WILD: do you really have sleep paralysis?

Popov, thank you for providing these explanations. :smile:

Tomas, how do you feel during this SP? What are your sensations? Do you think you could move if you really wanted to?

Hard to explain exactly what i feel, but i will try as good as i can.

First i get this heavy feeling in my body, which nearly feels like i sink a bit into my bed. Then i will get this strongly tingling feeling, which kinda feels like mild current"that i assume is what people call vibrations" going through your body, with the exception of lack of pain. I also in most cases hear a sound that sounds very much like wind blowing in your ears.

I sometimes also get a very vivid sensation of spinning or falling, but those feelings does not come in very beginning stage of my SP.

The only part of my body that i can willingly move, is the eyes.
I can however break out of SP, by concentrating all my strength on just moving for example my hand.
Once my hand starts moving, then the rest of my body will follow and i will now be fully awake.

I get sleep paralysis frequently, and it only started once I started practising lucid dreaming. I’ve been able to launch WILDs from it maybe 4 succesful times. Other times I just feel floating sensations or vibrations

Thats exactly how I feel !

And if I move an arm goes every arm and leg normal again

For me it all depends on what I focus on when I try to WILD. If I focus on what my body feels like I usually get SP but if I focus on HI or something else I don’t notice the SP at all. I haven’t had any SP before finding out about LDing. But I have my suspicions that my SP is only dream SP alot of the time.

bzteam and JaRoD, could you describe exactly what you mean by SP? Did you try to move and couldn’t?

In my SP’s, the hypnagogic ones are very sudden, I’m very relaxed for some time(maybe hours) and then comes a sensation of lost of my perception of the surroundings, then some floating and moving sensation start.
I get really paralyzed, when I try to move I can’t, but if I concentrate very well, and say to myself that I’ll be able to move again I come back fully awake.

Are you not able to move, or is it like you don’t want at all to move, like you were hypnotized? I went into this state once: I had to concentrate in order to decide to move, because I really didn’t want to.

I already got into the state you described. Acctually i get it very often when I WILD, but I can feel the diference of it to SP. In SP I really try and want to move, but I can’t. And even the feeling is diferent, if you pay atention you can notice if it’s really SP, or just a deep relaxation.

Sleep paralysis IS lucid dreaming. You are already lucid when you experience this state. If you don’t believe me pinch your nose the next time find yourself in SP. You’ll be able to breath through your closed nose. What more proof do you need?

Genki, how do you reach the “real” SP state? After many hours? After a WBTB? Did you see a specific way of reaching it? Or were you already subject to sleep paralysis trouble?

Wait…let me clarify. Maybe it wasn’t SP. I do get SP frequently where I wake up on my back and I try to move but can’t…I don’t ever remember launching a LD from that.

The other times I’ve done WILD, I don’t necessarily remember trying to move, but I had the floating sensatons and sinking/heavy feelings. I suddenly wake up and I feel like I’m flying or rolling (it doesn’t occur to me to move, probably 'cause I know it’s the onset of a WILD experience, so I instincively embrace it) Then I just concentrate on the void and the dream eventually appears.

Well, the time I take to get it is very variable, it depends a lot, specialy, if I’m tired or not. I don’t WBTB, as I have school so I cant(tomorrow is the last day in school, BTW \o/), I do it mostly when going to bed, but the best results are when I wake up in the midle of the night, about 3 or 4 hours after going to sleep, when I’m most tired.
About sleep paralysis trouble, I never had it before some months of studying LD’s, and the first one wasn’t on purpose: I just was on bed, about 3:30 am, and I coudn’t sleep(I mean, I didn’t want to) so I fought the sleep, and suddenly the SP came, I recognized it cause I read a lot about it before, then I tried to move like crazy, wanting to get out of it, but coudn’t. So I concentrated and said “Now, my body will wake up, and I’ll move again” and so I got out of it. After that, SP’s started to get easier to achieve.

Well, I don’t use any specific way to achieve SP, I only lay down and relax the most I can, but keeping the focus. I check all my body to see if there’s any tension and if I find I relax that part, keep doing this 'till I feel a deep relaxation(like my body going numb, but I can move anytime I want) and then just go on concentrated, and the SP comes sometime later. When it comes it’s allways sudden, when I less expect it, it comes.

…pinch my nose the next time I’m completely paralysed?

For me, sleep paralysis generally has two forms. One of these is when I am still half-asleep, and this is accompanied by hallucinations (dark shapes, eerie sounds, and so forth). I can usually turn this into a lucid dream, eventually, but the state of paralysis itself is not a full dream state - I am aware of my actual body and it is extremely difficult to move any kind of ‘dream body’. If I focus on this dream body, my mind retreats into a dream state. If I focus on my actual body, I generally end up in the second type of paralysis:

The second form of paralysis is when my mind is actually almost totally awake, but I simply cannot move any part of my body, unless (as stated earlier in the thread) a great deal of mental force is applied, after which I can then move normally, and usually awaken. To clarify: At this point, I am looking at nothing but the inside of my eyelids, which will not open, and it is generally rather uncomfortable, lasting perhaps ten to twenty seconds on average.

Pinch my nose? If I can pinch my nose either in the first or second kinds of paralysis, it isn’t sleep paralysis, in my view. I understand that others might use broader definitions, but to be honest it seems to be bordering on a definition that says merely ‘Sleep paralysis is when you are dreaming!’. This is technically true, but such a definition completely misses the point of what some are afflicted with.

I have a good example of a SP I had in 12-1-05, pretty recent, if you like I’ll get the url of my DJ, it’s in there.

SP for me is mostly that I can’t move. Sometimes I do have almost SP though, my body gets numb but I can still move.

im afraid of SP becuz of what ive been hearing about the “old hag”. Does it only occur when doing WILD? and does practicing LD increase the chances of having SP? :confused:

This is different from person to person I guess, but about the only thing that can give me SP is waking up from a lucid dream by will. I have a lot less involuntary SP now than before I started practicing lucid dreaming. :cool:

I had it this morning yet found it not scary just like a continuation of the trembling sensation you get when you are WILD’ing but I can understand why it would be scary if your room is really dark because at the moment the hall light was on so I could see that nothing was on top of me. It also only occured because I forcibly woke myself up during WILD because I thought i was already in the dream state (I know its a silly mistake but I have only ever succeded with WILD once) Thank god for RC! LOL :smile:

i did that too last night
i felt the tingle. and it was the strangest feeling of
not wanting to move, but i could. i wiggled my fingers ;
i was still awake too i believe. or drifting. it was a very
strong tingle… almost like a slight shock. then i felt slight pressure and i said " no old hag for me" and woke myself up :wink: …that is if i was ever dreaming