Poll: Sleep Paralysis

[Malkavian]

Only tried it once, I think. But no half-dreaming, just that inability to move. Didn't last very long though.

 

[InfinitySquared]

I've had sleep paralysis twice. Once in my room, where I saw a benevolent void thing (just last night) , it felt feminine though. It as as if she was protecting me from something. And the other time in the school bus, I couldn't move and I could feel my heartbeat pounding throughout my entire body. A busmate of mine said after regaining control over my body.

"Hey, Bien? Are you okay? Your eyes were bloodshot, you won't move even when I poked you and you were sweating lightly."

She sounded concerned, so I opened a notebook and I quickly wrote it down along with the details of my experience. The school's doctor said it was just sleep paralysis, and completely normal. It happened a week ago.

 

[salvation from SP]

Guys, whoever experiences this sleep paralysis quite commonly and would like to find out the REAL TRUTH about the phenomena, add me to your MSN contact list: [email protected] (bring a strong stomach and don't even dare to think that I'm an MSN hacker ) I'm just here to help.

 

[Kevvers]

I remember someone telling me that you can only feel things in dreams that you have experienced whilst awake, thus you can't die in dreams. Unless you die in your sleep. Same if you dream that you're falling of a cliff, then just when you're about to hit the ground, you wake up on the floor, having fallen of your bed.

However, we have all played computer games where you fall from a great height and crunch on the floor and the screen goes red.... well its like that in a dream. So, yeah, you can die in dreams... one time some freaky ass supernatural type girl kicked my head so hard it broke my neck -- I mean it the dream -- and I was just lying there not able to move, staring straight-forward for ages. That was after I saw the Ring. I woke up with a real pain in the neck, probably cos Id jerked it round in my sleep.

 

[beddo]

Do you all go to the same church youth group?

 

[beddo]

I had it once and though I herd a child screaming, so the one finger I could move I pushed my arm then when that could move I moved my body then when I got up the screaming stopped and the whole room changed coulors all of a sudden like I was asleep. Pissed myself ten seconds later.

That whole paragraph is incoherent:

-You have spelt 'heard' incorrectly.

-You hadn't previously mentioned that you could move one finger.

-After mentioning that you could move one finger the sentence breaks and you begin another.

-You don't state how you you pushed your arm, though you imply you did it with your finger this would not be possible unless your other arm had free movement.

-You say "[...] I pushed my arm then when that could move I moved my body [...]" I don't even know where to begin here. This is completely fragmented and refers to your arm incorrectly, you should say "then, when I could move it" followed by "I was able to move my body."

-You follow the previous statement with another 'then' rather than beginning a new sentence.

-You have spelt 'colours' incorrectly.

-"[...] the whole room changed coulors all of a sudden like I was asleep [...]" Does the room normally change colours when you are asleep!? Do you dream that your room changes colours every time you fall asleep?

-[Pissed myself ten seconds later.[/quote] You forgot to put an 'I' at the beginning of that sentence.

Please make sure you read what you have written and correct it accordingly before posting.

 

[WingedFortress]

I've only ever had this on a train. We were going up north, and I was having a series of the most lucid dreams of my life. On the final evening of the trip, I became fully aware of my dreaming while still asleep, and felt as though my "awake self" woke up in my own mind. My eyes were closed, and it felt as though I was standing in a spotlight, amidst pitch black. It literally felt as though I was standing within my own mental confines. I frequently become aware of my dreams, but in this case as hard as I tried to do a tried and true "spasm" to wake myself up, I realized that I had no control of my body. So, I stood there, in my own mind, I frantically try and think of a way out. After minutes of focus, I pulled myself out of the dream, only to jerk up and fall right back down, into the "abyss". I stayed there for a few more minutes until I finally got myself up again, this time remembering to flip on all fours and shake my head to fully wake myself. I didn't get back to sleep until about a day and a half later.
There were no shadow people. but the mere mention of them has been literally sending multiple shivers down my spine for an hour now. I'm currently waiting on the sun to come up to try and get to sleep.

All of this makes me miss when a horror movie used to do the trick.

 

[Uncompetative]

I've had Sleep Paralysis five or six times. I wake and can't move for a minute or so. Bewilderment and frustration turn to panic. Then I remember this has all happened before and that it is that damn SP and I just try to wait it out whilst sending signals to my body to move, like Uma in Kill Bill. All this is horrible enough without also hallucinating a "void-man", so you have my sympathy there. I never have.

mmmm... I keep looking back at the time I saw the shadow man, & I've been wondering... It's almost as though that silhouette looked like MY silhouette. I really don't believe there's some psychological problem in me that would warrant me hallucinating my own silhouette strangling me, & I'm not even sure if it WAS a silhouette of me...

I was wondering if you were onto something here. I was reading the earlier part of this thread and independent came up with the hypotheses that the "void-man" was the projection of your "self" in some form. Not how you see yourself in the mirror - external image, reflected - but how your mind connects from within with the periphery of your senses - i.e. your sense-envelope, or skin which is sensorially "hollow". Then, I read that you thought the "void-man" might be you and someone else was talking about a "void-child" (who I assume is a child themselves), so that seemed contributory evidence. Although it isn't scientific proof of anything I don't feel so stupid suggesting the "void-man" is you.

I looked, briefly on the web, and came upon this:

http://www.persistenceunlimited.com/2007/05/7-tips-to-stop-the-terror-of-sleep-paralysis/

The main point is not gaming directly before bedtime. Boo.

When else are you going to do it?

 

[PsykoDragon]

I looked, briefly on the web, and came upon this:

http://www.persistenceunlimited.com/2007/05/7-tips-to-stop-the-terror-of-sleep-paralysis/

The main point is not gaming directly before bedtime. Boo.

When else are you going to do it?

lol, I was gonna say "How am I supposed to do it... it happens randomly!" until I read your link, & decided to do the opposite of what's suggested to prevent SP. I'll check what I'm doing that could contribute to SP:
1)check (NOT avoiding meals 3-4 hours b4 bed)
2)check (Drinking coffee/coke random times during day)
3)check (NOT working out)
4)check (Rather normal meals & fast food)
5)check (lol I'm always on my PC right b4 I sleep)
6)... I don't take any medication b4 bed, maybe I should
7)check (lights in my room almost all the time)

...So, I'm pretty much a recipe for SP. Alas, it hasn't happened to me in quite a while. Maybe I got used to all these things that can contribute to it. Ahh, well, we shall see. I still tend to have trouble moving once I wake up, but I don't feel "a sense of Doom" & neither do I see shadow people, so it might not be SP.

 

[Evilbunny]

Among my friends who have experienced this, most of them got the shivers when I told them that I saw a silhouette of a man (basically just an empty black void in the shape of a man) standing next to my bed, then he would reach out & caress my forehead... then his hands would surround my throat & start squeezing, & I scream myself awake, I HEAR myself scream, but when I ask my mother later on, who was awake all along, she claims not to have heard anything...

Holy shit, the same thing happens to me! I usually see a silhouette of a man in my doorway, and then he walks over to me and begins to caress some part of my body (usually my head, sometimes my leg). I usually try to scream but when I do nothing comes out. I strain myself again and again to scream and sometimes eventually I wake myself up with it. It's an odd feeling.

 

[BubbleGumSnareDrum]

Did the man have a hat on? Sort of like a fedora or gaucho hat?

I have seen "void man," or as I call him, "the man in the hat," twice in my life, but both times I was awake. He appeared before me for very brief moments, filled me with unspeakable fear for that short instant as he stared through me, and then was gone as quickly as he had come.