Interesting Enough To Write This...

My story of sleep paralysis... Fell asleep on the couch watching a movie, woke up at 1:00 am was very sleepy walking to bedroom, but when i laid down in my bed I couldn't sleep.. Must have been awake turning for about another hour. Around 2:30 - 3:00 i was coming out of a dream, cant remember what it was about ..but i know it wasn't unpleasant, i had fallen asleep on my back.

I think i realized i couldn't move when i tried to roll over like i had been doing earlier, nothing happened and i felt very weak, not in a sickness type way, but in a way where i was putting a lot of energy into moving and it felt like i was almost moving. It was an interesting sensation i did not feel much fear or anxiety, just kinda exploring it like i was in some sort thick jello.

I think it was the feeling of myself that intrigued me rather than panic of not being being able to move. I could feel the aliveness of myself, a formless energy that was bound inside my limbs... with space to move though, it felt like a cable tv when there is no cable .. all those little black and white spots jittering... not black and white ..just the jittering part ..and i was directing it to try to move the body.

It was subtle but with some effort i finally moved a little and it felt like it broke, i could feel that i could move again, i might have wiggled a leg or something to make sure. The whole time there was not much imagery, mostly dark.. some shimering and no colors.

Then almost right after this is when some fear and panic came... because after i felt comfortable i could move again, there was a forceful weight on me. chest wrists and throat, it happened like the crack of a whip it felt "instant" with a little electrical feel at the wrists.

I instantly began resisting because this was not like earlier, earlier i had my mind and was thinking .. this time it was as if my mind was being pushed into a sleep state. so i put all my will into moving .. it took what felt like a minute winning, losing , winning, losing then finally breaking it and moving my body...i didn't know what to think so i lay there with my elevated heartbeat.

For the next 5 minutes even though i was awake looking around my room, i was still fighting the going to sleep thing, i could move my body but my mind was slipping.. if i didn't try to keep alert i would have been sleeping. i let myself go halfway and try to see.. this was really strange because my eyes were open but i was seeing all darkness and shimmering grey tones the room kinda melted into this. i stayed in this place shortly looking around , some part of me was telling me to wake up, and fortunately i had to go the washroom so i finally got up out of bed... feeling a little uneasy as to what just happened.

When the first subtle mellow paralysis was happening i recognized it , i have experienced it before. but not the second... it felt very intrusive and forceful.

Anyway i was intrigued enough right then to stay up for a hour looking this phenomenon up, weird that the first thing i looked up was "sleep paralysis" these two came to my mind to best describe it. I was pretty amazed from wikipedia article about the worldwide and historical references made to this from all sorts of different cultures. It definitely was an interesting experience.

If this happens again im going to do my best to stay calm and try to "see" what is going on.

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Kevin: Thanks for that awesome description of your sleep paralysis. You're right, the cultural history of it is fascinating. I actually just wrote a bit about it on an update to the sleep paralysis page here (in the rectangular box on the right).

The second part of the episode you describe, where you felt like you were being sucked into sleep, is actually used by some skilled dreamers or those used to SP to enter straight into a lucid dream state (if you haven't heard of lucid dreaming, definitely check it out here). I just finished reading a great book that describes how to do this, as well as how to take control of your sleep paralysis episodes. It's by a dream researcher named Ryan Hurd and you can check out my review of the book here.