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[Vespulan]

Okay then fellow Bay12ers, I don't know of how much help any of you can be or if any of you have ever experienced the same thing, but I had a rather terrifying experience just after I woke up (or before, I don't really know...).  Basically, I'm quite a lucid dreamer so I often get dreams where I can control my own movements (I even had a fight with an old Physics teacher in one of them) and I've noticed these often happen just as I'm waking up and drifting between (un) consciousness.  Anyway, this morning I woke up (I think) and tried to move my head, but couldn't - as though I was paralysed.  I tried moving my fingers and legs but got the same response.  I immediately assumed I was either having a lucid dream or my muscles had just failed to wake up yet.  You can imagine my surprise when I heard footsteps in my room (unable to turn my head to look at the cause) and a kind of whispering.  And then, with the full effect of a jumpscare in Amnesia, a weird dark face appeared that seemed to have a really long neck.  I never saw the body and I woke up/woke MORE up just as it leaned really close to my chest.  This  is probably one of the most frightening things I've ever had happen to me, so I looked it up and found stuff about Sleep Paralysis.  I easily fall into the candidates for it because I almost always sleep on my back and have had some pretty terrible sleep timetabling recently.  So what I was wondering is if anyone else has had something similar?  If so, how do you avoid/stop it?   

  Vespulan.   P.S. I don't think it can be Genetic because my parents hadn't even heard of it and none of my siblings suffer either.   

[Neonivek]

I once managed to open my eye while asleep and retained vision... even though I was paralyzed.

I often can try to move my actual muscles but it is usually quite fruitless.

[Vespulan]

I once managed to open my eye while asleep and retained vision... even though I was paralyzed.

I often can try to move my actual muscles but it is usually quite fruitless.

Oh yeah, I could move my eyes fine.  It was just when I tried to move anything else I got a big NO from the muscles in concern. 

[scrdest]

Rare statistically, but since you're a lucid dreamer (you lucky bastard! ) it is hardly surprising.

It's physiological phenomenon, simply an extension of your lucid dreaming: your mind awakes, but the rest of your body is still asleep. When your brain sends signals to muscles, the other parts of the brain responsible for managing you while you're asleep go 'HELL NAW!' - and they have a good reason. If we didn't have that part, if you dreamed you were, say, walking, you could stand up and walk straight off your bed, in the cold, unwelcoming embrace of the floor.

You can move your eyes, since eyes have a hotline to the brain - similarly to people with Locked-in Syndrome.

The scary shit you are seeing is you dreaming while awake. If you lived in the 50's to 70's, you'd probably be seeing little green men.

'What do' part: uneducated guess, but I assume getting rid of the lucid dreaming would get you rid of Sleep Paralysis, since it's the same kind of brain activity getting mixed up. The parts of brain that are normally shut down while you're asleep aren't, leading to lucid dreaming, but the parts that are supposed to shut the hell up while you're awake are neither, leading to Sleep Paralysis and general freakishness.

What might potentially help: look up what to do to experience lucid dreams, then do the exact opposite. That's assuming the techniques people are giving actually work, and that in their absence you can stop LD.

Second, but that's really not a good idea, especially in the long run: alcohol. Shuts parts of the brain off. That's what being drunk is, basically - having certain parts of your brain shut down biochemically. If this would work, I have no idea. Theoretically, it might, practically, probably not.

[Vespulan]

'What do' part: uneducated guess, but I assume getting rid of the lucid dreaming would get you rid of Sleep Paralysis, since it's the same kind of brain activity getting mixed up. The parts of brain that are normally shut down while you're asleep aren't, leading to lucid dreaming, but the parts that are supposed to shut the hell up while you're awake are neither, leading to Sleep Paralysis and general freakishness.

What might potentially help: look up what to do to experience lucid dreams, then do the exact opposite. That's assuming the techniques people are giving actually work, and that in their absence you can stop LD.

Second, but that's really not a good idea, especially in the long run: alcohol. Shuts parts of the brain off. That's what being drunk is, basically - having certain parts of your brain shut down biochemically. If this would work, I have no idea. Theoretically, it might, practically, probably not.

The thing is, I really like Lucid dreaming - and the more I do it the more I seem to be able to control myself, so this Sleep Paralysis is like one of those terrible things that come with an awesome thing.  And apparently, the main cause of this stuff is lying on your back because it causes a part of your spine to be pushed and block your airway or something.  I can't really help this, as I've been sleeping on my back since I was mini apparently.  Also, as much as I would like to become a raging alcoholic, I can only imagine Wine would be any help because it helps you sleep, and as I'm still rather young I think I can pass that one off - sorry   What I'm really looking for is a way to break the paralysis once I'm in it - if I can send telepathic minds waves that summon some Sleep Dragon to come and kill the evil walking guy and carry me to safety, that would be fantastic. 

[scrdest]

The thing is, I really like Lucid dreaming - and the more I do it the more I seem to be able to control myself, so this Sleep Paralysis is like one of those terrible things that come with an awesome thing.  And apparently, the main cause of this stuff is lying on your back because it causes a part of your spine to be pushed and block your airway or something. - that... doesn't sound too convincing. If anything, it could be pressure on the spinal cord, which is a bunch of neurons responsible for unconscious responses mostly. Statistically, people who sleep on their backs have it more often, but nobody seems to know why. I'd suspect it exacerbates the paralysis due to pressure on nerves in spine, but that's just a guess.

  I can't really help this, as I've been sleeping on my back since I was mini apparently.  Also, as much as I would like to become a raging alcoholic, I can only imagine Wine would be any help because it helps you sleep, and as I'm still rather young I think I can pass that one off - sorry   What I'm really looking for is a way to break the paralysis once I'm in it - if I can send telepathic minds waves that summon some Sleep Dragon to come and kill the evil walking guy and carry me to safety, that would be fantastic.

non-telepathic brain waves are one of the causes of your problems, so they are the ones who need to be banished . I assume redirecting the subject of the hallucinations to something not pants-shittingly scary would help, but how I don't even.

[Vespulan]

non-telepathic brain waves are one of the causes of your problems, so they are the ones who need to be banished . I assume redirecting the subject of the hallucinations to something not pants-shittingly scary would help, but how I don't even.

Yeah, I imagine part of my problem is having a pretty active imagination.  But whenever I'm lying in bed failing to get to sleep, I either have to try and read a book or I lie there thinking of the scariest possible thing to be behind my door/breathing down my neck.  I guess you could call it character building. :/

[scrdest]

non-telepathic brain waves are one of the causes of your problems, so they are the ones who need to be banished . I assume redirecting the subject of the hallucinations to something not pants-shittingly scary would help, but how I don't even.

Yeah, I imagine part of my problem is having a pretty active imagination.  But whenever I'm lying in bed failing to get to sleep, I either have to try and read a book or I lie there thinking of the scariest possible thing to be behind my door/breathing down my neck.  I guess you could call it character building. :/

Thinking of the scariest possible thing was what I actually did to prevent nightmares. Worked like a charm. Although I don't LD (sadly).

[Vespulan]

Thinking of the scariest possible thing was what I actually did to prevent nightmares. Worked like a charm. Although I don't LD (sadly).

I don't really get nightmares (unless you can count this as one), when I was younger I got really weird and creepy ones but now-a-days they're a bit more normal.  The weird (or not, depending) thing is that I'm fairly sure I've seen the face before, and the whole face on a long neck thing I've always had a very much rational fear of   It probably comes from that episode of Poirot with the white face at the window (Murder in Mesopotamia I believe). 
 

[Shook]

Yeah, I imagine part of my problem is having a pretty active imagination.  But whenever I'm lying in bed failing to get to sleep, I either have to try and read a book or I lie there thinking of the scariest possible thing to be behind my door/breathing down my neck.  I guess you could call it character building. :/

Ahaha, oh man THAT FEEL BRO. I totally know what you're on about, although i just hope that my thoughts automatically drift away from the scary shit (which they often do) rather than reading a book, although i will grab a nearby comic if it gets really bad.

Anyways, for the topic at hand, i once experienced sleep paralysis as well, although my case was WAY more benign. My hallucinations basically consisted of the room to my door opening slightly, shining a warm golden light into the room, and then closing again, ever so slowly. The most terrifying part of it was that i couldn't move (except my eyes i think) AT ALL, in fact i couldn't even control my own breathing. This was frightening, since i was getting agitated by the paralysis, and thus TRIED to breathe faster and deeper, but i couldn't. I couldn't move my arm away from my chest either. And then suddenly, i could move again, and all was well, even though it was freaky as fuck. I'm just glad that it didn't involve any terrifying hallucinations like yours, because i've been woken up in shock by many "dreams" before, so it could easily have been a bedwetting experience.

As far as i know though, during the paralysis, there's not really anything you can do to cancel it. Perhaps close your eyes and be all "THIS IS A DREAM SO YOUR WEIRD FACE IS MADE OF DELICIOUS CARAMEL NOW"? I mean, if it really is a dream, you ought to have at least some control over it. The paralysis will go away by itself, typically reasonably quickly, and since it's actually a really rare thing (some people never experience it at all), i wouldn't worry too much. Well, except that it's terrifying, but i think it helps to know what's going on.

[Vespulan]

I totally agree it's better to know what's going on . But it just feels so real - It would have been so much worse if I wasn't a Lucid Dreamy cause I always seem to know when something just be there - not least because if any horrifying creature tried to enter my room it would trip over the -built robot and stacks of Easter decorations littering my landing floor.  But I also can't really remember waking up...  That's a bit odd...

[Gamerlord]

I haven't experienced this, but when I was younger after staying very still for a while in bed, the bed would feel like it fell away from beneath me and I would feel like I was in freefall for a second. It was so nasty I took to sleeping on the floor.

[Akura]

I get it sometimes after staying in bed awhile after waking up; my body tries to go back to sleep when the mind doesn't want to(or possibly the other way around?) Annoying, and pretty damn scary(despite being used to it, might be a mental reflex thing) during. But it shouldn't neccessarily by a severe issue.

[Caz]

Well, these're just my experiences, but I've found that sleeping on your back is more likely to cause sleep paralysis. Sometimes trying to move your extremities works better than attempting to move your whole body i.e - when you find you can't move, try wiggling your toes and fingers.

If you're getting the hallucinations, just try to remain calm. They're not real, they're dream fragments, and they'll leave once you wake up truly. A good splash of cold water can help.

I haven't experienced this, but when I was younger after staying very still for a while in bed, the bed would feel like it fell away from beneath me and I would feel like I was in freefall for a second. It was so nasty I took to sleeping on the floor.

Sounds like a hypnagogic jerk.

[mainiac]

I used to get sleep paralysis about once a month.  It happened more often when I would fall asleep in the middle of the day or when I'd sleep in an unusual position.  So keep to a more regular sleep schedule and sleep in a bed if you want to avoid it is my advice.  It also helps a lot if you can share a bed because your significant other can learn the signs and shake you out of it.

I tended to have shortness of breath during my sleep paralysis.  Hour long sensations of being on the brink of suffocation and being unable to do anything or tell anyone isn't much fun.  Extra scary when there are people conversing nearby and you think that you could just die there while they chat.