My First Sleep Paralysis Experience Last Night...

by Anum
(Washington DC )

It was around 2:30 am last night when I was in a deep sleep and experienced sleep paralysis. I had been on vacation for the last 4 days and had little to no sleep the whole trip so I crashed when I had gotten home. Coincidentally prior to my trip..my friend had experienced Sleep Paralysis and told me about his incident, strange that I experienced it myself a week later...

Anyways I was in a deep sleep and I was having a nightmare. I don't remember what the nightmare was about, but soon the "nightmare" started feeling like a reality. I felt a force on top of my body pushing me down into my bed and I couldn't move. I was conscience when this was happening but my eyes were still closed and I was to afraid to try opening them. In my mind, I knew I was experiencing Sleep Paralysis which I kept telling myself in my mind when it was happening.

I tried to yell out for my mom, but only a whisper would come out. Then, I remember putting my cover over my face because i was too afraid to look up, and then I felt like I was being suffocated with my covers. Here is the freaky part, I remember trying to reach over to my phone, but I don't know if this was part of the dream or reality.

Anyways, I tried to take my charger off my phone but every time I would, my charger would magically be on again. I kept trying to take it off at least 3 or 4 times and every time I would, I would look and see that it is still on. At this point I tried to just keep my eyes closed as I knew this wouldn't last long...

I felt a force trying to grab me from my feet and I felt as if I had switched positions to be laying on the opposite end of my bed. This is when I woke up and my eyes opened and realized it was over.

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Kevin: Wow, what an experience huh? Quite the coincidence that it came so soon after you had a discussion about SP (assuming that that's not a common event for you). But at least you had the knowledge to calm yourself and stay rational during the event. Can you imagine how it might have been different if you had never heard of sleep paralysis before?

Sleep deprivation, like you were under, can be a contributing factor to an SP event (I think at least partly because of the REM rebound effect that occurs after not having much REM sleep). The difficulty separating reality and non-reality with your movements, like you describe with the phone charger episode, is something that a fair number of people describe as happening during their sleep paralysis. Sometimes they'll vividly feel like they've gotten up and gotten their cell phone from across the room, for instance, only to notice that it's still where they left it the night before when the SP spell is ends.

Thanks for sharing,
Kevin