terror and impending death.

I sure hope this isn't going to become a common occurence in my life, I'm not sure I could handle it...
 
I had that a couple of times but only in one arm or a leg at a time. Once I woke up and both arms were paralysed. That freaked me out. I was lying on my back and couldn't do anything except from sit-ups maybe. (Didn't try)
Then one arm "woke up", so I switched the light on and wanted to inspect the other arm. I lifted it up, over my face to take a look at it and after I decided it didn't look strange in any way, I let go and it fell down and hit me in the face.
So, I was lying there, one arm still disfunctional and my nose bleeding. The good thing was I had to laugh so hard, I couldn't spend a thought on being worried anymore...

FR
 
Ryokan said:
I'm glad that others here have experienced the same thing that I have, it's a great comfort. I don't think anyone who hasn't experienced this can understand what it is. The feeling og utter terror and impending death.

I sure hope this isn't going to become a common occurence in my life, I'm not sure I could handle it...
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Still, you should see a doctor, just in case.
 
It happens to me almost weekly, though rarely with accompanying hallucinations. I have yet to find rhyme or reason to the timing. Sometimes my eyes are open, more frequently not. I am fortunate inthat as often as not I have my wits sufficiently about me to understand what is happening and thus avoid panic - although if something happens to be covering my head at the time I will absof*ckinglutely freak out.
 
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