Sleep Paralysis

[cegerer]

A couple of weeks ago I fell asleep watching TV. I kept drifting in and out of sleep. Suddenly, I heard someone walking thru the house. I was fully awake but completely paralyzed, only able to move my eyes!!!!!! This was the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced. It went on for quite some time. Then I think I fell back asleep.

I couldn't figure out the next morning if it was real or a dream. Then I found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

It's real! Apparently during REM sleep your body is temporarily paralyzed, except you're not supposed to wake up during this phase. Anybody else ever experience this?

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Happens to me fairly frequently. Stress is definitely a factor. Sometimes I'll wake up, be unable to move, have all kinds of horrifying auditory hallucinations, fall back to sleep, wake up again, be unable to move....etc. This will happen for 2-3 cycles.

Maybe happens once every 2 months or so.

I've found I can control my eyes and my rate of respiration. I've found that if I start breathing really loudly it'll wake up my wife, who then shakes me awake. As soon as I get some sensory input from her moving me I snap out of it.

Very freaky. Fortunately I read about this some time ago and found that it's basically nothing to be concerned about. Though it's scary as hell when it happens to you!

[Jack Olsen]

I've never had it happen, but I did some research on it for a script I wrote last summer.

Weird stuff.

[RANDY P]

happens to me now and then - try to run and your legs literally don't respond.

[id10t]

Yup, just found out that I've got apnea as well, and have for a LONG time. Apparently it is one of the big reasons I slept thru and nearly failed so many classes in high school/junior college. Gots me one of those cpap machines and it is *much* better now.

[Moses]

Originally posted by JackOlsen


Weird stuff.

I used to do this all the time. During my first two years of residency training, we worked 36 hours straight, then had 12 hours off, then 36 on again. This went on for two years without interruption. Basically, you tried to adjust to a pattern where you slept every other night. I developed every known sleep pathology including a few I have never heard of anywhere. The REM paralysis trick is flat-out scary. I'm glad that one is gone.

[cegerer]

In researching this, I also found that it is an explanation for people who claim to have been abducted by aliens while sleeping - the paralysis is often accompanied by hallucinations.

[ubiquity0]

Originally posted by cegerer
In researching this, I also found that it is an explanation for people who claim to have been abducted by aliens while sleeping - the paralysis is often accompanied by hallucinations.

I would agree w. that. I used to experience this when I was in College. Typically I would find myself awake lying flat on my back unable to move w/ a sensation of someone else in the room.

Interestingly, I found out this only happened when I went to sleep on my back. If I fell asleep lying on my side it would never happen.

[bryanthompson]

I remember that happening when I was very young, and I remember just lying there not knowing what was going on. I was totally paralyzed, but I thought it was the fear that made me unable to move.

Lately I've been experimenting with self-hypnosis, which is pretty wild. I get into this state where I can't feel my body at all, and I can't even tell where my arms/legs are, or if they're touching or overlapping. It's pretty cool. It's only sortof like that paralyzed thing in physical feeling. That's just scary.

[elwood-914]

Sometimes still happens, the time I really remember is the night I saw........aw crap you know the horror flick in the mid 70's, Linda Blair's head twisting around. I woke up during the night and could see the light from the hallway coming from under the crack of the door but I could feel someone in my room.......and I couldn't move or speak. Freaks me out everytime.

[Venetian]

I have also experienced the sensation of someone being in the room and being unable to move but it was all in a dream state ie I don"t think I was ever awake. If I"m reading the above correctly people are experiencing this while awake!! Now that would really be scary!!

Would it not be difficult to know whether one was dreaming or awake??

[RANDY P]

Your facilities and reasoning still work -

You open your eyes and notice things like the time on the clock, weather outside and (at least with me) you have this overwhelming feeling that something is dreadfully wrong. A few times, I've tried so hard to move my legs I've gotten cramps - and thats how I know it was real..

rjp

[Moses]

Originally posted by Venetian

Would it not be difficult to know whether one was dreaming or awake??

No. What we are talking about is being wide awake, but paralyzed. Your mind is racing. You may want to jump up, but you can't. You might want to scream, but you can't. Scary stuff. I don't think it ever lasted even a full minute for me. Half a minute was bad enough.

[Don 944 LA]

Alien Abduction !!!!
check yourself for signs of ( cough cough ) PROBE ..

narcolepsy & LSD kind of does the same thing

[tabs]

I had a dream a little over a year ago now....

I was standing at a railing looking over into a cement water runoff channel...telling jokes with the people around me. When somone asks who wants to be next...I volunteered to go...a woman stepped up and said, It's not your turn to go." All the others said, But he volunteered to go." So I said, "Ok I'll go." Where upon I jumped over the railing into the cement channel that had gravel on the bottom. At that moment I felt a bone chilling fear that I was sooo alone...all the people I was joking with no longer would even acknowledge me, and were starting to walk off. At that moment I was transported into a totally empty White Room...where sitting up against the wall was Mr. Chevy Chase....I felt such relief seeing him, that I was no longer alone...I said, "Your Mr Chevy Chase aren't you?" where upon he mumbled something and I woke up...

That was a dream about death.....

Many, Many years ago now..I had a dream that I was in a bar by an airport...that all these guys were making fun of a little old Chinese man....The old Chinese man asked me to carry him home as he was too frail to walk. I carried him home, where I asked him how old he was? He said he was 25000 years old. I said I don't think I'll ever get to be that old...He replied, "yes you will....."


I'll let U boyz figure out the Jungian Archtypal meaning on this one.... but let me say I tapped into something very old and powerfull in the human psyche with that one....

[Clowd]

Happened to me once.. I "woke up"(I think) to the loudest sound I have ever heard in my life.. it was like a nuclear bomb went off an inch from my head.. but I couldn't move, and I thought I was paralyzed, but I was able to move again after about 30 seconds..

[VINMAN]

Happens to me alot. scares the crap out of me! Also have alot of dreams that I'm trying to walk but could only drag my legs.
Anybody have dreams that thier teeth are falling out of thier mouth? I heard thats pretty common.

[ronin]

tabs, lay off the bad crabs at the buffets

[on-ramp]

i've also had dreams where my teeth were falling out.... does it mean something? perhaps time to visit the dentist for a check-up?

[red ufo]

If you guys want to believe its just nature occurance and the aliens theory is balony cool!

They are owning your butts left and right and your denial of bi-monthly alien ass rape only helps their perverted cause. If US humans could go to other planets and become the invisible man thru technology. We'd be butt raping people so often Abru Graih would be a training camp in comparison.