Have you ever experienced any weird things during sleep?
Never had it, but read some interesting theories behind it.
I believe lucid dreaming can help in some way, but I might be making that up.
EDIT: Just noticed the poll....
I had a recurring dream in which I died but I was watching myself die rather than being in my body, it was the most surreal thing I think I've ever experienced. I even knew it was going to happen before it happened.
One time my Dad flipped his car on my street and I died.
Another time(bear with me here dreams are weird) I was in school and my entire class got stuck in a huge elevator and I went to take an electric panel off to get the lift started again because everyone said I knew how to do it even though I was telling them I didn't, I got electrocuted and died.
Both times, I was watching myself saying "don't do this you'll die". So the car, I knew when he went to turn I was about to die, the elevator I knew taking the panel off would cause my death, both times I was helpless and just watched us die.
They both happened very close together when I was in my teens, both times I was dreaming about a younger me, I have absolutely no idea wtf my brain was doing but its never happened since.
Comment has been collapsed.
Are sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming interconnected for most people? I experience sleep paralysis, and am a natural lucid dreamer, but these are both a result of having narcolepsy.
Comment has been collapsed.
I honestly don't know but I know that lucid dreaming gives you more control so waking up you would also have more control being in a lucid state. I feel like im making it up though or it pertains to something other than sleep paralysis.
Comment has been collapsed.
I just used to be "gifted" with insomnia ._.'
But as soon as I sleep, I'm dead. I can't remember any of my dreams and I barely have nights where I wake up in the middle of them.
I'm pretty lucky, I guess ^-^/
even though the amount of sleep I get differs from 2-4h to 7-9h..
Comment has been collapsed.
I have insomnia - have since I was a toddler. Still get this when i sleep though sometimes. Night terrors too. Also been known to sleepwalk.
Thank Gob for cheap gaming deals! :D
Comment has been collapsed.
Like I said, I'm pretty lucky overall.
My insomnia is weird. Like.. Sometimes there are weeks or 1-2months were I can sleep damn good every single night and then there are nights/weeks/months were I'm barely able to close my eyes ._.
It's weird
- and no, it was NOT a self-diagnosed insomnia (which somehow is quite popular over here lol...)
Comment has been collapsed.
in your case, it could be affected by a number of things (including diet, which i always found odd, though as i grow older makes more sense).
a tip from me for when its bad and you cant get any reprieve: lay down in a low lit room, put on an audiobook or audiodrama, close your eyes and focus on the story. after a while your brain should hit a state of activity similar to dreaming (even though you're awake). after an hour or so you should feel fairly refreshed. might even doze off for ten minutes.
Comment has been collapsed.
I should have included insomnia in the poll, even if it is a different beast altogether. Had many a night when I stayed in bed overthinking stuff until the dawn and alarm for work... and no sleep to be had at all.
Comment has been collapsed.
thats not insomnia. insomnia is a clinical condition that doesnt go away. what you experienced was sleeplessness / over active mind. while similar, it is not the same thing. consider it the same kind of difference between clinical depression and feeling down for a day.
my doctor calculated a rough average of my awake hours over the course of my life and concluded that by the time i was 35 i had been awake as long as the average 50 year old. would explain the grumpsome nature of me! ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
I didn't say it's the same, just tried to "approve" of the conversation going in another direction.
Comment has been collapsed.
Never happened to me and I don't want it to ever happen to me - NEVER! Still, why some people experience this thing? Is there a specific reason?
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, from what I understand, our bodies are "locked" to a certain extent while we sleep so we don't hurt ourselves. Think about how dogs try to run in their sleep but don't get anywhere. =3 Sleep paralysis is the rare occasion where that goes one step too far. Sleep walking is when it doesn't work so well. That's what I've heard, if nothing else.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes, brain basically locks the body so you don't run off the cliff in your sleep... then wakes up and body stays locked for a moment or two longer... and in those moments brain starts panicking and imagining the wildest things.
Comment has been collapsed.
yeah, i've been through that alot when i was alone in dormitory back in college , and when i remember those tbh i don't know what to say! you fell u are screaming from inside but u got no voice:) and every single time i didn't know how but some minutes later i managed to pass that painful moment and move on to the next level:) but sometimes in lower levels its kinda fun:)
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes, once you "fully wake up" it's clear that it was nothing but in those short moments you feel like you have no voice, no breath, and are completely powerless...
Comment has been collapsed.
It reminds me of complete sensory deprivation thingy, because that's when the brain starts imagining weird things too. Like, all your senses are asleep and brain can't reach them and you feel that... and it pains so much... and then... if you don't wake up completely soon enough... weird dark shades come and stab you with a dagger or look at you ominously and other CIA-60s-LSD-testing type imagery.
Comment has been collapsed.
lol i see some dark shades actually some times! but they were mostly crawling on the roof! but still creepy as hell!
Comment has been collapsed.
I've experienced this at least fifty times. After a while it is not a big deal. :p
Comment has been collapsed.
That's been my experience as well. When it first starts happening, there's a lot of panic because you can't breathe. After it's been happening for a while, you realize that you are breathing, even if you can't manually control your breath. So with that panic out of the way, now it's just a matter of deciding if you want to wake up all the way, or go to sleep all the way.
I usually just go to sleep, since that's what I'm trying to do when it usually happens anyway.
Comment has been collapsed.
My experience is more like a "can't move" problem. I feel awake but my voice won't come out. Also i can't get up. I even saw that black figure in some of my experience. But not breathing didn't happen to me yet.
Comment has been collapsed.
Once I dreamt some folks broke into my appartment through the balcony, then I "woke up" to this paralysis-like state. Saw my balcony door hanging open, and felt like someone was holding my arms down above my head, and my ankles too. I did not actually realize there was no one at my feet, but felt them being pushed against the bed. And then, all of a sudden, everything was gone and I woke up for real.
Weird it was.
Comment has been collapsed.
I know that it's only been a few minutes, but it's really fishy that suddenly everyone's (meaning the majority) has had paralysis in the polls :P
Comment has been collapsed.
It's 10 people had it 8 had nothing because they sleep peacefully. Not a huge majority if you realize 10 people is a very small number.
Comment has been collapsed.
It's gotten better now.
The actual percentage for students is around 26%, but for the general population, 7.6%.
It's not a student majority on this site, so it's still weirdly high. :D
Comment has been collapsed.
it just means it's widely common (or people are jokevoting) even for a place like S t e a m G i f t s
(is it truly fishy..)
Comment has been collapsed.
The actual percentage for students is around 26%, but for the general population, 7.6%.
Not too common, especially here. One might think that this site is full of kids, but from what it seems, most people are actually older. 15-20 year olds are around 15% of the site, according to a poll made a year ago
Now, I know that polls are usually with some trolls, but the vast majority of the votes are most likely correct. Especially since there was a troll answer to filter the trolls out.
Is it fishy. Yeah.
Is it expected to be fishy? Yeah...
Comment has been collapsed.
Actually we all have had it, your body goes into a near-paralysis state during REM sleep called REM atonia. It's how your body protects you from acting out your dreams. Aware Sleep paralysis is just a mess up in your internal clock that either sends you to REM earlier than it should(Sleep Paralysis while falling asleep) or waking up in the middle of a REM stage(waking up with Sleep Paralysis). It's usually not a frequent occurrence for the same person but it is rather common on a larger scale.
Personally had it happen just a few months ago.
Comment has been collapsed.
The actual percentage for students is around 26%, but for the general population, 7.6%.
Lol, third time i've copied this.
15-20 year olds are around 15% of the site, according to a poll made a year ago.
Now, I know that polls are usually with some trolls, but the vast majority of the votes are most likely correct. Especially since there was a troll answer to filter the trolls out.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't know, it might be self-selection. I clicked on this topic because the title is "Sleep Paralysis", which I have.
Comment has been collapsed.
A few times if I'm really tired. The worst was falling through my bed down and down towards "hell", big black gates at the entrance, voices speaking in tongues running from one ear to the other and back again, trying to wake up but completely unable to move.
That was before I knew about sleep paralysis, when it occurred more recently I knew I was in a dream and was able to manipulate it. That was a much more pleasurable experience, to the point where it was a bit of a bummer to wake up from.
Comment has been collapsed.
That's scary. When you say manipulate it sounds like we're talking about dreams and not real sleep paralysis. Have you been able to recognize the dreams you've already had? Like... "wait... I dreamed this before... and I did that and... I should try something else this time..."?
Comment has been collapsed.
"manipulating" dreams sounds like luicid dreaming to me
Comment has been collapsed.
That's how it's called, yes. I just meant, what fandango mentioned at the end sounds more like that and wanted to see if I understood right.
Comment has been collapsed.
The first instance was sleep paralysis, the second... I'm not too sure. I remember being conscious of what was going on, of not being able to move, to going through the thought process of "Well you've been here before (in the sense of experiencing rather than being in that particular setting), can I do this? Oh I can, let's keep going." It may well have started out as sleep paralysis and got flipped into a lucid dream along the way.
Most of the time I don't remember what I dream about at all. There might be recurring themes, or people here and there but I'm not aware of ever having the same dream more than once.
Comment has been collapsed.
I tend to sleep right through the night. The one time I got really affected was when I was at my grandmother's. I suddenly woke up from what I assume must have been a nightmare. My heart was racing, fear was overwhelming me, and I could only think, "He's coming, he's coming, he's coming..." until about five minutes later, when I finally comprehended it was a dream and there really wasn't anyone outside my window. I was in my twenties when this happened, so yeah, it was really bizarre. Only time I've experienced something extremely strange while sleeping.
Comment has been collapsed.
I've experienced sleep paralysis a lot of times, but thankfully, I never saw a shadowy person or anything like that. The good part is that ever since I remember, if I can't move at all, I know I'm dreaming and I start focusing on slowly moving a hand or a leg and after a few seconds I wake up. The bad part is that it happened so often that now I literally dream about having sleep paralysis, and it gets really hard to tell what's real and what's not. Sometimes I have to repeat the process 2-3 times, other times I can't tell whether I've woken up or not so I just continue dreaming.
Comment has been collapsed.
No sleep paralysis, but I do sleepwalk pretty often xD Not too uncommon to find me wandering around the house while Im sleeping
edit: Figured Id add, I have chronic insomnia, which Ive had since I was really young. I go through periods where I just cant sleep, then it evens out and I can sleep, but Ill probably end up wandering around at some point, and I most likely wont remember it. Probably happens once or twice a week when Im sleeping "normally". Used to creep my granny out hardcore when I moved in to help her, but not so much anymore lol
Comment has been collapsed.
Its horrible cause your feelings mixes with the dreams you were having, so its like being awake inside a dream - for me, last year, it was always the same nightmare that triggered it, which makes it even worse - and you can't do nothing about it. For me it could happen even in the middle of the night a couple of hours after I went to sleep (even tho the majority of times usually happen in the latest stages of the sleep) and no matter what I did after I couldn't go to sleep again because of all the adrenaline and heart pumping I had. I could have this like 3 times a week sometimes. Horrible, horrible.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ive experienced this once, head felt super heavy and like something heavy was on my chest... was difficult to breathe.
I was confused initially,cuz I couldnt do anything but stare up at the ceiling. Lasted for like an hour(i think), so when I was finally able to react I cried then couldnt sleep. So I decided to take a day off.
Comment has been collapsed.
Have not experienced but have to admit.. not sure at all if I would find this as scary as it's supposed to be :o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbGV3ufqr50
Comment has been collapsed.
In our cultural beliefs, they say some djinns and bad spirits are haunting people while they are sleeping, and calling 'karabasan'. If you felt a heaviness on your chest, and cannot move or speak in your sleep, that means you are torturing by these things.
I didn't have these, but they say prying some holy thingies are useful against this friends.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh, is this in Islam? I've heard of people praying before sleep to prevent bad dreams, visits from bad spirits and similar stuff.
Comment has been collapsed.
That's right, some say there are unique prayings and chapters of quran is super effective for these kinds of situations. Hell, we have so many praying for every situation :D
But this djinns aren't only coming at night, some bad ones following people they, like, in the morning, whole day, or whole of their lifes.
And some say these guys could marry with people, live with them even no one could see them, and at some point they turn you crazy... There are special exorcist quacks who claims to cure by breathing, but so far we only saw they are just harassing and robbing people :D
But it's just saying, so, we can't say for sure if this is true or not :D
Comment has been collapsed.
Once, paralysis through a nightmare.
I was at the top of a wooden, darkly lit interior staircase and a ghost was slowly walking up coming towards me. Kind of looked like Edvard Munchs The Scream
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream
And it was howling non-stop.
It literally froze me solid. I couldn't move or look away. I was resigned to the fact it would get me.
My brothers voice finally freed me when he said "Your alarm clock has been going for ages!" :D
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes, that's it. Sounds pretty light compared to some stories out there, but I'm sure it can be terrifying when it's happening.
Comment has been collapsed.
I get EXACTLY the same thing! A shadowy figure at the door with the inability to(mostly) move and talk(thank god for that, I'd be screaming at the top of my lungs like a little girl every single time if I could) at periods of intense stress and depression.
Comment has been collapsed.
how about to read about it in books of Robert Monro, Karlos Castaneda, Steven Laberge? ;)
(google translate)
Knowledge is power! :)
Nothing to fear, if you know true nature of it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Dreaming
That's a completely different way of looking at this problem. I'm interested in hearing more if you read the books already. Also, we could include religious and similar views in the thread, even occurrences like "succubi" and others... but please, no ectoplasm jokes.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ugh, I used to get waking paralysis a lot when I was going through puberty. I remember wanting to open my eyes so badly but I just COULDN'T.
My last gf had the night hag/shadow man paralysis nightmares all the time. She would wake up screaming (full on, top of her lungs screaming) and I'd have to cradle her back to sleep. I always wondered what our upstairs neighbors thought of this.
Comment has been collapsed.
I often experience paralysis, it feels terrible if I can't "unlock" myself quickly, because I get anxious and start breathing faster because I can't even change my breathing from nose to mouth, and I have some problems in my nose and can't breathe well from both nostrils simultaneously, so I feel like I'm choking.
Comment has been collapsed.
I had sleep paralysis once a couple of years ago and because it was so strange i sat up and typed it into the notes in my phone before I tried to sleep again because I very rarely remember any of my dreams.
What I wrote at the time was >> Lying in bed, turn off lights. Close eyes, feel like I'm drifting off. Room darkens (darker than darkness of no lights) didn't feel my eyes open but notice the change of colour somehow so assumed they were. Try to reach for lights to turn on and panic because I couldn't move my arms. Checked to see if there was something stopping me but there wasn't. Tried to get out of bed, couldn't move any part of my body. Once I came to the conclusion I couldn't move I felt a sensation of my whole body being lifted, stiff as a board, slowly into the air. Really panic and try to turn lights on again, still couldn't do anything, starting to sweat, when all of a sudden feel a weightlessness come over me, then the room came back into focus. I opened my eyes (that I had thought were already opened) turn the light on and started writing this down. <<
I've also had an experience of this shadow type figure maybe twice but that didn't freak me out as much as the paralysis. Used to be an insomniac but these things happened after I got out of that phase of my life.
Comment has been collapsed.
I experienced sleep paralysis once during awakening, it was a bit scary but didn't have any kind of hallucinations. My ex girlfriend used to talk a lot in her sleep, it was quite funny :P
Comment has been collapsed.
So, let's talk about something more serious but still not too serious, and popular enough (I hope) to attract some interesting responses, and who knows, maybe first hand experiences.
I've clicked on articles about Night Hag and Shadow person and since I live alone, no sleep for me tonight :(
Jokes aside, I've experienced sleep paralysis at least once. Woke up in the middle of the night, couldn't breathe, my throat and lungs were frozen, and electric current was shaking my entire upper body... I felt like I'm gonna die... like my tongue is turning to dust... still, somehow managed to start breathing through my nose when I remembered that can be done too.
So... your turn. Tell us what you've lived through.
Comment has been collapsed.