Sleep Paralysis?

[Lilraine]

Ok, well what about people (like me) who have experienced sleep paralysis, with the fear, and the noise, before ever coming near to a sleeping state of any kind?

My experiences have all been thus. After laying down, within mere seconds of closing my eyes, a sound like a distant roar.. or like a helicopter starts and gets louder and louder as tho it's landing on the roof of my house, and I can't move.. not a single muscle.. not even to open my eyes. The feeling that something is coming for me that I dont want to meet is ever present. With all of my will power I fight to open my eyes and it takes all of my might, and as soon as I manage to open my eyes the sound completely disappears. Then as soon as I close my eyes again, there's that helicopter like sound in the distance again. And I have found that the louder that sound has the less control I have over my body, so I open my eyes quickly before it gets louder and it stops again.

I've had whole nights go on like this.. sometimes several nights in a row. I'm sorry my friend, but this experience has nothing to do with being asleep.

Originally Posted by Uranium

It's normal. During REM sleep everyone is paralyzed. So if you wake up during REM, you may be paralyzed for a little bit.

[roylee1970]

Here you can laugh at me. This happens to me once every 2 or 3 years. We were in another state for work and staying in a motel. I had a dream some spiders were all over me and I could not move. Then it happened all at once I was screaming help in my sleep woke up could not move and my coworker was alreadfy out of bed coming over to help me. I still could not move he helped me up and I thanked him and sat there all embarrassed over it. I never knew it was a condition that happened to others though until now. Thanks for the thread.

[Daylight]

Last time I experienced this was back in December of 2008. I woke up screaming HELP since I was trying to say it in my sleep. I had a hard time falling back asleep after that fearing it would repeat again. I've been lucky ever since.

[VC132]

It's supposed to keep us from acting out our dreams. Odd, but it makes a lot of sense, haha.

[The Other]

Originally Posted by Lilraine

Ok, well what about people (like me) who have experienced sleep paralysis, with the fear, and the noise, before ever coming near to a sleeping state of any kind?

My experiences have all been thus. After laying down, within mere seconds of closing my eyes, a sound like a distant roar.. or like a helicopter starts and gets louder and louder as tho it's landing on the roof of my house, and I can't move.. not a single muscle.. not even to open my eyes. The feeling that something is coming for me that I dont want to meet is ever present. With all of my will power I fight to open my eyes and it takes all of my might, and as soon as I manage to open my eyes the sound completely disappears. Then as soon as I close my eyes again, there's that helicopter like sound in the distance again. And I have found that the louder that sound has the less control I have over my body, so I open my eyes quickly before it gets louder and it stops again.

I've had whole nights go on like this.. sometimes several nights in a row. I'm sorry my friend, but this experience has nothing to do with being asleep.

Wow, I've never heard of anything like that happening before falling asleep. That's really interesting. Have you ever asked anyone about it or tried to find out what it is exactly?

The most that happens to me, is sometimes during the moments right before I fall asleep, a loud noise will wake me up. It could be a clap of thunder, an alarm, a camera-snapshot sound. And it sounds completely real. But never when I'm 100% awake.

[LJC]

I have had this (SP) since I was a child and nothing seems to have helped much. The severity changes, of course, but I still have regular episodes. I was put on Prazosin and it has reduced the amount from nearly every night to an average of say 1 night a week. Those nights, I have them all night long. I take sleeping medication because I would go several days without sleep, fearing a recurrence. So now, I sleep every night, but when I do have an episode, I am too sedated to actually be able to get up and out of bed to stop the cycle. So, I'm in for a long, tormented night. And this, once a week.
My SP consists of me "waking up" to find someone in my room (man, monster). I can see everything as it should be, except he is there, standing over me. I know I'm still asleep and I know I need to wake up or I will be killed. I try & try to move, but can't, so I start screaming. I scream forever but nothing happens. Finally, either I wake myself up or my husband does. He says it's like when you see a dog dreaming, and he knows I'm in trouble. Unfortunatly, because of my sleep meds, I fall right back to sleep and right back into my torment. A typical SP night has at least 5 or 6 episodes, no joke. I have tried fighting, accepting, praying, rebuking, bargaining and ignoring the intruder, all to no avail. I have even bolted upright screaming, I rebuke you in Jesus' name! I woke up, but what I went thru to get there was hell, literally.
But, let me share what brought me to this website. A week ago, the "thing" in my room actually got on top of me, held me down with his body, and raped me. It was as real as real could get. I felt everything. I was thinking, "This is really happening! I'm being raped!" I fought for my life but lost. Then, I woke up, wide awake! I was shocked. I totally thought it was real! Of course, I was relieved, but I was also totally traumatized. Fortunately, nothing happened the next couple nights, but then, it started all over. This time, my husband woke me up and I could still feel the attacker's body on me, every muscle, everything, completely awake. I could not go back to sleep. That was Saturday. Sunday, I was a wreck. I watched the clock, dreading bedtime. I didn't take my sleeping med because I didn't want to sleep. Finally passed out around 4 am and it started right away. I must have had a dozen attacks in the 4 hours I slept. Now, it's already 11 pm and I'm a total basket case. I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO SLEEP BUT I AM SO EXHAUSTED. Soon, everyone will be asleep and I will be alone again. God help me...

[Unexist]

Happens to me every now and then, look up lucid dreaming, I can almost induce it of I feel like it lol. But j understand that it would be extremely frightening if you weren't expecting it.

[angiemarie]

There are quite a few books you can check out that teach you how to better control your sleep paralysis. Learning to control it (lucid dreaming) has become a very enjoyable experience for me, though it has taken a while for me to get to this point. It used to terrify the crap outta me. I once woke up crawling to the door in my bedroom in an effort to wake from the most (mostly) auditory hallucinations I think I have had yet. It varies from person to person, but I have found that having a regular sleep pattern keeps them from happening as frequently. If you are an insomniac though, and get little sleep, I would absolutely not suggest that you use Melatonin. It makes sleep paralysis so much worse, and makes it harder to wake from it.

[OoieGooie]

Awesome story Lilraine. Scary though.

Alcohol apparently turns off the mechanic in your brain that makes you move when in an uncomfortable position. For example, people who are drunk (and asleep) have had to have limbs removed because they slept on it in a bad way and they lost feeling for too long. Not that everyone should drink to sleep well but maybe some wine with dinner could help? Doubt it, but ya never know.

Anyway, back on topic, this doesn't happen to me. Interesting thread though (I sleep like a bear).

[rumjungle]

It's funny...I had sleep paralysis this morning and it reduced me to such a state of fear that I decided I was going to go see my sleep specialist again and make a thread about it on SAS. I figured I'd at least post (I don't have health insurance anymore).

My first sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming experiences were during my teens. During my first sleep paralysis I partially woke up, my body was paralysed and I hallucinated that there was an evil dark figure standing at the edge of my bed. It lunged at my body and the crushing/suffocation sensation was as if it was trying to push my body through my mattress into the ground. Thankfully this is the only time where I've seen this figure since when I know I'm having a paralysis I intentionally avoid looking or am lucky to have my head covered by a blanket. I've had sleep paralysis when falling asleep (eg. taking a nap in my car I became aware that my body was going into paralysis for sleep) and waking up. I think I have one or two every few months though I don't note it.

Understanding it helps but doesn't making it any less uncomfortable or terrifying when it happens. This morning I kept trying to wiggle my toes to quicken the process and wake up but it didn't work. When I did finally properly wake up my head and hands were contorted in a funny position (I had tried to slowly crawl my hands as the paralysis lessened).

[Unkn0wn Pleasures]

Oh my god this is a real thing? Always feared this.

[meyaj]

I get it frequently. Still scares the crap out of me.

Most times it's just run-of-the-mill, but a few times I've had a very distressing and intense buzzing (noise and vibration) coming from the back of my neck.

Always upon waking, always when I'm laying on my back for some reason. But I've had occasional cycles where I just couldn't fully wake myself, kept falling back asleep, and experienced it over a dozen times a night.

[InfiniteBlaze]

I used to get this from time to time when I was 16. This ****ing sucks and is absolutely horrifying. It seriously felt like some out of this world ****.

[Pandemic]

Most times it's just run-of-the-mill, but a few times I've had a very distressing and intense buzzing (noise and vibration) coming from the back of my neck.

I've only had sleep paralysis once and it was terrifying. I had a similar sensation. Was it kind of like jolts of electricity? It felt like what I would imagine ECT to be like.

[ryobi]

I had sleep paralysis when I was taking abilify sometimes it was just an arm or a leg or half my body but I didn't have any hallucinations

[Your dreaming WAKE UP]

I intentionally induce Sleep paralysis. The hallucinations and lucid dreams are well worth it.

[Shredder]

Ive had SP 3 times. First time scared the c**p out of me. EVERYTHING was hyper realsitic... smell, sounds, touch etc and I was dreaming that I was actually laying awake in bed. I wont go into sordid details but it involved an old gypsy like witch woman. I started to get scared and tried to yell for help but no sounds came out and I couldn't move as all my limbs were frozen. Its like I was awake yet still dreaming.

I did some research and found out what it was (Sleep Paralysis) It is also known as "old hag syndrome" which is pretty weird as its common for people to dream of an old woman sitting on top of them. Each time this has happened to me it has been he night after something very emotionally confronting has happened to me.

Ive also had the auditory thing happen... sometimes I hear a buzz or knock just before I go to sleep.. I think this is something similar to a Hypnogogic jerk.

[50piecesteve]

I get this every now and then it is pretty frightening, ive never hallucinated however when im going through this i always feel like there is something in the room that wants to hurt me. People actually die from this

[Your dreaming WAKE UP]

Originally Posted by 50piecesteve

I get this every now and then it is pretty frightening, ive never hallucinated however when im going through this i always feel like there is something in the room that wants to hurt me. People actually die from this

What? How do people die from sleep paralysis? It happens to all of us, every night...

[50piecesteve]

Originally Posted by Your dreaming WAKE UP

What? How do people die from sleep paralysis? It happens to all of us, every night...

I saw on 1000 ways to die a women had an episode and had a Heart attack, also i watched a documentary on this and it said a number of people have died from sleep paralysis episodes