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Have you ever suffered from sleep paralysis?

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L

Lakitu

st5fu
Having just watched a show, I saw a small segment about this 28 year old student in London who suffers with it every time she goes to sleep. She basically lays there with her eyes open caught between dreaming and being awake, and when she does, this old lady like figure (I think refered to as an old hag) comes to her and looks at her, she can see her all this time, and then she starts to strangle her and there's nothing you can do about it.

Have you suffered from the same thing? There have been many cases about this, and I've suffered from it once.

It was around 7 years ago, it was a day off from School and I slept in, it was about 10AM. I was having a dream, it was just a normal dream, it was about me going on a school trip to Alton Towers (a theme park (I already had been a couple of months before)) and close to the end, I was dreaming that I was playing soccer with my friends in one of the places in the theme park while waiting for the coach. It was still ordinary, then I saw the ball and I decided to run up to it so I could get the ball.

Then it changed, I opened my eyes, whilst dreaming, the dream had completely changed, everything was blowing and it was like I could feel it, people were getting blown away and I heard a voice in the distance shouting my name all the time, it was like an old lady's, I'm still not too sure.

As I was keeping my eyes open, this figure held me down, I tried to get up but it wouldn't let me. The figure had dark long hair and the face was blurry, it was strangling me and I think I managed to catch a glimpse of another figure towards the bottom, that looked quite similar. I couldn't breath at all, I was trying my best to get my breath back but by that time the dream ended but everything was still blowing around me. It's so hard to explain, it felt like I was somewhere else. I was so scared but then I managed to jump up and I got up, I was in a huge sweat, and I was feeling so cold. Till this day I still think about it, and it's the only bad dream I've ever really had (besides the ones about chucky the doll attacking me :().

Has anybody ever experience anything like this? Or even remotely like this? Please, share your experiences! :)
 
I swear every few months we have a topic about this....I have and others on this board have had, it sucks, I usually just lay there and try to wake myself up(usually dosnt work), or go back to sleep
 
Yes - I experienced it about ten years ago when I was hiking in Shikoku, Japan. In Japan they call it "Kanashibari" where it feels like a spirit is lying right on top of you and you cannot move. Some people say the "alien adbuction" experience is just that - sleep paralysis.

It's a very frightening sensation and sometimes people hallucinate and see weird things (hence aliens and spirits).

When it happened to me in Shikoku, I was hiking the spiritual hike of 88 Buddhist temples. You're supposed to carry this "blessed" walking stick throughout the pilgrimage. Halfway around Shikoku, I suddenly said "fuck it" and broke the stick in half and threw it in the river, saying this is all just mumbo-jumbo (you start thinking weird things on long, lonely pilgrimages!) Anyway, that night I stayed at an inn and the "kanashibari" hit me hard! Man, did I freak. I couldn't breath, move or speak - but my eyes were wide open and my brain was awake! It lasted for about a minute and my sensations came back. I ran to the bathroom and literally spewed some Hail Marys and Lotus Sutras! Then I went back to bed and it happened again! 3 times in all! Wow, I'll never forget it.

I'm not one of these super-natural kooks, but I swear it felt like there was someone or something there in my room that night.
 
About two summers ago this happened to me every night. Then it just kind of stopped. But it was scary as hell, being awake but not being able to move.
 
I get it often but never with eyes open. Usually I'm just conscience enough to know i'm awake but I can't do anything about it. It has something to do with your braind shutting down certain parts of your body or something so you don't constantly wake yourself up at night thrashing around.
 
I got it a lot when I was a christian. They reckoned it was the devil trying to attack you. It was pretty nasty too. You can literally feel hands moving over your body and the sense of dread was pretty tangible. Awful awful sensation of fear.


Then I gave up the faith and nothing since :)

Good topic. Post if you guys have experienced it. I've never read a thread like this in OT.
 
I've had it once, it was after a festival weekend in which I hadn't slept much. I wnet to bed early that day because I was very tired.

After about ten minutes of sleep (I checked my clock after the experience) I woke up but could only open my eyes. I lay on my side and I saw my chair in the middle of the room, the chair had its back towards me. A woman was sitting in my chair, I could see her arms and the back of her head. She was wearing a cap and a greenish jacket. She stood up out of the chair and started to turn her head towards me, but just before I could see her face, she just disappeared slowly, a bit like the holograms in Star Wars do.

At first I was really scared and tried to scream, but there was no noise coming from my closed mouth. Then it hit me that this was sleep paralysis and I just let it go. It was a very intense and fascinating experience and I'm glad I had it. I don't know if I'd want it again though...
 
Never.

Well, when I was like 7, I once dreamt I was dead, and I could feel that I was dead, so I was laying still, but yet still alive. I don't think that was sleep paralysis, though, because I don't remember a sense of dread. O_o If I recall correctly, I was a power ranger, and I died from some kind of tiger biting my neck or something in the dream. :O

Or maybe that was one of the megaman dreams. (I'd watch the megaman cartoon all the time, and sometimes dream I was megaman, blowing up cars and stuff with my plasma power!!! :D)



I lucid dream every now and then, though. and it rules. :)

Still haven't experienced a wet dream.
 
yeah I've had it. I wouldn't describe it as suffering though.

I just woke up and thought ugh I can't move but it was all dreamy like when you are half asleep. Then I slept and it was all fine in the morning.
 
Lakitu said:
Having just watched a show, I saw a small segment about this 28 year old student in London who suffers with it every time she goes to sleep. She basically lays there with her eyes open caught between dreaming and being awake, and when she does, this old lady like figure (I think refered to as an old hag) comes to her and looks at her, she can see her all this time,
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WTF?!

I don't think I'm gonna be able to go to bed tonight. This shit freaks me out beyond all borders.
 
Oh man, I've never even heard of it and now it's going to happen to me. This ALWAYS happens. There's some weird shit everyone else seems to know about and half of them have experienced it, then, within days of me finding out about it, it'll happen to me.

It's like knowing about it triggers something in me to make/allow it happen or something. At least when it was lucid dreaming that was fun. This won't be at all :(
 
Mama Smurf said:
Oh man, I've never even heard of it and now it's going to happen to me. This ALWAYS happens. There's some weird shit everyone else seems to know about and half of them have experienced it, then, within days of me finding out about it, it'll happen to me.

It's like knowing about it triggers something in me to make/allow it happen or something. At least when it was lucid dreaming that was fun. This won't be at all :(
Click to expand...

I know what you mean man. I wish I hadn't entered this thread.
 
Mama Smurf said:
Oh man, I've never even heard of it and now it's going to happen to me. This ALWAYS happens. There's some weird shit everyone else seems to know about and half of them have experienced it, then, within days of me finding out about it, it'll happen to me.

It's like knowing about it triggers something in me to make/allow it happen or something. At least when it was lucid dreaming that was fun. This won't be at all :(
Click to expand...
Isn't it fascinating how powerful the human brain can be? :D
 
I have this all the time. My favorite version is when you feel like you're floating. It's like an out of body experience. Real wierd.

Yeah though... usually something'll attack me.
 
Once, last year.

My wife and I were staying in an old hotel in New Orleans -- the Place D'Armes, right in the midst of the French Quarter. We checked in in the early afternoon, checked out our room, took a few pics, then went out to sight see.

That evening, we went on a ghost tour. And the very first stop was the Place D'Armes hotel. So we heard the hotel's sordid story, and continued on the tour. Afterwards we had a great dinner at Embers Steakhouse, wandered around for a bit, and finally returned to our hotel. When we got there, my wife was a little freaked out by the stories, and decided to look at the pictures of the room we'd taken earlier (digital camera, of course). Lo and behold, floating above the sofa in one picture was an ORB!

Image-81CA9F0EC64311D8.jpg


We took another picture from roughly the same angle: no orb:

Image-81CAD75EC64311D8.jpg


So my wife was a little nervous, even though I told her it was just a dust mote in the lens. Anyway, we went to bed. At some point in the middle of the night, I woke up. I felt like I couldn't move, and that I couldn't breathe. I felt pressure pushing down on me from all sides. It passed after a period of time, when some late night partiers returned to their room making a lot of noise. My wife was awake, and hadn't noticed anything strange, and I didn't tell her about my "episode" because I knew she'd never get to sleep (or worse, we'd end up sleeping in the car).

I'm convinced that my episode was a dream, but it IS strange that I had never had a dream like that before, nor since. And when I woke up after the people upstairs made a bunch of noise, I had the exact same view that I did when I was paralyzed.

Anyway, weird story.
 
That's clearly a breast, you can see the nipple.

The real question is where did the phantom drink cup come from? Ooooooooh.
 
This happens to me all the damn time. And it always comes with the feeling of not being able to breath, or some sort of ghost-thingy coming at me from a place(if it's my room..from the closet) in whatever room I happen to be at, and whatever side of me facing up hurts when I finally wake up.
 
Mama Smurf said:
That's clearly a breast, you can see the nipple.

The real question is where did the phantom drink cup come from? Ooooooooh.
Click to expand...
:lol
 
Yes its happened to me a couple of dozen times, I didn't know what it was (until now!).

I always freak out and feel that if I go to sleep/'fall down' I'm not going to wake up. It feels like pushing against a brick wall, but it only lasts 5-10mins. I've never had any hallucinations but I can imagine how scary it would be in those circumstances.
 
it happened to me once... it was one of the freakiest experiences i have ever had... all i could hear was the wooshing of the fan in my room it was like it was right next to my ear... oh yeah and i couldnt move
 
i plug this in every sleep paralysis thread, but there's an excellent concept album out there entirely about sleep paralysis. Dredg - El Cielo

worth a listen for sure
 
It used to happen to me all the time. Now it only happens once or twice every couple of years, but only when I go to sleep very late and very tired. Never did I once see freaky shit, though.
 
Holy shit. I've never experienced this before, and before today I was never really afraid to experience it, but now some of you are saying you see spirits of old ladies and shit?! Holy hell, I'm not going to sleep tonight, and since I read this thread, I'm probably going to end up experiencing it soon.

Oh fuck me :(
 
I've never had sleep paralysis (at least that I can remember).

But every few months, I wake up abruptly in the night because something is stuck in my throat (like water or saliva or something) and for a few seconds I'm choking. Then I'm usually able to cough and my throat clears up. Nothing comes out of my mouth though.

It's very scary though because I feel like I could choke to death. I wish I knew what this is called. I notice it tends to happen when I sleep on my back.

Has this happened to anybody else and what is it called?
 
mattx5 said:
Holy shit. I've never experienced this before, and before today I was never really afraid to experience it, but now some of you are saying you see spirits of old ladies and shit?! Holy hell, I'm not going to sleep tonight, and since I read this thread, I'm probably going to end up experiencing it soon.

Oh fuck me :(
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ditto, except it's fucking 1 AM over and I'm about to pass out...shit this gonna be bad...
 
Yeah I have experienced it once, and it felt like someone holding me down, scary as hell. My brother though, he has experienced this all the time for years. At first he used to freak out and get really scared, then he tried to fight it. After a while he just let it happen and would explore the phenomenon.
Last year I read a book on astral travel called “Journeys out of the body” by Robert Monroe. Robert often felt the same symptoms of this “sleep paralysis” that we felt right before he was able to come out of his body, and he put it down to when you are not fully in, but not fully out.
I told my brother about this and the next few times it happened to him he tried to astral travel and come out of his body. He actually managed to a couple of times, and now he is not scared of it at all. Rather he welcomes it so it can explore it further.
 
mattx5 said:
Holy shit. I've never experienced this before, and before today I was never really afraid to experience it, but now some of you are saying you see spirits of old ladies and shit?! Holy hell, I'm not going to sleep tonight, and since I read this thread, I'm probably going to end up experiencing it soon.

Oh fuck me :(
Click to expand...

Every time it happens it's as intense as the first time. I know there's noone else in the room, but you could definitely sense something in there with you. It's terrifying. You see things moving in your periphery. It's making me go nuts.
 
Lakitu said:
Having just watched a show, I saw a small segment about this 28 year old student in London who suffers with it every time she goes to sleep. She basically lays there with her eyes open caught between dreaming and being awake, and when she does, this old lady like figure (I think refered to as an old hag) comes to her and looks at her, she can see her all this time, and then she starts to strangle her and there's nothing you can do about it.
Click to expand...

Thank god it's full body paralysis, because if that happened to me, my first instinct would be to shit my pants.


Blackie said:
I also get really weird temporally disjointed dreams when I'm sleeping on my back.
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I get those too, and that's also when I get the most lucid dreams. I'll be dreaming, realize I'm dreaming, start actively doing stuff, wake up, fall back asleep and be lucid dreaming again within a few minutes.. Also, the amount of dreams I have, or rather the frequency with which I remember them, increases sharply when my dog is laying with his back to my leg..
 
Thank you for sharing your very interesting stories! I was scared to go sleep too last night :P but I managed. More is welcome and thanks for the links and the plug, I'm very interested. :)

Apparently the woman she felt strangle her looked similar to this:

oldhag2.gif


I could say the same but I really couldn't see them properly, but it was someone there and maybe another towards the bottom holding me down.

Like you all say it was a very frightening experience, and the worst thing about is that when it happens to you, you can't avoid it. I think I was going to have it a second time, I felt how I felt that morning so I just didn't sleep because I didn't wanna go through it again.
 
Lakitu said:
Thank you for sharing your very interesting stories! I was scared to go sleep too last night :P but I managed. More is welcome and thanks for the links and the plug, I'm very interested. :)

Apparently the woman she felt strangle her looked similar to this:

oldhag2.gif


I could say the same but I really couldn't see them properly, but it was someone there and maybe another towards the bottom holding me down.

Like you all say it was a very frightening experience, and the worst thing about is that when it happens to you, you can't avoid it. I think I was going to have it a second time, I felt how I felt that morning so I just didn't sleep because I didn't wanna go through it again.
Click to expand...

Jesus... the thing that usually attacks me kinda looks like that. Basically he has one huge claw that he uses to dig into my chest. I might draw him. Usually he's in one corner of my room and once it happens I blink and then he's right in my face ready to go. Everytime I wake up and just stay up because it scares the shit out of me.
 
pnjtony said:
I get it often but never with eyes open. Usually I'm just conscience enough to know i'm awake but I can't do anything about it.
Click to expand...

That's how it was with me. I used to get it a lot as a kid, as well as my teenage years. I think it happened to me every two or three months. The first half dozen times it scared the hell outta me (usually it came after a bad dream). But after a while I kinda just rode with it once I was able to recognize it, either forcing myself back to sleep until I could properly wake up, or just staying in that semi-conscience state for a minute or two until the effects wore off. As long as you're able to be conscious of what's going on and don't panic (the difficulty in breathing is the most frightening aspect), it really isn't a big deal.

I never felt any of this alien/hands all over my ass stuff or saw old lady spirits straight out of the library in Ghostbusters that others are talking about (now that would be truly scary). It was just a state of complete immobility, as if I was wrapped up like a mummy and then tied down to the bed. It's a wierd, wierd feeling...and almost pleasant in a way, once you've gotten out of it.

I don't think I've had it in a couple years though, probably because I sleep more often in the computer room then I do in my bed. :lol
 
ok, so I wasn't imagining things. I experienced this for the first time only a few days ago. I thought I heard someone come into my room and sob over me, but when I tried to turn around, I couldn't move at all. Eventually I gained control over my body, but I was scared as hell.
 
I get it all the time. I always have this shivering sensation running down my spine a few seconds before it happens so I know it's coming. :/
 
I've had this happen to me before, except my "monster" isn't like an old lady or man, it looks like a scarecrow. Really strange and it freaked me the hell out the first time it happened, but it's only happened a couple of times since so it's not a big deal. Oh yeah and if you think waking up paralyzed during a dream is scary, try doing it during surgery. That will freak you the FUCK out, I know from experience.
 
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