Sleep paralysis

[PaulMacC]

Anyone else experienced this before. My mind was like awake but my body was asleep. Couldn't move or open my eyes for about a minute. So scary. I thought I died lol

Thread moved by Nicola (Forum Super Moderator) from 'Discuss Anything'.

[Catzsy]

Anyone else experienced this before. My mind was like awake but my body was asleep. Couldn't move or open my eyes for about a minute. So scary. I thought I died lol

Yes I used to have that when I was younger. It is absolutely terrifying. Best just to try to relax and know that it will come okay.

[buttons]

never heard of it
why does it happen?

[PaulMacC]

No idea but it was so scary, I almost started crying when I woke up. I thought I died :(

[AlexOC]

Omg, that sounds so scary. I've never had it like that, i had this thing once, where when i woke up, i couldn't open my eyes, i was really scared, i had to stumble to my parents room. After like 2 minutes i could open them, but they really hurt.

[flatface]

Yes this happened to me whilst I was younger, very scary but after like a min it wore off

[lorren]

WOAH sounds scary;/

[Catzsy]

Well I am not sure if they know why it happens but it can be brought on by fatigue and stress. I haven't had it for awhile and you may not have it again, Paul but I know how scary it is. Luckily it is not dangerous and does pass. If you are worried check with the doctor.

[Muct]

I had this just the other week, actually, it isn't scary, but I felt like screaming my head off. Thought a ghost was attacking me, reading up on it etc..
I just woke up in a room with no lights on, couldn't blink, couldn't scream, God, felt like I was in fluffing Saw!

[Catzsy]

I had this just the other week, actually, it isn't scary, but I felt like screaming my head off. Thought a ghost was attacking me, reading up on it etc..
I just woke up in a room with no lights on, couldn't blink, couldn't scream, God, felt like I was in fluffing Saw!

Well maybe not scary for you but when you have it the first time just out of the blue it is.

[Stryderman]

Is this what happens when people "claim" a ghost or spirit is holding them down their chest so they cant move?

[Catzsy]

Is this what happens when people "claim" a ghost or spirit is holding them down their chest so they cant move?

Could be and I swear although it's probably just an hallucination that you see yourself from the top of the room.

[Muct]

It was the first time that happened to me, it wasn't scary, I probably thought I was still asleep LOL... It was like having Pins & Needles all over your body, and you can't even move.

[Special]

wow sounds really weird. almost like you're in a coma or paralised lol

[Muct]

It's like a sumo is sat on you.

Trust me.

[Catzsy]

wow sounds really weird. almost like you're in a coma or paralised lol

That is exactly how it feels. The brain is awake and nothing else.

[jackass]

I used to have that when I was younger. It was horrible. :'(

[wixard]

YES THIS HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE

i was staying at my mates house, sleeping over we were like 15 and i woke up and i couldn't move but i was awake and could hear the tv and stuff and i thought i was paralysed and i was like oh god whats gonna happen to me then finally my toes could move and then i jumped up and when i told her she hates to stay over or have me stay over :( shes like
oh god don't do your freaky paralyse **** in my house

and ever since every couple of months when i wake and it happens i know to just wait 30 seconds or so and it's normal but
someday i'm gonna wake up and it wont go away....

[Muct]

I would have taken advantage of you ^^^^

[lPinoy]

i have this frequently, its creepy but it wears off over time

[Bun]

im scared of going to sleep now *** got an exam tomorrow as well cheers guys

[Becca]

I've had something like that, when you're mind is in a dream, but your body isn't? Like if I'm running in my dream, my legs will randomly start moving in a running way. Or if I'm crying in my dream, I'll wake up in tears.

[Muct]

No, other way round I think... Body is asleep so you can't move, but brain is awake? :S I have no idea.
I've had dreams where I'm tripped up and I fall, and suddenly I wake up and whack my legs against the wall... Umm..
Or when you have dreams you're falling and you wake up and fall.
Apparently it's from when we were CHIMPSSSS and we used fall out of trees? Dunno.

[wixard]

I would have taken advantage of you ^^^^

it's alright anybody would jump at that opportunity

[Muct]

Don't worry mate, Bob Marleys on 2 week vacation. :)

[Circadia]

My brother had it once and he woke up screaming i was really scared i was like :O whats happened my mum told me to stay in my room i was like :( but i was so jealous he got a day of school ;l

[PaulMacC]

Hope it doesnt happen tonight :(

[Muct]

Don't let the bed bugs bite... x

[Black_Apalachi]

OK this is my new worst fear

[PaulMacC]

It is pretty scary, I honestly thought I died. When I opened my eyes I was like UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, THANK GOD.

[Abbie.]

yes! im trying despritely to wake up, but my body wont.. its weird.

i also dont know if this is the same thing, but sometimes i have nightmares, and i know im only dreaming, and im trying to wake up, but my mind wont let me wake up

[Chris]

Yeah, i had it when i was younger and it was scary but as time went on it stopped.

[eddiekins]

I heard from someone that it's a phsyiological thing; it's a bit like being in a coma, only you can come out of it.
Does it happen for extended amounts of time? Or, if not, does it happen fairly frequently (i.e. a couple of times per week)?

[Muct]

It happens years apart for me! Totally different, sometimes could be months apart, sometimes years, and extended amounts of time? Don't know what you meen, but mine lasted for about 3 minutes on the first one, (Approx obv, I dont have a stopwatch) and my latest one was a lot longer with like 9 minutes, I was bored ******** :/

[drama]

tried to self induce it the other day as apparently it's like lucid dreaming, but i got scared so stopped lool

[Muct]

i wanna know, when you have this stuff, are you more asleep or more awake? :D -new wonder of the world! :O

[Nemo]

well the other day, id woken up, but in my dream i was being chased by a massive bee (it was a long and strange dream, anyway), and when i woke up my hand was numb, but it was on my face. So being the sleepy person that i am i'm thinking the bee is real and is touching my face (since i couldn't feel me touching my face on my hand, but could feel it on my face), so here i am freaking out on my bed until i realise wth is going on.

I guess thats kinda of sleep paralysis mixed with a dream.

[Muct]

^^^Hmmmmm.... Matches a bit more into Pins & Needles!
:D

[dbgtz]

I had it so I couldn't move and couldn't breathe, awful and I thought I was suffocating. Maybe that's what cot death is.

[Nicola]

I've never had that I don't think but I can imagine that it's quite terrifying.

[ben]

If this happens you can still dream and see it infront of you

[Wig44.]

Sleep has several phases and is cyclical, and I'm sure this occurs when the there is a miscommunication in the neurotransmitters in the brain (e.g messing up phases, or something like that). It's hereditary so your parents might be able to help if they had it themselves. Also, nothing to worry about.

[.iNova.]

REM sleep is facinating. I personally find it quite interesting. On several occasions, while attempting to induce a lucid dream ( will explain later in the post ), come into sleep paralysis. If you do find yourself unable to move, open your eyes, feel anything etc, then the only way to get out of this paralysis is to go back to sleep. You will not wake up unless you fade back to sleep, then wake up again. It is scary the first time you have one, but seeing as I knew I might go into one while lucid dreaming, it's not as frightening. Lucid dreaming is a very, very exiting and extemley usefull tool. I picked up the ability when I was around seven, because I was having regular, and pretty darn scary, nightmares. Through simple actions, like turning on lights, looking at a clock twice ( seeing if the time changed ) and looking at your hands ( my best way be counting my fingers, I usually have sixteen ), I can work out I am dreaming. Aslong as I don't get too exited ( this will wake you up ), I am in total control of my dream. Big scary dinosaurs, no problem, I know its a dream. "Turn around, and woah, theres that AK47 I allways wanted. Lets fly up to that roof over there and kill something." Flying is actually quite hard to do, seems really hard at first, and I woke up the first few times. But yeh, lucid dreaming is incredibly fun and useful when you are having a nightmare, I suggest people look up on the benifits of it. It's really easy, just before you go to bed think about if your dreaming, and that will carry on after you have fallen asleep.
Another REALLY frightening thing iv'e had only once, instead of sleep paralysis is an out of body experience. This **** really messes you up. You see your body lying below, like you are sprawled on your ceiling, you can see all around your room from a birds eye view. I have no clue how this happens, but it god damn works. I actually found a PS2 game I was looking for, hell idk how it works! Anyway, this posts getting a bit long now, so i'm gonna leave you to read it.

[Swastika]

REM sleep is facinating. I personally find it quite interesting. On several occasions, while attempting to induce a lucid dream ( will explain later in the post ), come into sleep paralysis. If you do find yourself unable to move, open your eyes, feel anything etc, then the only way to get out of this paralysis is to go back to sleep. You will not wake up unless you fade back to sleep, then wake up again. It is scary the first time you have one, but seeing as I knew I might go into one while lucid dreaming, it's not as frightening. Lucid dreaming is a very, very exiting and extemley usefull tool. I picked up the ability when I was around seven, because I was having regular, and pretty darn scary, nightmares. Through simple actions, like turning on lights, looking at a clock twice ( seeing if the time changed ) and looking at your hands ( my best way be counting my fingers, I usually have sixteen ), I can work out I am dreaming. Aslong as I don't get too exited ( this will wake you up ), I am in total control of my dream. Big scary dinosaurs, no problem, I know its a dream. "Turn around, and woah, theres that AK47 I allways wanted. Lets fly up to that roof over there and kill something." Flying is actually quite hard to do, seems really hard at first, and I woke up the first few times. But yeh, lucid dreaming is incredibly fun and useful when you are having a nightmare, I suggest people look up on the benifits of it. It's really easy, just before you go to bed think about if your dreaming, and that will carry on after you have fallen asleep.
Another REALLY frightening thing iv'e had only once, instead of sleep paralysis is an out of body experience. This **** really messes you up. You see your body lying below, like you are sprawled on your ceiling, you can see all around your room from a birds eye view. I have no clue how this happens, but it god damn works. I actually found a PS2 game I was looking for, hell idk how it works! Anyway, this posts getting a bit long now, so i'm gonna leave you to read it.
I don't believe a word of that.
Edit - Actually i've just done a quick google on all that and it sounds absolutely amazing.
I wish i could do those things.

[Wig44.]

REM sleep is facinating. I personally find it quite interesting. On several occasions, while attempting to induce a lucid dream ( will explain later in the post ), come into sleep paralysis. If you do find yourself unable to move, open your eyes, feel anything etc, then the only way to get out of this paralysis is to go back to sleep. You will not wake up unless you fade back to sleep, then wake up again. It is scary the first time you have one, but seeing as I knew I might go into one while lucid dreaming, it's not as frightening. Lucid dreaming is a very, very exiting and extemley usefull tool. I picked up the ability when I was around seven, because I was having regular, and pretty darn scary, nightmares. Through simple actions, like turning on lights, looking at a clock twice ( seeing if the time changed ) and looking at your hands ( my best way be counting my fingers, I usually have sixteen ), I can work out I am dreaming. Aslong as I don't get too exited ( this will wake you up ), I am in total control of my dream. Big scary dinosaurs, no problem, I know its a dream. "Turn around, and woah, theres that AK47 I allways wanted. Lets fly up to that roof over there and kill something." Flying is actually quite hard to do, seems really hard at first, and I woke up the first few times. But yeh, lucid dreaming is incredibly fun and useful when you are having a nightmare, I suggest people look up on the benifits of it. It's really easy, just before you go to bed think about if your dreaming, and that will carry on after you have fallen asleep.
Another REALLY frightening thing iv'e had only once, instead of sleep paralysis is an out of body experience. This **** really messes you up. You see your body lying below, like you are sprawled on your ceiling, you can see all around your room from a birds eye view. I have no clue how this happens, but it god damn works. I actually found a PS2 game I was looking for, hell idk how it works! Anyway, this posts getting a bit long now, so i'm gonna leave you to read it.

I can't remember the details but I used to put the radio on static, have either no light or very dim grey light on and close my eyes. After 10 minutes or so you lapse into the most surreal dreams ever - like hallucinations. I've rarely been in control though, that might be useful ot find out about! I've had plenty of out of body experiences, I've got memories of occassions I know have happened when I'm younger (pics, asking parents) and the memory is me watching over the event. Pretty neat.

[Shar]

It's happened to me four times so far, it's really scary. You're mind is like totally alert but your body is like paralysed, you can't move at all and you're asleep :S

[Swastika]

I've just been talking to my mam about this while we were eating tea, she said she's had sleep paralysis when she's been stressed before.
I wanna experience this stuff haha.

[Shar]

I've just been talking to my mam about this while we were eating tea, she said she's had sleep paralysis when she's been stressed before.
I wanna experience this stuff haha.
Kinda weird that you want to experience it ;p
It's really not that pleasant, trust me lol

[chantellehugs]

It's a relief to know that other people have it too. My mum made me go to the doctor's about it and I've had some blood tests so they can hopefully make it stop, it's really frequent and when it happens to me it happens for the whole night. So I end up being really tired and I can't help closing my eyes and then it happens again and again.
It happened on saturday as well, I was just thinking while I was in bed, with my eyes closed, only when it came to getting up I couldn't move, and I was thinking how could it happen without me even noticing.

[Petite$]

Read the first section :) (http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Third_Party_Graphic/2009/01/10/11brain2axx__1231575167_0544.jpg)

I tried this once but a different way and it was SO difficult. All the little things your body does like wanting to scratch an itch, even down to moving your eyes when they're shut is really hard not to do for so long. I tried really hard to do the whole lucid dreaming thing but unfortunately I got bored and went to sleep...

Funnily enough, a couple of days later my friend was telling me about it. She said that she couldn't move at all, she felt someone tapping her foot really hard and she was so freaked out. I'm glad I didn't get that now... although, I've heard you can fly in the dreams. How amazing would that feel?

[Naruto!]

I had this 2 nights ago, and I was actually so scared.. It lasted for like 45 seconds but it was probably one of the scariest things I have ever experienced. I sometimes get claustrophobic and it was really scaring me that I couldn't move anything :S

[Sarah]

wow.. sounds so scary hope it never happens to me.

[SinfulRegrets]

I always do this to get into lucid dreams lol

Lay on ur back and close ur eyes if u have the urge to move ur body or scratch ur nose etc.. dont..

after some time you should fall asleep then u will feel kinda lightweight at the feet like ur falling from the sky or something. then u will start to see shadows and shapes and odd things and when im about to go into a lucid dream i hear this buzzing sound and boom im in a lucid dream.

lucid dream = when you can control your dream... best thing ever :)

if you are in sleep paralysis best way to get out of it is to change ur breathing pattern, holding ur breath sometimes works aswell.

[Muct]

I always do this to get into lucid dreams lol

Lay on ur back and close ur eyes if u have the urge to move ur body or scratch ur nose etc.. dont..

after some time you should fall asleep then u will feel kinda lightweight at the feet like ur falling from the sky or something. then u will start to see shadows and shapes and odd things and when im about to go into a lucid dream i hear this buzzing sound and boom im in a lucid dream.

lucid dream = when you can control your dream... best thing ever :)

if you are in sleep paralysis best way to get out of it is to change ur breathing pattern, holding ur breath sometimes works aswell.
When I'm in sleep paralysis I couldn't breath properly, nevermind changing the patterns! I had to use up literally all of my strenght to get a little breath in...
And I'll try the lucid thing tonight... Do you close your eyes or keep them open?

[paramoreriot]

Sometimes this is explained as astroprojection.

[Nikki]

It's never happened to me, sounds horrible.
This might be completely not related, but sometimes while I'm asleep, in my dreams I fall or something, then my body shakes like I've fallen.
Anyone else had this?

[Muct]

It's never happened to me, sounds horrible.
This might be completely not related, but sometimes while I'm asleep, in my dreams I fall or something, then my body shakes like I've fallen.
Anyone else had this?

Yep... there are many ideas of why this happens...
But I can only think of 2 so far...
First one is:
1. You have these dreams when your lives are difficult and you feel like just letting go and dieing, hence why you usually fall from high places etc...
2. From when we were apes or whatever, we used to fall out of the trees whilst sleeping, it could have been memories of ancestors.

[Muct]

Ksoz about bumping this but I had this last night, but I think somehow I did it deliberately...
I read up to lucid dream all you really have to do is lie on your back in bed and think of what you wanna dream out... I dreamed about the massive car journey I had the other week and I fell asleep quite quickly... I could walk, it felt as though I could, I even touched the side of the motorway and I could feel it, it was like real life, I just thought of all cars dissapearing then and they did... :S (I did it as a test)
Then I thought about a car coming to pick me up, only a massive truck started coming towards me from the distance and I thought it was going to run me over lolol... (I knew I could control it but yeah, I wasn't thinking straight)

So I was like 'WAKE UP' and it was like I could control both worlds, I kept on having these glimpses of me in real life and then turning back to the dream, so I tried turning my head to wake up, and it was like there were 70 mph winds rushing around my face, it was so hard to turn it it was like my head was being blown off, and then I wake up... Sleep Paralysis :/ I couldn't move at all, only my eyelids and even then I couldn't fully shut them, I put all my force in it and it was like moving an arm with all bones broken in it, impossible... I just waited and like 5 minutes later my arms just flopped out onto the bed, and I came out of it, I was breathing like so heavily... Was scary at the time but afterwards I was like 'So exciting!'

I'll try doing the lucid thing again, this time not crapping myself with a lorry coming at me lolol.

[Hitman]

Interesting stuff. The mind is truly amazing. Everything is to do with the mind, everything. Hypnosis is very interesting to get into as well...

About this though, I've never had it. I would want to experience it once to see what it is like, providing it is only for 1 minute or so. I want to try that lucid dream thing... I have had dreams where things seem very real, for example people's voice, faces, actions etc. are all so like how they'd act...

Interesting.