Is this sleep paralysis starting?

Ah thank you Beat doctor,
I thought it happened ‘every time’ we dream, literally in during each dream, only usually without experiencing it with awareness. I thought it was the body`s way to keep you from moving about when you are dreaming. So perfectly natural and actually the way of the body to keep itself save.
Is that not true? :smile: Just wondering. I do not know a lot about it.

Arne,
I do understand that you really had very frightening experiences. I think though that the comparison with LSD is not completely right. The difference is, that going to sleep is a natural thing. And going to sleep while keeping yourself aware, is exactly that, keeping yourself aware. With LSD thats not possible.
With LSD its not possible to use your mind and tell yourself that its ok. With being aware while going into sleep paralizis, its different. Then you still have the power of your mind at ready for a big part. But only if you are aware of that fact itself of course, otherwise its like dreaming and having no control.
I tend to agree that sleep paralizis is ok, not very dangerous. It might be dangerous for people that are unstable and unable to balance themselves. Also those people might have more hard images and sounds to deal with (more scary ones).

But again, I do not know a lot, as I wrote to doctor bear as well. Just my thoughts.
Sleep paralysis is natural though, its the body protecting itself.

I’ve taken LSD many times, and I’ve experienced sleep paralysis many times. And SP is infinitely more disturbing. There’s no comparison.

Maybe because LSD triggers serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine? Creates a different way of experiencing things.

If you think you can bring on SP, and you want to do it, then go ahead.

I get this almost every night. If its your definition of SP, its not scary at all. My definition is scarier, but still not that scary as you describe it.

Have you read the forum rules?
I would like to discuss this, but I don’t want this topic to be locked.

It can be induced by many different methods. In every method simply you have something to make you aware. Your body thinks that your mind is asleep, and the body falls asleep. Google “Lucidity 101” and “Lucidity 102”.

I have experienced it. I want to experience it again. One thing is that I have broken it (the breathing and moving method).

And yes, sleep paralysis is natural, I would say its something like a defense mechanism against moonwalk.

Lol, dont become angry. You start discussing it, and I reply, no hard feelings from this side.
Just adding my views and knowledge to your views and knowledge. That is a way of learning too.
I do not think I can bring on SP by the way, I think it happens during ‘every’ dream, naturally. It keeps the body from moving when you move in your dream. Its keeping the body save. Its normal.
The only difference here is staying awake mentally while it happens, that is not as normal.
This time it did not happen on perpose, but it is a way to go into a lucid dream, so I would not mind trying it again if I have an evening in which my mind is clear enough.

The times that I experienced sleep paralysis with awareness where different then this one. This one was about ‘going into it’ almost, with awareness. The other times I experienced it, I was in the process of waking up in the morning… so very different. Then your body goes out of SP, which is different. Sometimes it was scary but as long as I reminded myself of the fact that it would soon stop, it was ok. The fear lies in feeling like you are not in control. Its a normal fear. But not needed. Usually when I try to move my fingers it does not work for a moment, but quite quickly it does. The body responds to the mind when the mind is willing it strongly enough. It just takes some moments. Which means that you are in control.
It might be that with LSD it works differently, maybe also the long term effect on the brain made the SP experiences stronger then usual. I think that could be possible, but do not know for sure. LSD does mess up the balance of how neurotransmitters work when you are awake and when you sleep.

Yes, I see the room around me and hear noises too. But those noises are coming from the waking world. Not from the dreaming world. Hearing things and seeing things that aren’t from the waking world is a different matter.

Little Fox, go to Wikipedia and look up “sleep paralysis.”

Moonwalk?

Wikipedia is not the same as a number of different books on sleep and such. But I know what is written there as well. And I know SP can be very scary when it goes together with scary hallucinations. It can also go together with stuff that is not scary, depending on the state of the mind probably, just like with nightmares.

But I stop with this discussion :smile: since I do not know what your experiences are. I understand that you yourself strongly had very scary experiences and I understand that this is what you want to warn me about. Which is ok of course, thanks for that.
I am actually a person that tries to only experiment when I have a clear mind and an overal restfull feeling. I usually quite careful.

It’s happened to me enough times that I know that the account in Wikipedia is correct in all particulars. It’s very well researched too.

I understand your experiences where like that.

No, no, no. Thoes noises are coming from the dreaming world too for me. I don’t find it scary at all. I repeat, I experience this almost every time I go to bed drowsy. It is not sleep paralysis. I have felt real sleep paralysis. Its way different.
This is just an entrance to SP.

@Little snowfox: Yes, I tried to describe the difference between going-into and going-out SP to a friend of my few days ago. I never experienced going-out SP tho.
You haven’t experienced going-into this time I think… Its something like gravity is growing… And it starts from your legs… Going up and up. Once it comes to your chest, you start to breathe hardly. Then I started to breathe fastly and deeply to get out of it (I didn’t know what I must do to induce LD from that state).
It did include HI’s and HS’s, but they weren’t that scary. I experience both HI’s and HS’s every night (literally here, every night).

And two last thing to say before going to bed:

  1. Anything related to dreams differs from a person to person.
  2. If your mind’s clear, you won’t be afraid of hypnagogic sounds nor hallucinations.

Hey again beat doctor,
cool that you talked about the difference between going into / going out of, as well. Its very different.
For me, in this experience (the one the topic started with) it was also not that scary. Only the door slamming shut gave me a bit of a shock, but it would have if I had been normally asleep as well. For the rest it was just calm voices and odd music and colours happening.
And the tingly feeling, that indeed did start at the legs and went up. And indeed I really noticed the difference in breathing which made me wonder about if I was breathing ok or not. But all together it was ok.
Interesting that you have HIs and HSs every night, it must have happened a lot already then.

Another question.
When you are in SP, is it possible for you as well to end the SP quite quickly when you will it to stop? Just curious about how others experience this. For me it takes some seconds, but not extremely long. I would not enjoy it if it takes very long, but I imagine that when the mind is really awake, and stress is happening… the body wakes itself quite quickly.

Yes, sorry then, it was SP, I didn’t know what “tingling” mean (my native language is not english).
And not to be mistaken, HS’s that I get are not cool calm voices, but its like somebody takes two pieces of metal and hits one against another. So its just annoying. :sad:
But HI’s can be very nice, inspirative for art. Sometimes I find myself in short scenes similar to dreams.

And yes, the one time I got SP I got out of it very quickly. In a second or two. The thing is that at first I didn’t want to get out of it.

ARGHH… I really need to go to sleep now,
bye!

First of all, I completely disagree. And no need to throw it in people’s faces like that, is there :tongue: In the previous post, Beat Doctor did correct himself in regards to it being SP or not. I’m still not sure, myself. Tingling and/or vibrations come before SP for me. So I don’t think we can be sure about that.

I’ve had HI and HS many times without being in SP too. They all usually come together, but not always. In the same way I’ve had SP many times with no hallucinations at all.

I see your point, alhtough I doubt someone could have a heart attack from it. I’m sure you’d snap out of SP if you got even remotely close to that. SP does happen every single time we dream, it is a deffence mechanism as Little snowfox said. I do understand though that SP can be very frightening for some people (spoecially if they don’t know what it is), but it can be great too.

I’ve entered a LD from SP a few times. Usually as bit accidental, but so are most of my WILD’s :tongue: Many people have done so too. I do agree that many people think they are in SP when they aren’t, specially beginners. I’ve had many WILD’s without consciously experiencing SP too, but even so, I was in SP or I would have woken up as soon as I tried to move (which has happened as well a few times :lol:)

I guess it can be induced in the same way as WILD’s are, just holding on to awareness as you fall asleep. Focusing on your body might help, since if you get lost in HI it’s more likely you don’t feel the SP kick in (in my experience, at least!).

Completely untrue, sorry :wink: I’ve had SP many times and love it even if I don’t manage to enter a LD. 99% of my SP’s aren’t scary at all. The few that are I simply face as if saying “I’m not scared of you” and the fear fades away. Even while the fear fades it feel like a “fake” kind of fear, as I truely know nothing there can hurt me.

I understand you have had your experiences and you are more that welcome to have your opinions, but please stop doing this. New people might really give it all up and SP can be an increadibly awesome experience, unless the person has all these ideas of how terrible it can be, or course. It’s like being bit by a dog when you were a kid and tell everyone you know to never ever buy a little puppy :sad:

Sorry for the wall of text!

All right. You guys have convinced me. Everyone should go ahead and try to experience sleep paralysis.

The last text is of Mattias is something I’ve been trying to say all the time. Saying that SP is the worst thing in world might fear some people off. It can be both the worst and the best experience you will experience. Like I said, when it comes to anything connected to dreams is it differs from person to person.

Everyone should try to experience it.

Otherwise how can they know how wonderful it might be?

I want to do EVERYTHING!!! arne says not to or you cant do

watch him tell me not to shoot myself :eh:

i think you guys are talking about the “old hag” and not about an WILD induced SP?

old hag simply is SP, with some hallucinations.