Sleep Paralysis

jlarlee

jlarlee

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For those who have no clue what I'm talking about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis
This used to scare the crap out of me until I figured out it was normal. I usually have the symptoms going into sleep not coming out of it. When I'd have it coming out I would only have it a few seconds and luckily no hallucinations. The chest discomfort is nearly unbearable though. Most everywhere says 30% of people are bothered by the symptoms and it mostly attacks people who don't keep a regular schedule. Does this bother any of you and if so got any tricks to combat it?
 
Hate it, hate it, hate it. But it's much easier to deal with once you know what you're experiencing. Whenever it happens to me I just tell myself what's happenening, relax, and focus on breathing. It usually goes away easily.

I've never had the hallucinations though.
 
I've had a wonky sleep schedule for years now (throughout college and post-college), but have never had this (thankfully).
 
Only time I've ever had something similar is when I've ingested too much caffeine in a day from taking some sort of dietary supplement that claimed it could help you lose weight. Would wake up having what felt like a panic attack and my chest was extremely heavy and uncomfortable. I stopped taking it, problem went away.
 
Hmm... I guess what I've experienced isn't Sleep Paralysis (or is it?). A few times in my life, I've woken up. Say, a noise outside or my alarm going off (when I'm in a deep sleep) I'll awake, halfway, dazed, and then fall back asleep. Then, almost immediately I realize, because of work or something of that nature, that I have to wake up. But I can't move. I'm fully conscious, but I can't do anything. I remember one time I imagined I was rolling my body back and forth to try to shake my body out of its stupor and a minute later I rolled semi-violently onto the floor.
 
I didnt read the link but its crazy huh. I had to do a full blown report on it in school and remember thats where the word Nightmares generated from as stories were reported that witches were causing it and then flying off on horses or some nonsense. It sbeen a long time since I did that report though.

Interesting nonetheless.
 
I thought that was normal sleep.

If I can't move when I open my eyes, I close my eyes and go back to sleep.

If I have a vision of shot or falling over a cliff, that's just my subconscious telling me the Rams won't do well this year or I played too many games the day before.

I see the wikipedia article suggests a pill can treat this "problem". No thanks.
 
Trivia:

This has been used as a possible explanation for alien abduction reports.
It's the focus of a concept album by Dredg called "El Cielo".
 
Yeah. I have these quite a bit.

I even have the hallucinations.
 
[quote name='jlarlee']I think my move to Korea and a new time zone has made mine act up. Its happening like twice a week lately[/QUOTE]

So true, I've only heard Koreans complaining about this phenomenon.
 
I get these sometimes, sometimes worse, as I can't breathe either. Those are the worst. It feels like I'm drowning. I had one following an extremely lucid dream earlier this week, but it was simply a hallucination. Thought I heard a cat scream. Or a chicken. I don't know. @_@
 
[quote name='Friend of Sonic']Hmm... I guess what I've experienced isn't Sleep Paralysis (or is it?). A few times in my life, I've woken up. Say, a noise outside or my alarm going off (when I'm in a deep sleep) I'll awake, halfway, dazed, and then fall back asleep. Then, almost immediately I realize, because of work or something of that nature, that I have to wake up. But I can't move. I'm fully conscious, but I can't do anything. I remember one time I imagined I was rolling my body back and forth to try to shake my body out of its stupor and a minute later I rolled semi-violently onto the floor.[/quote]
Visit a doctor to confirm that you haven't turned into a giant cockroach.

...

And stay away from family members wielding fruit in the mean-time.
 
So that's what I've been experiencing for the past two years. I never knew there was an actual term for it.

I've never had the chest pains, or the limited breathing, but I've definitely experienced the paralysis, hallucinations, and the sense of imminent danger. For the first year, I would wake up about once every two weeks, totally unable to move, and I'd see a man in a suit and hat at the end of my bed staring at me. To say the least, it scared the shit out of me. In my confusion, however, I would always just think it was a reoccurring dream.

Now it's much less intense. Once in a while I wake up unable to move, and I have to actually try and jerk myself out of my sleep, which always makes me wake thrashing.
 
I've had this happen a few times and it's never bothered me. I'll try to describe the sensation. I would be awake mentally but unable to move my body. I couldn't even open my eyes. My chest and throat would feel like they were collapsing or closing up. All my limbs felt numb and disconnected as if they didn't exist. I actually kinda enjoyed the feeling.

Sometimes I would also experience a falling sensation when trying to sleep. This one does bother me enough to wake me up partially. I just roll over and go back to sleep though.
 
I've never had this but sometimes when I'm falling asleep I will have a very quick dream that I trip and fall and I will jerk in my bed as if I fell.
 
[quote name='HowStern']I've never had this but sometimes when I'm falling asleep I will have a very quick dream that I trip and fall and I will jerk in my bed as if I fell.[/quote]

I get this too sometimes, except it isn't always tripping, just something like that. I have had a dream before that like somebody throws something at me and they dodge it and my whole body jerks in bed.
 
[quote name='Sofa King Kool']So that's what I've been experiencing for the past two years. I never knew there was an actual term for it.

I've never had the chest pains, or the limited breathing, but I've definitely experienced the paralysis, hallucinations, and the sense of imminent danger. For the first year, I would wake up about once every two weeks, totally unable to move, and I'd see a man in a suit and hat at the end of my bed staring at me. To say the least, it scared the shit out of me. In my confusion, however, I would always just think it was a reoccurring dream.

Now it's much less intense. Once in a while I wake up unable to move, and I have to actually try and jerk myself out of my sleep, which always makes me wake thrashing.[/QUOTE]

Sounds like you got it worst than me. DO you sleep on your back? I don't do that but from what I read its the position that causes it the most
 
I haven't had this happen in a few years. Whenever it does happen it feels like someone is on top of me holding me down and choking me. I don't think mine is serious enough for medicine, and it happened more in high school and I probably was sleep deprived.
 
wow... never knew about this and to hear so many of you have this is surprising.

Sounds intense and Ill take a big pass. Sorry to those who have to deal with it.
 
[quote name='jlarlee']Sounds like you got it worst than me. DO you sleep on your back? I don't do that but from what I read its the position that causes it the most[/quote]


It only happens when I sleep on my back, so I make a conscious effort not too.
 
I suffered from sleep paralysis for decades. I never hallucinated, though, or had chest pains. For me, it was my mind waking up before my body. It used to scare the hell out of me as a child, until I started to figure it out and then experiment. I realized I could open my eyes and look around, but couldn't speak or move. I could make slight noises, but not enough to call for help. I could, through force of will, finally fully wake myself by trying to move my legs or arms (I can only compare it to trying to lift a weight too heavy for you).

Luckily, later in life, the slight noises I'd make would be enough for my wife to hear, and she'd elbow me and that'd wake me up.

I suspect it was related to my sleep apnea. (And yes, it always hit me when I was laying on my back, which is the position that I had the most trouble breathing.) Because I would stop breathing about 45 times an hour when I slept, I had surgery last year to remove my adnoids, tonsils, part of my uvula, soft palette and sinuses and had my nasal cavity trimmed down. (It was either that or a CPAP machine, and that was far more uncomfortable.)

Now, I don't snore, can sleep hours un-interupted and have not had a paralysis incident in over a year. All things considered, the paralysis was the least of my problems and was just a minor annoyance. It wasn't until a couple weeks ago that I realized it hasn't happened once since I had my surgeries.
 
Damn I had a bad incident last night. I had an audio hallucination (is there a name for that) That a bunch of people were walking into my room and shuffling around my bed. My heart rate went sky high
 
I use to have it happen once in a while when I was 14 and under.

Use to sometimes scare me or just annoy me.

Most people have a few frightening experiences from when they are younger. Two of mine include sleep paralysis. I have no idea how old I was at the time 5 (maybe). But I was laying down on my bed and I couldn't move, open my eyes, and it felt like I was suffocating.

Another time I remember scaring the crap out of me (maybe 5 again) was when it happened and I couldn't move and in the background the radio was playing "Just say my name, and I'll be there" and that somehow became part of the paralysis / half sleep I was experiencing and led to becoming a nasty hallucination / extremely vivd nightmare. I'll be honest I couldn't listen to that song until I was 16 and even now at 23 I detest the song and will avoid it all costs.

It happened once in a while up until highschool where I would try to will myself awake: sometimes waking up, other times drifiting back into a dream, etc.

But now its been about 10 yrs since it last happened, and I say good riddance!
 
I've felt this before, but no hallucinations though. I would wake up feel like as if my body was completely paralyzed and would have trouble breathing as well. Kinda scary, but glad there's a term for it, might look it up.
 
I've had the hallucinations. Usually it is of somebody else in the room approaching me in a not-so-nice manor. But like other, once I figured out what it was, I no longer needed to hide under my covers after. :baby: It became fascinating, but I also started happening much less and I haven't had one in years.
 
Yeah, I've had this before, and yeah, it sucks.

I haven't had it in a long long time, but it always seemed to happen when I was sleeping in a weird position. For instance when I was younger, my family went on vacation and I was sleeping in the back seat against the door. Then I, "Woke up," and could see, but not move. My breathing was very shallow, like others have said. I have always thought that was because that's all the air I needed when I sleeping since by body wasn't doing anything, but it still sucked. I just tried to concentrate on breathing slow and steady and told myself that I was getting enough air and it was all ok. Like Plume said, I could only make very small noises and I always hoped someone would hear and shake my body awake, but that never happened.

I was sometimes able to wake myself up by attempting to take a sudden, sharp, deep breath in. That worked a couple times, but other times I just kept having to tell myself to move and wake up, or I would give up and attempt to fall back to sleep.

I always thought it had to do with the position of my neck because my neck was not in a good position when sleeping in the car, and a couple other times it has happened when I've been taking a nap on the couch on my stomach and my neck was strained to the side.
 
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