Board 8 > Any B8ers have experience dealing with sleep paralysis?

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is something that just started happening to me back in early June, and it's only been about once every two weeks and typically goes away pretty quickly.

But last night was different and I basically tried all night to fall asleep, but every time I just started hallucinating and woke up a few minutes later. The hallucinations were pretty standard sleep paralysis stuff: loud noises, flashing lights, out of body experiences, and feeling like "someone" was in the room with me. I'm not typically easy to scare but some of these hallucinations left me so panicked/paranoid afterward that I ended up trying to sleep with my desk lamp on for the rest of the night... lol.

Luckily I didn't have work today so I finally got some actual sleep around 12pm. Even then my dreams were super vivid and I woke up a lot. Just wondering if anyone else has dealt with this and has any advice on what to do next time it happens!

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I've only had it once and it was terrifying. Looked like intruders were walking down from upstairs to my bedroom door which was open.

I can't imagine how bad it is to have it recurring

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My BF has and he says my being there helps prevent it, but he sometimes gets startled if I walk in while he's already asleep.

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Had it happen once, there were no lights or sounds but I could 'see' my mom standing in the room and staring at me. We're not on good terms, I'll leave it at that

The fear involved is pretty unreal

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Are you a back sleeper or a side sleeper? From what I've hear it's more common among back sleepers. Maybe something changed in your sleeping position in June?

I've only dealt with it once so no real advice for dealing with it when it happens.

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Honestly what helped me the most was just getting more sleep.

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My girlfriend had it happen once and she said she saw some shadowy nun looking things in the corner of the room.

Fortunately I've never had to deal with it because my sleep curse is severe insomnia.

Aecioo posted...

I've only had it once and it was terrifying. Looked like intruders were walking down from upstairs to my bedroom door which was open.

Shonen_Bat posted...

Had it happen once, there were no lights or sounds but I could 'see' my mom standing in the room and staring at me.

Murphiroth posted...

My girlfriend had it happen once and she said she saw some shadowy nun looking things in the corner of the room.

God, these sound fucking horrible. I've got pretty much every other kind of hallucination but I've yet to actually "see" anything like this. The worst so far has been "sensing" something in the room with me, plus one time where I had a nightmare that led into sleep paralysis where I could still "hear" the monster but could no longer see it.

paperwarior posted...

My BF has and he says my being there helps prevent it, but he sometimes gets startled if I walk in while he's already asleep.

Yeah I was definitely wishing there was someone else in the room with me, though I can see how it might be a double-edged sword too...

VintageGin posted...

Are you a back sleeper or a side sleeper? From what I've hear it's more common among back sleepers. Maybe something changed in your sleeping position in June?

Side usually, sometimes stomach, I can almost never fall asleep on my back though I sometimes end up on it during the night. The first time it happened in early June I was jetlagged, had been up for about 20 hours, was on about 3-4 hours of sleep per night for the previous three nights, was drunk, and was sleeping on a couch, so like... no surprises there that it happened lmao. Unfortunately since then it's been happening without any of that stuff to explain it.

TheRock1525 posted...

Honestly what helped me the most was just getting more sleep.

I was thinking this might be part of it, I've been crazy tired the past two months. Glad to know more sleep helped you!

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I very rarely experience this sort of in-between state of sleeping and being awake, which may be sleep paralysis, where it feels like my body is asleep but I am awake, and it usually comes with a sense of fear but not physically seeing something. I always try to move my body but it's stuck in place despite what feels like a tremendous amount of effort to force any movement. It sucks but I've found that if I really exert myself and focus I can eventually move and kind of snap out of it into a state of being fully awake.

What's more common is that at least once or twice a month I'll do something that I best describe as sleepwalking in response to something my brain percieves as a danger, and then halfway through the process I'll wake up and realize I'm an idiot. Sometimes it'll be me attacking my window blinds with my pillow, or searching for an insect I'm sure is on my bed that doesn't exist. Rarely I'll leave the room altogether. There isn't really any fear associated with it though and I mostly laugh at myself after realizing what's going on. At this point my girlfriend just shrugs it off and goes back to sleep.

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Use to happen to me a lot when I was growing up. Always thought it was a ghost holding me down

Only get them when I take day naps nowadays, and now I know its just my brain not fully awake so I shrug it off.

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TheRock1525 posted...

Honestly what helped me the most was just getting more sleep.

yeah, this. i think the best ways to fight sleep paralysis are getting enough sleep and having a regular sleep schedule.

i used to get it all the time but i haven't experienced it in years now, fortunately.

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I dont know if it was sleep paralysis or in an actual dream, but one time I was lying in bed unable to move and I saw my door open and then someone in the dark walked in, shut the door, and then walked into my closet.

It was scary as hell.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I dont know if it was sleep paralysis or in an actual dream, but one time I was lying in bed unable to move and I saw my door open and then someone in the dark walked in, shut the door, and then walked into my closet.

It was scary as hell.

well seeing as how phyisical doors were opened I am going with dream.

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I don't know if I'd say I've had the full blown paralysis experience, but every now and then there'll be a morning where I've woken up but drifted back to sleep, and I'll have dreams where I'm lying in bed as if I was awake and odd things might happen. Sometimes it's just as simple as feeling like I can see through my eyelids, other times it'll be something mundane like my partner or someone else talking to me and it feels plausible. Usually there's something odd about it, but it doesn't really register as odd or impossible until I've woken up again and think about it for a bit.

The other day though, it was happening and my mind started thinking about sleep paralysis (I had recently read someone else talking about it, so I guess it was fresh in my memory), and I think I kinda made it happen like a lucid dream. But I still was aware it was happening, so I didn't even try to move or anything. In it, some random vague woman just kinda got up real close and personal by my face. I closed my eyes but could still sense her presence. It wasn't scary, because I was still aware of what it was and how that's the kind of thing people talked about experiencing, but it was still disconcerting. I was able to just think like "wow okay no more of that" and it went away, though.

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It happens to me occasionally, but only when I take a nap on my couch. No idea why.

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I had one where I fell asleep on my bed in the middle of the day, so when I hallucinated I thought my friends had come over to pick me up from plans we had made. I heard my mother greet them, walk up the stairs to my room, and even saw them poke their head in. They laughed at me and told me to get up, and my inability to respond just made them laugh harder. I even thought it was pretty funny at the time, if a little embarrassing. They're not always terrifying! Though I've had a few of those too.

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SwiftyDC posted...

Use to happen to me a lot when I was growing up. Always thought it was a ghost holding me down

My cousin lived in a religious household growing up, and his mother told him it was the Devil sitting on him. I can't imagine a worse thing to hear!

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I really really want to experience it because it sounds terrifying, but I am a stomach sleeper so I doubt I ever will.

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IfGodCouldDie posted...

I really really want to experience it because it sounds terrifying

Same here, and I'm a side sleeper. I'm actually pretty surprised how many people have experienced it here.

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I only ever got those while sleeping on my back

First time it was terrifying, like I was trying to get up but couldn't control my body, then suddenly after some minutes I jumped from my bed panting

The following times I pretty quickly knew what was going on and just waited for it to go away

Usually when I get it, I only hear sounds, like someone else is in the house. Sometimes a bang, knock, or a voice saying a single word (sometimes my name).

I've had visuals a couple times. One time I saw something large quickly enter the room in the air while I was lying on the couch, but I lost track of it. Then shortly after I saw these huge black wings slowly drop into my vision from above as if some large winged creature were directly above me. As I tried to look up, something stopped my body from doing so, and then I open my mouth to yell, but nothing came out, but I felt this weird force like something was being pulled out of me from where the scream would have been. Very hard to describe.

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Defintely get tested for Sleep Apnea as well, this can make you feel like you're bouncing between dream land and the real world since your body never settles into a deep enough sleep.

Once I got my CPAP machine I never got sleep paralysis.

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Does this happen before sleep? I have an undefined amount of time before I actually drift off where my body feels like it can't move but I am conscious. No hallucinations or anything, just lucid thoughts like 'I wish I could sleep', haha.

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I only had it once, back in college. It was the most frightening few minutes of my adult life.


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Lucavi000 posted...

well seeing as how phyisical doors were opened I am going with dream.

Imagination is a hell of a thing though

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davidponte posted...

I very rarely experience this sort of in-between state of sleeping and being awake, which may be sleep paralysis, where it feels like my body is asleep but I am awake, and it usually comes with a sense of fear but not physically seeing something. I always try to move my body but it's stuck in place despite what feels like a tremendous amount of effort to force any movement. It sucks but I've found that if I really exert myself and focus I can eventually move and kind of snap out of it into a state of being fully awake.

Yeah, this sounds almost exactly like what's been happening to me. The one hallucination that really messed me up the other night was when I didn't put in that effort to move and snap out of it, so uhhh lesson learned.

pjbasis posted...

I had one where I fell asleep on my bed in the middle of the day, so when I hallucinated I thought my friends had come over to pick me up from plans we had made. I heard my mother greet them, walk up the stairs to my room, and even saw them poke their head in. They laughed at me and told me to get up, and my inability to respond just made them laugh harder. I even thought it was pretty funny at the time, if a little embarrassing. They're not always terrifying! Though I've had a few of those too.

I've had a couple like this too! Definitely less scary when it's someone you'd be happy to see, haha

wg64Z posted...

Defintely get tested for Sleep Apnea as well, this can make you feel like you're bouncing between dream land and the real world since your body never settles into a deep enough sleep.

Once I got my CPAP machine I never got sleep paralysis.

I've been tested for it before and apparently don't have it, but it would explain so many random problems in my life that I'm definitely considering being tested again...

Llarian posted...

Does this happen before sleep? I have an undefined amount of time before I actually drift off where my body feels like it can't move but I am conscious. No hallucinations or anything, just lucid thoughts like 'I wish I could sleep', haha.

Yeah from what research I've done it can happen either before fully falling asleep or before fully waking up. For me personally it's hard to tell the difference.

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I get them occasionally and I enjoy it now. Because the secret is sleep paralysis is literally lucid dreaming.

It took me like 10 paralyses over my lifetime to figure out that when you're in your bed and you can't move and you see some shadowy figure... you're not actually in your bed, you're still dreaming. Details like the size and curtains and such are different. Try paying attention to those next time and you will quickly kick yourself awake. Or you can sink deeper into your bed and into the dream.

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