It Sucks, But It's Ok: Lifelong Sleep Paralysis Observations

by Shlogan12@aol.com
(USA)

As long as I can remember I've had episodes of sleep paralysis. I had no idea that sleep paralysis was even a condition until a few years back.

When I was younger the paralysis was nothing more than an annoyance. I always assumed I was awake but unable to move. Often I could see the room itself around me and even on a few occasions hear things like the tv or people talking in the background. I did what I assume most people do, I focused and struggled on moving the one body part I could back and forth until something "broke" and I would instantly jolt out of bed.

When I did finally figure out what I was experiencing was actually sleep paralysis I read of hallucinations and wondered how much of what I noticed around me was real, and from then on I've always tried to focus on background noise; it was when I focused that I realized the sounds weren't really coming from the tv or other people, but indeed hallucinations.

Around age 19 I started to experience hallucinations beyond just the simple setting of the room, namely the shadow man. The first time I saw the shadow man I was extremely scared, he was evil and trying to kill me, I don't know why I thought that (and still don't) but I was sure he was there to kill me. After that nearly every sleep paralysis experience contains the shadow man.

Now, while I'm completely aware the shadow man is a hallucination and can even often tell he is going to come I cannot help but feel terror when he comes, the only way I can describe this is what I imagine a bunny feels when it's being chased, it's intense and uncontrollable.

Other thing I notice is if I fall back asleep within a half hour of the episode I instantly will fall back into paralysis, so I try to wake up for around an hour before falling back asleep (actually, that's the reason I'm writing this now). This also leads to me having multiple episodes of paralysis within a night, often I will "break" out of the paralysis only to wake to another episode of it.

I feel "vibrations" around my body the whole time I'm in paralysis and can instantly tell when a sleep paralysis episode is going to happen (this is difficult to explain) as I feel myself drifting off to sleep, everything feels in a way I can only explain as "bouncy" it's like as I'm drifting to sleep there is something that pulses, I however cannot really explain what exactly is pulsing. It's almost like this pulsing is an introduction to the paralysis and sometimes I'm able to wake before the pulsing leads to paralysis, but more often than not my tiredness and desire to sleep stops me from making the choice to wake.

Anyway, I guess if I have anything to say to people who also experience this is that, I'm sorry, it sucks. But please understand that anything seen or felt during these episodes is not real and even though that may not help during the episode there is no reason to be afraid upon waking that there is any danger to you. A lot of people experience this and it's normal.

NOTE: I have not read the text mentioned in this site (although I will).