Dream Log: October 7, 2005, 1AM
When my sleeping patterns are irregular, I experience sleep paralysis. When people ask me what that is, I explain that it’s basically when you wake up before your body does. You’re conscious, but your body is stuck in the dream state. The body does a nifty thing during dream sleep: it disables voluntary control of your muscles, making you paralyzed. Hence sleep paralysis. As long as you know what’s happening, it’s actually not scary.
As time has gone on, I have begun to experience sleep paralysis in a more advanced way. Sometimes, the feeling of being conscious occurs before my dream even ends. I think this is called lucid dreaming, but I don’t think what I experience quite fits the definition. Instead, I dream about falling asleep and waking up. I wake up within the dream, and I am often paralyzed in the dream. And so, last night:
I had gone to sleep fantastically early… 11:30 maybe? 12? I must have dropped quickly into the dream phase. In my dream I was basically lying on my back, but in class. I was fighting to stay awake, but I kept on losing… my eyes would shut and I would drift off into sleep. Then I would become somewhat awake again, and I would try valiantly to open up my eyes. But they were practically welded shut, and only with great effort could I open them.
My body of course was in an even worse state. My motion was limited. I recall finally getting up after so much effort, only to lose the ability to move once again. My standing body frozen, I expected to tip over and fall to the ground. But the rules of gravity were suspended and instead I floated to the floor, returning more or less to my old position, my head resting against the frame of a bed.
The whole dream I had a great sense of guilt, since I was in class but could not stay awake. I have this guilty feeling whenever I am sleepy in small classes, so this dream was really an interesting intersection between real life memories and sleep paralysis.
At some point I woke up; I believe that it came as I successfully forced open my eyes. I did not feel like I had been asleep… instead, what I had been dreaming felt more like an unpleasant experience from moments ago. And indeed it had been unpleasant. I remember feeling uncomfortable during the dream, and when I finally escaped from it, I continued to feel physically uncomfortable. This is a feeling I often have after experiencing sleep paralysis.
It is interesting how in the dream I was trying to open my eyes to keep awake in class. Often in sleep paralysis I am trying to open my eyes to wake up. Finally I succeed and wake up… in the dream I succeeded several times in opening my eyes, but the dream also ended with my eyes opening, I think.
October 18th, 2005 at 6:59 pm
Sleep paralysis…that sounds really bad. I would hate to experience that.
December 16th, 2005 at 10:01 pm
Hello, I to have recently discovered that I suffer from sleep paralysis, as a kid I always felt as if I were being smothered in my sleep, but could not move to do anything about it. now I am 23 have started to do research the past few days and I have came up with sleep paralysis. I would like to hear any more of stories as I am trying tom learn as much as I can. thanks
April 12th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Well, I am 16 years old and i do have sleep paralysis. When i go to sleep i often can’t feel like sleeping but like after an hour or somethin i fall asleep but i dream many nightmares that when i wake up i keep on thinking about the dream and i feel like it was real. Also i remember once that i was only lying on my bed ( not willing to fall asleep i was only resting), i did’nt want to fall asleep because i had too much HW to do, anyway, i did fell asleep as i was tired and i remember that when i started falling asleep, i was forcing myself not to do so, but that creepy feeling of my body frozen, i was like with my every molecule in my body rying to just move my foot, as i did that i like had a felling of dizziness when i succeeded to wake myself up, its a freaky feeling
July 21st, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Sleep paralysis is cool. I rarely ever get it, maybe three or four times a year. Only if I’m extremely tired. Most of the time, it happens to me when I’m falling asleep. Sometimes I’ll kind of fall asleep but can still hear everything around me and think and even feel an itch. But it’ll be an itch you can’t scratch because your muscles won’t respond. I think it’s pretty cool. Or you’ll wake up, groggy, and you’ll hear somebody calling your name or trying to talk to you. You understand everything, but can’t speak or move. It takes extreme thought concentration and about 30 seconds or a minute sometimes for your thoughts to trigger an arm movement or something. Cool.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Im suffering from sleep paralysis too. This is the first time i do research about it and when i read this story it was almost the same thing that happened to me yesterday. I was watching TV and I was extremely tired so I closed my eyes and began to fall asleep. Then I opened my eyes and soon realized that I was suffering from sleep paralysis again but this time it was different because it lasted much more than the normal sleep paralysis that i had before. I started to see people (like my mom and a friend ) in the same room interacting like if it was a dream. When I realized that my paralysis was longer than normal I started to feel paranoia and began to feel asphyxia. I was actually dreaming while I was awake because I heard and saw my mom in the room but she wasnt there!! So when i woke up i felt like relieve but my eyes were really really red and I went to my moms room to ask her if she was there in the room and she told me that she never did anything that I heard or saw at that time. I was dreaming with my eyes opened!! Days before i suffered from the sleep paralysis and woke up and told my sister to watch me if I fall sleep again. So she did and the paralysis happened to me again and she told me that I opened my eyes but suddenly they went up leaving my eyes blank. She also told me that i started to breathe really fast! My theory of sleep paralysis is that it only happens when you are extremely tired!
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
i am a 15 year old boy from scotland and ,i have it a reguarly ………..and i hate i want to shout out and shout for my mum to help me but it restricts me from using my voice. i think its all mind play.like if i had to get one of my friends to sit and watch me sleep for a week . i dont think you would have it .spycologicly u think u are safe and if u have it they will help u …..in other word u think u are safe. however u are alone and u wake up and u cant do enaything about it. it dosn’t bare thinking about .it always happens to me when i have a bad dream :O and im scared to go to sleep . im going to try and drink plenty of water and tell myself that its all to di woth the head.thanks for reading and good luck
August 7th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I think… THINK… I have been suffering from sleep paralysis for the last year. However, all the experiences I have read about don’t really match up exactly to mine. Just wanted to know if anybody has a more similar experience to mine. I fall asleep normally and have a dream. At some point in the evening my mind becomes “aware” that I am asleep. I cannot control my breathing and feel like I am breathing too shallowly. I can’t open my eyes, can’t move and can’t speak. I have often had my partner next to me and have been desperate to make a noise so he would wake me up as this is a terrifying experience for me. The only way i can wake myself up is to concentrate and take a big gasping breath. Even then, i only awake momentarily before falling straight back into this sleep paralysis. I find it very frightening, but also very satisfying that I can sometimes make myself dream again about whatever I want. But I do wish i didn’t suffer with this as the thought of not controlling my breathing scares me. I imagine this is what dying must feel like. It’s horrid!!
August 11th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
It scares the hell out of me that I am conscious but paralized. What if I can’t wake up? Does anyone know if that’s possible? And what really causes it to happen. I’m afraid to go to sleep because of it which is giving me anxiety. Help!
August 24th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Hi ok 2 years ago.
I woke up i could see “but maybe my mind was playing tricks” well i could think i was not that scared as this has happened to me before. Well i could not move i tried so hard to wake me up. i couldn’t so i tried calling for help no sound only a little extra breath so i tried screaming same thing just more breath. So i went back to bed. Well i did have my eyes open i remember shutting them. I woke up fine and went and told my family.
This has happened before.
When i was really young i would be sitting in my chair watching tv. and after a while i would notice i couldn’t move or talk or anything but i would i guess get the energy and would usually jerk my leg and i would wake up.
August 24th, 2008 at 6:19 am
Oh and a note to what i said earlier i could also hear i remember hearing the extra breath coming out. Also when younger i could still hear the TV.