Sleep paralysis

Hi Boo boo,
I know this thread may be a bit stale, but I wanted to respond with my own experiences. First, yes, I have experienced this quite a bit since I was a teen. The first two times involved a shadow standing by my closet, preceded by voices telling me "he's coming!" The first time, nothing happened, just a shadow observing me from my closet. The second time, same thing "he's coming, he's coming, he's coming..." and that time the figure was standing on the side of my bed, leaning over whispering into my ear. I didn't understand anything it was saying, it was very fast and seemed to be a foreign language. That has never happened again since. But it scared me pretty good. I had one before both of these that involved a dream of me first being in a friends house and upon seeing a statue of an angel that my friends parents had my vision focused up very closely on the angels face at which time a golden light surrounded the angel and my vision took on a 360 degree view. I was completely enraptured with how beautiful this angel was and the feeling of being filled with the light and energy. I then "woke up" to my room where I could see everything, but could not move. I finally moved my head, and woke up for real (?).
After this, I went into a sleep-paralysis hiatus, so-to-speak. I didn't have another one for years, like 10 years.
I have since had quite a few, but none involving any kind of "entity". Just your standard, can't move, can't speak, etc. variety. However, recently I have been having them more often. I can actually now "sense" them in a way, that they are coming on. There are two recently more notable in which first, I was sleeping on my side and I could feel it coming on, so I kind of tried to talk to myself, telling myself to stay calm and it will be over. However, as it started, it felt like someone got into the bed with me (behind me) rested their arm(?) on my waist and poked me twice in the neck, at which point I woke up. My husband had gotten up early for work and had been gone for about an hour by this time. The second one was where something again, crawled into bed with me. It seemed like maybe a cat, because I could tell by the weight (yes, I could actually FEEL this thing on the bed) it was small. It crawled up and laid on the pillow beside me. I then woke up, and of course nothing was there. Again, my husband had been at work about an hour or so by this time. And no, I do not have a cat. I have two small dogs, however, they are crated each night for bed.

I do notice that the more attention I pay to spiritual matters, the more this happens. When I get busy with life and stop listening to podcasts and reading books and web sites about spiritual matters, they tend to wane. Now, I'm thinking this is one of two things. Either A) there is something to this whole, soul leaving the body during sleep and perhaps visits from entities on other planes. OR B) it's all psychological. The more I think of these things, the more they are on my mind, the more it happens. Perhaps I'm "psyching" myself into these. Very plausible. They mostly happen when I am alone. However, they have happened when my husband is with me. Sometimes I have them and don't even know it until my husband tells me the next morning (though I'm more inclined to believe these were night terrors).

My family has a history of these kind of sleep disorders. My brother suffered terribly from night terrors, mostly involving aliens, though he never went so far as to say he felt he had been "abducted". My daughter also suffered from night terrors for about a year when she was young, around 7 or 8. Every night at exactly midnight (no joke!) she would wake screaming, but when we tried to comfort her, it was like she wasn't really even there. Then she would just suddenly lay back down and go to sleep and sleep through the night. She almost never remembered any of these events. She now suffers insomnia a bit, but no night terrors and no sleep-paralysis. I also have heard voices when falling asleep at night. In fact, I now recognize that when I start hearing these voices, it means I will momentarily be asleep. I am awake enough to comprehend all of this, and am sometimes comforted by it. It's like hearing little snippets of conversation, in male, female and child voices. Sometimes even laughs. I think it could possibly be all of that sensory input that my brain has received throughout the day, but was unimportant so it was tossed aside until my brain could "empty it's recycle bin" at the end of the day. Or I could be hearing ghosts or other dimensions. Who knows? Other family members report this same thing. However, lately, it's less voices I hear and are now random images (people I don't know, places I have never been). Sometimes they are static images, and sometimes they are like movie scenes. Same thing though, once these start, I know I will be asleep in short order.

So, who knows. Maybe it's psychological/physiological in origin. And genetic at that. My mom and aunt are self-proclaimed "Theta healers", with my aunt claiming the greater of the two's "power". My cousin ("powerful" aunts daughter") claims she has been seeing entities since she was young, same with my other cousin (son of the "powerful" aunt). Again, how much of this is true? Is it my aunt projecting her own needs/desire to be special onto my cousins, in a form of group hysteria? I don't know. Maybe they are legit. Maybe not. I've had both my mom and my aunt try to do readings on me with mixed results. The problem is, they are both close enough to me, that any validating information could easily be something they already knew, so, there it is.

Sorry, for the diatribe, and if you've followed me this far, thanks for hearing my thoughts on this. It comes down to this for me: who knows for sure? I think one thing is completely and utterly absolute and that is that all we know, all we can know, is entirely filtered through this thing we call consciousness, whether it be brain produced or something else entirely. What is real, what isn't? Does it matter? Reality is only that which we perceive, and I can no more tell you what your reality is or even should be any more than you can tell me what mine is or should be. I guess, I think, whatever you think is real, is. Whatever you think is not, is not. It's all a matter of perception. And perception is virtually infinite.
 
Wow. That's really interesting. I'm open minded. I'm not sure if that's an entity thing or a psychological thing. But that's interesting.
 
I started having those out of the blue. Strangely, I believed in an afterlife based on what my parents told me ( I still do due to some of the evidence now ), but I didn't believe in ghosts, reincarnation, read spiritual books, listened to podcasts or anything. It just happened.
 
This is something that happens to me quite regularly, particularly when I haven't had a drink. With a drink I usually sleep right through but a few nights ago the old hag came back, (not the wife ;) ) that horrible feeling you get that something is actually sitting on top of you but you're sort of paralysed and you can't get out from underneath it. It's very unpleasant.
 
Have any of you had sleep paralysis? I get those a LOT. When I feel "stuck", I don't fight it. Usually I wait it out, but sometimes it takes too long so I try moving a little. Whenever I do that, I hear whining noises and feel like I'm falling. It creeps me out. *shudders*


Yes, I've experienced it many times. I recently (past month) stopped fighting it. I don't know if it's just coincidence, but I'm now becoming lucid during dreaming. Several times this past week I've realized I was dreaming during my dream.

The first few times I became lucid I was intrigued. I just looked around in awe, saying, I'm dreaming, this is a dream and I know it's a dream.

So I decided that I was going to try to control my thoughts and actions when I become lucid in my dreams.

Last night after several dreams, I finally became lucid. As soon as I realized I was lucid. I looked around at the dream scene to confirm the scene was not real. I was in a house of many rooms; this house has been evolving in my dreams over the last couple of years, so I know it's a dream.

I then told myself I should touch my hand to determine my ability to detect sensation. I touched my left hand several times and wasn't able to feel anything. The last thought before I woke up was I know now I'm able to control at least some thought and actions after I become lucid during dream.
 
This article on astralpulse basically explains all the sensations and oddities surrounding sleep paralysis as well as how to stop it.
I routinely take Galantamine twice weekly to induce sleep paralysis, there's nothing scary about it unless you let yourself fall into a fear spiral.

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/w...t_to_know_about_sleep_paralysis-t38734.0.html
That is an excellent, well researched and well written article! ;;/? ;;/? ;;/?
Also worth looking at the replies!!!
 
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That is an excellent, well researched and well written article! ;;/? ;;/? ;;/?
Also worth looking at the replies!!!

Brian_the_bard,
Thank you for posting the link to this article. You are correct it is very well written and informative. I frequently experience SP. My neurologist had a sleep study perform on me, so for me, part of the problem is I plow through all the stages of sleep in less than 15 minutes. He diagnosed me with narcolepsy and prescribed a powerful sedative. Sedation is not for me. It robbed me of my dreams. And too, being drugged into a coma like state is not sleep. For me, suffering frequent SP episodes is far more acceptable than living forever dreamless.

A friend of my son's told me how she was able to control her dreams. As a child she was overwhelmed by nightmares. At about age 10 or so, she started practicing different techniques before going to sleep that allowed her to control her dreams. So I've been trying those techniques to see if I can control the SP episodes.

I now consciously acknowledge that I'm in an SP state and tell myself to remain calm and relax my body. I discovered the moment I physically resist, physically push against the paralysis, the "demons" appear. So I concentrate on releasing all the tension in my muscles. I had an episode of SP last night. I've definitely made progress, but I'm not completely free of the fear.

It was good to learn from this article that simply wiggling a toe or finger can break the SP state.
 
That is an excellent, well researched and well written article! ;;/? ;;/? ;;/?
Also worth looking at the replies!!!
Brian_the_bard,
Thank you for posting the link to this article. You are correct it is very well written and informative. I frequently experience SP. My neurologist had a sleep study perform on me, so for me, part of the problem is I plow through all the stages of sleep in less than 15 minutes. He diagnosed me with narcolepsy and prescribed a powerful sedative. Sedation is not for me. It robbed me of my dreams. And too, being drugged into a coma like state is not sleep. For me, suffering frequent SP episodes is far more acceptable than living forever dreamless.

A friend of my son's told me how she was able to control her dreams. As a child she was overwhelmed by nightmares. At about age 10 or so, she started practicing different techniques before going to sleep that allowed her to control her dreams. So I've been trying those techniques to see if I can control the SP episodes.

I now consciously acknowledge that I'm in an SP state and tell myself to remain calm and relax my body. I discovered the moment I physically resist, physically push against the paralysis, the "demons" appear. So I concentrate on releasing all the tension in my muscles. I had an episode of SP last night. I've definitely made progress, but I'm not completely free of the fear.

It was good to learn from this article that simply wiggling a toe or finger can break the SP state.

Glad someone read it, its really the best resource I've seen on the subject. I used to get it every week along with horrible nightmares and just the toe trick completely worked for me. Its interesting too now that I've picked up OBE practices that this has become a desirable state rather than a terror filled state just through understanding whats going on.
 
LetsEat, yes I did read the linked article, here and a lot of others posted on this forum. This forum really stands out for the quality of content and, more important, intelligence of the participants.

on other matters...I find OBE very fascinating. I have never had an actual OBE. The closest I've come to was what I would categorize as a near death experience. I experienced all of the classic NDE's visuals and sensations, but I didn't have an actual near death trauma. I saw myself dead; I saw the light; I saw people I know who are deceased; I went into the light; I felt the most extraordinary peace I have ever experienced in my life. When I became "lucid" I had absolutely no sensation that what I had experienced was a dream. There was no "oh, I was dreaming" realization.

I am certain of two things regarding death: 1) death is not a frightening traumatic end; 2) the sensation of life does not leave the body at the moment of death.
 
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