Hypnagogia (disturbing)
 

This isn't Paranoia. This has happend to me on a number of occasions, it runs in my family apparently. It always starts the same way, I'll be laying in my bed falling asleep... that period where you are JUST falling asleep, yet are sort of aware of your surroundings. Suddenly I get the feeling of being hit square on the top of the head with a pillow (where you feel it all the way down your spine).

That's where it gets freaky, because I'm awake but I can't move. The first time I didn't know what was going on, I was young so my first instinct was to say something to my brother like "you're going to get it," but I couldn't move. I immediately freaked out, because I realized I couldnt talk, move, or even control my breathing. I couldn't open my eyes, but I realized I could somehow see everything in the room. My breathing was steady as someone completely alseep, but my mind was fully awake. Suddenly I felt a hand on my chest, it clamp down, and pull. I was being pulled out of my own body, I could see myself (my soul?) being pulled up out of my chest, then suddenly I realized I was looking down at myself still slowly breathing. I heard a bell ring and suddenly I was back in my body and I could move.

After talking to my father about my experience I learned of our family history with it. He explained his theory that our upper mind wakes up just as our lower brain falls asleep. He also taught me how to control it instead of fearing it. Now I can use it to fly around in my dreams, and turn the most frightening night of my life into some of the most enjoyable.

I've experienced something similair. It happens when I am laying in bed, right on the edge of falling asleep. Out of nowhere I get the feeling of falling. It feels like I'm falling through the bed. It only lasts maybe 5 or 10 seconds, but when I come out of it I always jump, sometimes enough that I come off of the bed by 5 or 6 inches.

I believe we've talked about this before... sleep paralysis. It is quite common.

It is sometimes known as "old hag".

I have experienced it a few times and it simply one of the creepiest things I've ever experienced. The feeling that you are awake, you cannot move and that there is a person (usually malevolent) in the room with you. Sometimes they touch you (or hit you with a pillow in Seaver's case).

In the end, it just a sleep disorder. Nothing to worry about.

theguyonthecouch-I think what you are descibing as experiencing is when a person hit's their"sleep spindle". The sleep spindle is what causes you to enter, and stay in deep sleep. Perhaps those with hypnogogia, like myself have some malfunction?

From the Wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_spindle



I've experienced these too. They mostly don't bother me anymore, but when I was a child they would really frighten me. Now tha I'm older I can deal with them better.
However, they do still bother my bed mate. When I am caught in that twilight time haze, and things are "out to get me", I try to scream, but because of the sleep paralysis, they come out as these deep gutteral moans from somewhere in my body. It freaks him out every time!=)
But don't let this article scare you away from lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is alot of fun when you are in total control. Sometimes I will be having these really mundane dreams, and I think to myself "This suck's", and I can liven it up a bit.

sleep paralysis is nothing new, if it ever happens to you, try to cough, my neurologist recommended it to me as coughing is a semi voluntary action, it can bring you out of it, (actually he used some fancy words I have since forgotten) but bottom line is it works. But this thread belongs in knowledge, because it’s about something real, not paranoia.

Sorry, didn't know where else to put it. I read someone's post saying that the paranioa threads were dead compared to how they used to be. Said they used to give him some fright, so I was just attempting to bring some of that back...

Damn that would suck. Something simular happens to me sometimes. i wake up and i cant move or talk, its scary shit, but at least i dont see fucken nightmares in front of me.

Meh I've had it too, in fact I've had dreams that are almost identical to the alien abduction 'incidents' we hear so much about. I'd feel awake, be floating, but instead of alien faces they were manikins that apparently were watching me and they were 'bad' though why I knew this I couldn't tell you. I had sleep paralysis during it, but I also had it with a few more nightmares. These dreams seem more vivid than the usual, and I still remember one I had with a pair of shoes walking down the main stairs by themselves while I was frozen and terrified.

I think I stopped having these kind of dreams about age 9. It was something of a conscious effort, I'd go asleep telling myself to not dream, and it seemed to do the trick for whatever reason.

These dreams are why I laugh at the alien abduction stories. I recall reading one that was almost identical to my dreams, and while they would say I was undoubtedly taken by aliens, after all how could the dreams be so much alike, the easier answer is that its more of a common reaction to a physical feeling. That or the aliens were living under the slate floor in our homes entry way and looked like store manikins.

Yeah, the symptoms seem to fit with alien abduction stories like a glove.
I think the one effect I hate the most is the one were you feel like your being pulled around or something is touching you.

Excellent article on the subject!!


http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050709/bob9.asp

Been there, done that. Yes, it's freakin' scary. It was someone falling off a building or some such thing. I don't remember exactly what it was. I've watched people get shot before, and got shot, then attended my own damn funeral.

I get this a fair bit. Mostly I seem to see or feel (as in directly touch, not "sense") objects or presences in the room. I usually find the experience terrifying, even though the objects that appear are usually harmless like a tree or a dress. Perhaps it's the fact that the objects are usually floating in the air or embedded within other objects in the room. Maybe it's just the paralysis that scares me.
It's not a lot of fun, but sometimes what appears is nice. The other night I thought I was patting a lovely dog of mine, though she actually died ten years ago.

I have had this once and it was right before I fell asleep I started to think of the movie The Grudge and out of nowhere I started hearing voices and then I tried to get up but i couldnt move and my arms were like open and i was just laying there like WTF!! and then like behind my pillow is a closet and then like its opened and I felt a dark presence watching over me. I just tried the best I could to close my eyes and wait till it was over. But it was freaking scary. After I was done being frozen I just explored my room for a bit, to this day I am scared of The Grudge because of this experience lol.. just dont try to think of it!

I've had this a few times. I can almost always turn the dream lucid and override whatever bad stuff is going on in favor of something better: bring people back from the dead, fly around, psychokinetic powers...you name it.

The idea of feeling like you're being dragged sideways up a wall, though.....that's just freaking creepy. I'll probably have that sensation tonight. :O

I agree. I'd probably trip out for a moment or two...

same here, thats the main one i have. i probably have this happen about once every 3 months

Occassionally, I suffer from sleep paralysis with different "symptoms" you have listed on different occassions. It used to really freak me out when I was young, but its become somewhat common-place now and I can slowly work my way out of it without freaking out. That being said, sometimes if I don't realize what is going on immediately or if I'm experiencing symptoms that I rarely/never have experienced before, well, then it's really freaky. I've never woken up to a nightmare I was having though. I could imagine how that would mess with your perception of reality. I'd imagine it would be like waking from a dream within a dream or waking up from an especially deep sleep and being disoriented.

I dont suffer from sleep paralysis, but I have had sensations that no one I know of can explain... It does kinda freak me out on occasion with how real it seems but..... not everything can be explained eh?

From where I come, we don't quite explain it as 'sleep paralysis'. We believe it has more to do with supernatural stuffs. I haven't experienced any of it, but most of my aunts and uncles do. Even my mom had it. From what she said, it seemed quite surreal that it was to do with the supernatural stuffs. The weird thing is that it doesn't happen often. It has only happened once to my mom.

Well there is a lot of superstition that goes along with it and, to be honest, when it happens its hard to think otherwise. Sleep paralysis is used to explain the Middle Ages European succubus experience. Because two of the most common side effects of sleep paralysis is the feeling of someone else being in the room and a pressure on your chest (as though someone is sitting on it) the two supposedly explain the feeling that some demon came and got on you in the night and sucked your life force. I think thats a bit of a stretch, but what do I know. Anymore it is confused with an alien encounter/abduction phenomenon. In fact, on one occurence I could swear I saw an alien. However, I chalk that up to the mind being in a lucid half-sleep moment so you can see and experience dream-like events. Oddly, it happens to me in bouts several times a year. I'll be fine for 3-8 months then all of a sudden it'll be a problem for a couple of days to a couple of weeks then go away for another several months. Its been happening since I was extremely young so I've kinda grown accustomed to it. I still remember the first time it happened. I thought I was dead and that meant being conscious but unable to move or speak forever... it was really frightening. As the years have passed it still freaks me out sometimes, but I've found its strongest when you sense it coming and then try to fight it so it's best to just not try to struggle the paralysis and go to sleep (or back to sleep) like you normally would. If the control isn't there at the moment (which it isn't even for me all the time), I've found the quickest way to get out of it is to focus on moving a small body part (like a finger or your wrist) and once that is accomplished then it seems to break completely. Also once I broke it by speaking, but that was really hard for me. However, for me, even if I manage to break it it almost always recurs that same night so I'll have to break it multiple time and lose a couple of hours of sleep doing it. Thats another reason I've found its better to just give in an sleep; by far the easiest method of dealing with it.

I enjoy lucid dreaming. I can fly, I can do anything I want. I don't get the conscious sleep paralysis, though I do sometimes get the feeling of having fallen and landed in my bed, where I shake/jump as though it'd actually happened. There's actually a specific technical term for that, but I can't remember it right now. Basically it's where you're JUST about to fully fall asleep, but the transition is interrupted- and instead of slipping into your normal sleep paralysis, all your muscles get a sudden signal to contract, hence the jerking/jumping you experience.

that would certainly be something scary to experience

Apparently Thomas Edison used to use a hypnogogic state to generate his best ideas... he would sit holding a metal ball over a metal bowl or something and maintain that state just before you go to sleep. If he lost consciousness, he would drop the ball and the clank would wake him up.

I've experienced the common, uncommon, and rare symptoms.

A typical episode begins with me almost asleep with my eyes slightly open, then hearing a whooshing sound not unlike opening a car window at 80+mph. All feeling in my body drains from my body to a spot directly behind my eyes, but I'm still aware of my entire body. Suddenly, 9it feels like something grabs me, my vision goes white, and I experience the sensation of flying through a tunnel at high speed; if I had to estimate the speed I'd say between 100 and 200mph. A few seconds later my consciousness slams back into my body and I awaken with a full-body muscle spasm and am fully awake with my heart racing. My entire body feels like it has been stabbed with white-hot needles. Total time elapsed, under 10 seconds. I've actually come to enjoy this sensation, although it makes me nervous because I know I'm paralyzed.

A few times I have fallen asleep with my eyes open and felt myself float off my bed. I would stay perfectly still for a few seconds, then awaken with the full-body spasm. The first few times I was certain that I had levitated in my sleep and that the spasm was from hitting the bed as I fell. I only realized that it was muscle spasms and nothing paranormal a couple of years ago.

A rare one that I have fortunately only experienced once involved waking up while still dreaming. It has all the marks of a classic night terror. My eyes opened, and I couldn't move. I don't know why, and I don't really want to think about it too hard, but I knew I was about to die. As my eyes focused, I could see several shadow people moving around my room. As if shadow people weren't bad enough, I could see their red glowing eyes. I tried to scream, but my vocal chords were paralyzed. As they closed in on me I started to regain feeling and move slightly, and as I lifted my head they jumped back and faded. Nightmares are bad, but when you can't close your eyes and you transition back to reality, it's impossible to convince yourself that what you saw wasn't real.

Is this or lucid dreaming related to astral projection? I've heard friends talking about it but don't know much about it.

I have heard and experienced some bad shit over the years. Once during paralysis I saw a decomposing woman standing right over me. I was scared shitless. Later it dissapeared into my closet and I pulled out a gun I keep under my pillow (paranoia) and aimed my gun at the closet door. I stood there for hours waiting for it to come out till my tv came because of its alarm. I looked in the closet and nothing was there, however sometime areound seeing that thing I literally shit myself, so to keep this from happening I cover up my eyes everytime I sleep and to this day have not gotten over it.