I experienced sleep paralysis on waking often when younger - was conscious but couldn't move a thing. I usually escaped it by concentrating on my toes and trying to wiggle them, once a muscle moved the rest of my body came back. One time nothing worked and I slipped into blackness. Woke up normally some time later. It's not nice.
I used to get them all the time. I am very pleased to say that I haven't had one for the last 4 years. i really hope this continues as I have had some awful experiences with it that I wouldn't wish on anyone.
A psychologist friend told me one that they tend to happen when one is under increasing stress. That would kind of make sense of the timings over the years when I had them.
I've sometimes been in a normal dream, then suddenly seeming to become paralysed, with my eyes closing, in the context of the dream. Struggling to open my eyes, I've done so, to get a glimpse of what I was dreaming before, with my eyes then forcing themselves closed again. When I get them open again, I get a glimpse of my bedroom, before they force themselves shut again, my body still paralysed. When I open then yet again, I'm in my room and the paralysis ends.
...My last experience involved a starved, white, naked corpse skittering across the ceiling and disappearing into the top of the wardrobe.
Christ.
I remember all kinds of simarly surreal episodes. Once, when I was around 7, I was staying over at a neighbour's and sleeping in a room that had two black-and-white posters on the opposite wall.
I dreamed/experienced these posters changing every few seconds, with really odd images - some normal and some really gruesome. Woke up with the usual terror and refused to go back to sleep until the posters were taken down.
I'm hoping this thread doesn't bring on an episode tonight
Wow, I'm really pleased to read that sleep paralysis is so common. I asked my GP about it a while ago & he'd never heard of it. Haven't had it for a while but when I did it was always gruesome - family members strangling me was a common one!
Some of these stories sound absolutely frightening!
I've had an occurrence several years ago when I was awake and aware in the middle of the night! Thinking I'd simply dosed awake and I'd just change position to go back to sleep I tried... But found I simply couldn't move!
Then I noticed I could hear breathing. Someone's breathing as though there was someone sleeping in the room with me! But I knew for a fact there was no-one else with me and it wasn't my own breathing!
But I wasn't scared or perturbed... More than anything I was interested in what was happening and just aassumed it was something to do with the fact I was half asleep!
When I was 7 or 8 I had this dream that began turning increasingly unpleasant, as I began to
wake up I started to hear this cackling laughter and saw a old woman sitting on me, I was petrified.
This was my only experience of "the Hag" and have no wish to meet her again.
Haven't had any hypnagogic experiences for years now, but I used to regularly "wake up" to feel somebody climbing into my bed and cuddle me tightly from behind
Have also had cats fall on my bed from a great height and seen myself walking around the room
I've had sleep paralysis a couple of time, it was terrifying.
I get nightmares a lot but I don't know if they are terrors. I know I have woken up screaming a few times but I don't remember the screaming. It terrified my Dad when he was staying in my spare room.
I wake up from nightmares quite a lot but I rarely remember what happened. Sometimes I don't even remember waking up but the lamp next to my bed will be on when I get up in the morning and that's a sure sign something freaked me out in the night, I always go straight for the lamp.
Since I moved my room around and put my bed in a different place I don't get them as often but it still happens.
When I was 7 or 8 I had this dream that began turning increasingly unpleasant, as I began to
wake up I started to hear this cackling laughter and saw a old woman sitting on me, I was petrified.
This was my only experience of "the Hag" and have no wish to meet her again.
For me, she likes to sit on me, and strangle me. If I wake up naturally, without an alarm, then sleep paralysis tends to occur.
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A psychologist friend told me one that they tend to happen when one is under increasing stress. That would kind of make sense of the timings over the years when I had them.
The feeling when you were drifting back into sleep and couldn't do a thing about it wasn't pleasant at all.
My last experience involved a starved, white, naked corpse skittering across the ceiling and disappearing into the top of the wardrobe.
I remember all kinds of simarly surreal episodes. Once, when I was around 7, I was staying over at a neighbour's and sleeping in a room that had two black-and-white posters on the opposite wall.
I dreamed/experienced these posters changing every few seconds, with really odd images - some normal and some really gruesome. Woke up with the usual terror and refused to go back to sleep until the posters were taken down.
I'm hoping this thread doesn't bring on an episode tonight
I've had an occurrence several years ago when I was awake and aware in the middle of the night! Thinking I'd simply dosed awake and I'd just change position to go back to sleep I tried... But found I simply couldn't move!
Then I noticed I could hear breathing. Someone's breathing as though there was someone sleeping in the room with me! But I knew for a fact there was no-one else with me and it wasn't my own breathing!
But I wasn't scared or perturbed... More than anything I was interested in what was happening and just aassumed it was something to do with the fact I was half asleep!
wake up I started to hear this cackling laughter and saw a old woman sitting on me, I was petrified.
This was my only experience of "the Hag" and have no wish to meet her again.
Have also had cats fall on my bed from a great height and seen myself walking around the room
very freaky when they happen
I get nightmares a lot but I don't know if they are terrors. I know I have woken up screaming a few times but I don't remember the screaming. It terrified my Dad when he was staying in my spare room.
I wake up from nightmares quite a lot but I rarely remember what happened. Sometimes I don't even remember waking up but the lamp next to my bed will be on when I get up in the morning and that's a sure sign something freaked me out in the night, I always go straight for the lamp.
Since I moved my room around and put my bed in a different place I don't get them as often but it still happens.
For me, she likes to sit on me, and strangle me. If I wake up naturally, without an alarm, then sleep paralysis tends to occur.
I always use an alarm.