Sleep Paralysis

[Lainey]

Sometimes, when I get stressed out, this happens to me. It's creepy and I hate it, and it can cause me to feel like things are real that I don't believe in when I'm (fully) awake.

At times, I've been under the impression I'm under attack and about to be possessed by a demon. The fascinating (:roll:) twist is that I don't believe in demons.

Other times, I've "felt" like there was something by my bed, such as aliens. While I suspect that there is life on other planets, I highly doubt they come and visit us.

Still other times, it's thinking my blanket is attacking me (if it's over my face). I also don't believe that inanimate objects ever become animate.

And once, it was as mundane as feeling the sock I wore to bed (hey, I live in Canada) slip off my foot, and thinking that it wasn't worth the effort to search for it and put it back on. Yet when I woke up in the morning, it was on my foot. And I truly thought I was awake when I felt it slip off. (As in I imagined it--it never fell off).

So, my question for debate is, of the above options, what do you all think causes it? Do you have any other options? And why could this make someone like me, who doesn't believe in these things, feel like they're real when I'm half asleep? I read an older post on this board by an atheist who experienced feeling like he (I forget who--I don't think he posts here anymore) was going to be possessed, even though he didn't believe in anything like that.

As for me, I think it's a combination of brain chemicals and imagination. I've read it's that you're dreaming, but you really believe you're awake, so when you dream something up, you think it's real. Some people even hallucinate that there's an entity of some sort sitting on their chest and they have a heard time breathing. I've never experienced that one, though. If I did I'd probably die of a heart attack.

And does anyone who answers this post ever experience it?

[QED]

That part never occurred to me...you mean like how I suddenly was hyperfocusing on the buzzing fridge?

Exactly. The way we perceive sound is very interesting. If you take a regular audio CD and "rip" all the tracks to MP3 format you can get something like a 10 to 1 reduction in disc space - that is you could fit around 10 Albums on one data CD. (I recently dumped my old Pioneer 6 disc CD changer in my car for a new MP3 stereo that will playback 10 or more albums of the one CD ROM).

Roughly speaking, the reason that 90% of the "data" can be discarded in this way is that the brain is only looking for 10% -- from this it gets all the "cues" it needs to reconstruct the original sound in a meaningful way. This means that random triggers, as we drift in and out of sleep, get inflated by the same 10% -> 90% ratio and produce significant auditory experiences.

Oddly enough we tend to think of ourselves as "analogue" rather than "digital" creatures, but with the introduction of digital audio compression the random sounds I've been experiencing all my life are suddenly emerging in the world of technology... our satellite TV uses digital audio/video compression and when a passing thunderstorm interrupts the signal all sorts of digital bleeps and squeaks are emitted from the speakers. These sounds are exactly the same sort that I sometimes get in that twilight zone between waking and sleep!

[Jose]

At that time, however, I was MUCH more superstitious then I am now, and it scared me to death! Combining this experience with having a religious friend who talked as though demons were as common as goldfish, well...let's just say I'm glad common sense and my old friend skepticism took over.

Allow me to make a guess: these experiences reinforced your superstition. [I'll also guess that there are too many complexities for us to evaluate whether this might or might not have been true. We'll leave it as a mere half-baked thought.] You had the luxury of common sense and skepticism that led you to recognize a physiological basis for it. Imagine "the good old days" when we didn't know about REM sleep or the turn-off of muscles during sleep, or the possibility of not-quite-synchronous transition back to wakefulness. With no real explanation, we'd have little choice but to "explain" it with concepts like demons. Yikes! Then we'd think the world really is full of ghosts and demons--and we might even invent the concept of Shamans if there were people who could wiggle our toes for us, and make the demons go away. We'd probably also have a very strong need for a concept of some kind of benevolent power that's stronger than the demons, if for no other reason than to enable us to go about our daily business instead of trembling in terror.

[veerar]

http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/S_P.html
Is it harmful?

Sleep paralysis is most often associated with narcolepsy, a neurological condition in which the person has uncontrollable naps. However, there are many people who experience sleep paralysis without having signs of narcolepsy. Sometimes it runs in families. There is no known explanation why some people experience this paralysis. It is not harmful, although most people report feeling very afraid because they do not know what is happening, and within minutes they gradually or abruptly are able to move again; the episode is often terminated by a sound or a touch on the body.

In some cases, when hypnogogic hallucinations are present, people feel that someone is in the room with them, some experience the feeling that someone or something is sitting on their chest and they feel impending death and suffocation. That has been called the “Hag Phenomena” and has been happening to people over the centuries. These things cause people much anxiety and terror, but there is no physical harm.

What else can you tell me about sleep paralysis?


Some people with disrupted sleep schedules or circadian rhythm disturbances experience sleep paralysis
A study found that 35% of subjects with isolated sleep paralysis also reported a history of wake panic attacks unrelated to the experience of paralysis
Sixteen percent of these persons with isolated sleep paralysis met the criteria for panic disorder
How can I stop the sleep paralysis?

In severe cases, where episodes take place at least once a week for 6 months, medication may be used.

You may be able to minimize the episodes by following good sleep hygiene:


getting enough sleep
reduce stress
exercise regularly (but not too close to bedtime)
keep a regular sleep schedule


Sleep Paralysis Articles & Web Sites


What is sleep paralysis?

Sleep Paralysis and Lucid Dreams Research

Sleep Paralysis and Associated Hypnagogic and
Sleep Paralysis and Associated Hypnagogic and Hypnopompic Experiences Page

Sleep Paralysis/Hag Phenomena

Sleep Paralysis - A story about my experience by Daniel Hacking

The Evils of Sleep Paralysis (Its not really evil spirits! )

The Periodic Paralysis Resource Center
Sleep paralysis is normal



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diagnostic Classification Steering Committee, Thorpy MJ, Chairman. International Classification of Sleep Disorders: Diagnostic and Coding Manual. Rochester, Minnesota: American Sleep Disorders Association, 1990.

Kryger, Meir H., Roth, Thomas, Dement, William C. Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine, 2nd Edition. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: W.B. Saunders Company, 1994.
Please note: If you see a mistake, or wrong information, please E-mail: Nodmaster. We welcome your comments, suggestions, or notification of sleep related information.
The abve write up is from the second link.It says that "good sleep hygeine" is one of the solutions.
http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/paralysis.html
There are thousands of links available.if you are interested,I can provide them.
The best person to contact for knowing about it an its cure is a DOCTOR!

[Goat]

Sometimes, when I get stressed out, this happens to me. It's creepy and I hate it, and it can cause me to feel like things are real that I don't believe in when I'm (fully) awake.

At times, I've been under the impression I'm under attack and about to be possessed by a demon. The fascinating (:roll:) twist is that I don't believe in demons.

Other times, I've "felt" like there was something by my bed, such as aliens. While I suspect that there is life on other planets, I highly doubt they come and visit us.

Still other times, it's thinking my blanket is attacking me (if it's over my face). I also don't believe that inanimate objects ever become animate.

And once, it was as mundane as feeling the sock I wore to bed (hey, I live in Canada) slip off my foot, and thinking that it wasn't worth the effort to search for it and put it back on. Yet when I woke up in the morning, it was on my foot. And I truly thought I was awake when I felt it slip off. (As in I imagined it--it never fell off).

So, my question for debate is, of the above options, what do you all think causes it? Do you have any other options? And why could this make someone like me, who doesn't believe in these things, feel like they're real when I'm half asleep? I read an older post on this board by an atheist who experienced feeling like he (I forget who--I don't think he posts here anymore) was going to be possessed, even though he didn't believe in anything like that.

As for me, I think it's a combination of brain chemicals and imagination. I've read it's that you're dreaming, but you really believe you're awake, so when you dream something up, you think it's real. Some people even hallucinate that there's an entity of some sort sitting on their chest and they have a heard time breathing. I've never experienced that one, though. If I did I'd probably die of a heart attack.

And does anyone who answers this post ever experience it?

I didn't quite have that experiance, but a few days ago, I had something similar. I was sound asleep, and suddenly heard a 'beeping' noise. As I started coming out of sleep, I gradually understood that the beeping sound was in unison with a twitching of my leg muscle. Once I woke up complete, the beeping left, and it was only the muscle twitching a bit.

In my sleep, my brain was interpreting the muscle twitch as a sound. Pretty interesting actually.

[QED]

In my sleep, my brain was interpreting the muscle twitch as a sound. Pretty interesting actually.

It's interesting how all these little episodes seem to reveal a "digital" world going on inside us. The peculiar auditory experiences that I've had leave me in no doubt about the internal generation of synthetic bleeps and blips. A similar phenomenon also occurs with vision. Some people experience geometric patterns as part of visual aberrations. I obviously need my head seeing to as I've experienced this myself as well It lasts for several minutes as well so you can get a "good look" although it's a bit disturbing. In my case wherever I cast my gaze the scene was overlaid with bright, scintillating patterns. These were very geometric with triangles and straight lines etc. always with a crawling movement. Apparently it's often a precursor to a migraine headache, although in my case it just went away without any headache. It's another one of those peculiar artifacts of the brain that I'm sure will have lead people to assume all sorts of supernatural explanations throughout history.

[kkings77]

I began having these episodes a little over a year ago. The first one was extremely disturbing, but an "entity" did not appear. Everyone I have had since has become progressively worse, with one of the latest promising my death. A demon appeared sometime ago and has continued to appear. Eventually, he brought two others with him, who have yet to enter my room (which is when they will do something terrible, I feel.) I have started seeing a psychiatrist because I am terrified to sleep. Everyone I talk to seems shocked to hear what is going on and that this is a "common" disorder, even my doctor! I would like to know that others out there are experiencing this, how they interpret it, and what they are doing to stop it.

Here are some things I have "learned" from the episodes:
-Always occurs when sleeping on my back
-Mostly occurs when I sleep alone (no husband or dog in the bedroom--but I did have a mild one, meaning no demons appearing, while my dog slept on the bed)
-Sometimes are preceded by lucid dreaming (where I can manipulate the dream) and the dreams are always very different from regular ones.
-Possibly genetic. Found out my mother had and still has episodes where the same demon visits her.

What I believe so far:
-Something in my brain isn't working correctly, which is causing these episodes, also why I'm in therapy.
-Possibly (and I am not a religious person) this sleep paralysis is a "plane" so to speak where demons can exist and have access to us. I bought a Bible to look up demons and found that during the time when that literature was written, demons and possessions were not uncommon.

Questions I would LOVE to be answered:
-Why is everyone through time and across cultures being visited by some malevolent spirit during these episodes?
-How come very few people believe me and say I am having nightmares when I clearly explained that these are far from any common nightmares?
-What is everyone else doing to stop these episodes. I am truly afraid that the demons will (as they have "shown" me) take me to the foot of my bed, hold me down, remove my soul, and kill me. I am terrified to sleep, and would never do so alone. I have always practiced good sleep hygiene, perhaps sleeping too much on occasion.

I've read through what is on here and what sites are available on line, but I am still lost. Here it is 1:00am and I still refuse to go to sleep....

[QED]

I began having these episodes a little over a year ago.

Hello kkings77 -- welcome to the DC&R forums Clearly you are trying to understand your problem from as many different angles as possible. Please bear in mind that what you find here is mostly "armchair philosophizing". however, I think there's plenty of scope for getting further insights into your problem by "comparing notes" so to speak.

The first one was extremely disturbing, but an "entity" did not appear. Everyone I have had since has become progressively worse, with one of the latest promising my death.

I don't recognize anything quite like the latter apparitions you describe, but the initial "disturbing" episode might be similar. Was it a sense of presence without an obvious presence? Did it motivate you to react but you found you could not react in any way? This is the classic paralysis effect. If you do actually wake from it I notice you sometimes do manage to let out the stifled yell (somewhat embarrassingly at times!).

A demon appeared sometime ago and has continued to appear. Eventually, he brought two others with him, who have yet to enter my room (which is when they will do something terrible, I feel.)

I would be wondering why these apparitions came on to me in such a progressive manner. Logically (and rationally) I might suspect it to be more to be in line with my own ascending expectations rather than any demonic protocol (please don't be offended if I make light of anything hypothetical like this -- it's a way of reminding everyone that this is not professional advice!)

I have started seeing a psychiatrist because I am terrified to sleep. Everyone I talk to seems shocked to hear what is going on and that this is a "common" disorder, even my doctor! I would like to know that others out there are experiencing this, how they interpret it, and what they are doing to stop it.

I can only offer my ideas about how I would respond in your situation. First I would take a degree of comfort in knowing that it is a recognized effect and that out of all the many people who experience it we don't have corresponding numbers of supernaturally induced fatalities. I am also aware of the many "glitches" that our physical processing gear can throw at us, and our incredible capacity for "spooking" ourselves at will. I've also run a few thought experiments that convince me how perceptions of seemingly external supernatural goings-on can be isolated to the purely internal thought process. I really ought to write this one up for a debate some day.

What I believe so far:
-Something in my brain isn't working correctly, which is causing these episodes, also why I'm in therapy.
-Possibly (and I am not a religious person) this sleep paralysis is a "plane" so to speak where demons can exist and have access to us. I bought a Bible to look up demons and found that during the time when that literature was written, demons and possessions were not uncommon.

I make the point that this is an artifact of human biology and hence to be expected throughout human history. I would also suggest that much early superstition could be based on it and be the driving force behind the very notion of demons etc.

Questions I would LOVE to be answered:
-Why is everyone through time and across cultures being visited by some malevolent spirit during these episodes?

Perhaps for similar reasons to those that explain why we all have a predisposition to see faces in everything. Rather than all things being equal to our perceptions, our perceptions are somewhat tuned to those things that have most importance to us. Random onslaughts then have the effect of "ringing those same particular bells" in all of us.

-How come very few people believe me and say I am having nightmares when I clearly explained that these are far from any common nightmares?

If some of our experiences are common then there is an added sense of "reality" -- as if the events that are perceived to be taking place are somehow labelled as being real by our minds. This I believe is a mistaken labelling problem because the reality always turns out to bear no relation to what actually happened. Have you ever dreamed that you had woken up and were reaching for a light switch? The light never goes on and you wonder why (in your dream). I've experienced this and noted how very real the event seemed. But the fact remains it was all experienced in a darkened room while asleep.

-What is everyone else doing to stop these episodes. I am truly afraid that the demons will (as they have "shown" me) take me to the foot of my bed, hold me down, remove my soul, and kill me. I am terrified to sleep, and would never do so alone. I have always practiced good sleep hygiene, perhaps sleeping too much on occasion.

I've read through what is on here and what sites are available on line, but I am still lost. Here it is 1:00am and I still refuse to go to sleep....

I really do hope you manage to overcome this problem. I myself have always managed to laughed it off -- an awfully unsympathetic sounding thing to say, but the terror, to me, seems to be confined to the event by truly not believing it to be anything other than my own internal glitches. As a bit of a sceptic, if ever I find myself frightened by something creepy the first thing think is "great -- now I've got an opportunity to sort this business out once and for all -- maybe a Nobel prize awaits the first person to have real evidence of the supernatural at work!"