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Anyone ever experienced this before?

Happened to me this morning twice.
Woke up, unable to move, make any noise, had a high pitched buzzing sound in my ear, hallucinated and felt a strong presence in the room. Fucking terrifying.

Did it eventually wear off or did you pass out?

Isn't that the same as locked in syndrome? Albeit on a temporary basis.

I've suffered with it all my life. It's almost a nightly occurance and it's not the paralysis itself that's scary, but the feeling of fear and the rare, for me, hallucinations.

Only happens to me as I'm dosing off though. Starts with a loud sound in my ears, identical to when you close your eyes tight, and I often feel like I'm floating or being flung around.

It lasted around 30 seconds and all was fine again, I did some research and it's basically where your mind wakes up, but your body doesn't. It's a lot worse than it sounds

Ever get the feeling of another presence in the room? That was by far the worst bit.
I think sleep paralysis is quite common in people who work shifts and have a varied sleep pattern.

Nearly always. I also very frequently feel hands around my neck and/or a weight on my chest. I've 'seen' a troll type thing sat on my chest and have also seen it beating my chest, which was kind of scary.

Part of me sometimes enjoys it to a degree nowadays. I just don't fight it and go back to sleep, because fighting it often, I think, causes much of the fear. Also, if my eyes are closed I can't see anything!

I sometimes wake up and both my arms are dead, that's a weird feeling, especially when the alarm is going off and I can't move.

Not as weird as sleep paralysis though, that sounds mighty scary.

Aliens

I have suffered sleep paralysis often in my life but it usually coincides with very stressful periods of my life, it is not good but as Barry says you can train your brain to tell you its a dream and to go with it, took me about 10 years to get to that point but it does seem to work now.

The other thing I often get are night terrors, the most awful nightmares which I awake from either screaming or crying, my brain has not figured out how to cope with these yet even though I have been getting them for 30+ years.

I had a wierd experience as well on Saturday, which after stupidly eating a late supper I fell asleep and dreamt I was about to be sick, wretching and urging in the pit of my stomach only to wake up and find I had almost choked on my own vomit which had made its way into my throat and nose, now that was fucking frightening.

Sounds horrendous. Have any of you seen a neurologist about this? Seen these sort of cases on the TV and would be interesting to get yourself wired up for the night to see if anything could be done to stop/ease the episodes.

That sounds a bit more serious to me! Is that a circulation thing? Do you sleep with you arms above your head?

Nah, it's nothing serious, have you ever woken up with a dead arm where you've been laying on it? Well I tend to sleep on my front and on occasion wake up with two dead arms. After about 30 seconds they're fine, just very odd to wake up to!

Is this even possible?

If you have an understanding wife/partner they would release you from the handcuffs before you go to sleep.

Sounds like you lot need a tall glass of man the fuck up to me.

I know a whole host of people who pay good money to have a decent hallucination, and you lot are moaning about free ones... sheesh.

I don't mean in the air, I mean like when you put your hands behind your head or under the pillow when laying on your back.

Research says that sleeping on your side Instead of your back greatly reduces episodes of Paralysis.

I do that virtually every night... turning the alarm off is always a fun challenge

I suffer, work a very varied shift pattern, often happens more so when asleep downstairs away from my bed, can often hear the TV and environment around me, my mind is awake, my body is paralysed, I focus on trying to move a part of my body and I simply cannot. Its absolutely terrifying, sometimes I can have multiple episodes of a night, spent lots of time researching it, some people seem to be convinced you are in a dream, for me it is like being in a coma/locked in syndrome. Have not had an episode for a few weeks now, I will then have several episodes in a small space of time. Also seems more frequent when lying on my back. Also happens more when I have worked an early shift.

Wow, exactly this, was told you can train your brain, something about lucid dreaming? How is it done? I also too have the worst and most frightening dreams where I literally wake up with a soaking pillow from where I have actually been crying, I genuinely thought I was alone on this condition, none of my mates have ever had anything so strange.

The only issue I have with sleep is that I can only sleep in till 9/930 regardless of when I go to sleep. I've never experianced any the things you guys have and I can't imagine how scary not being able to move is.

Its a long process to train yourself to do it, it just arrived all of a sudden a few years back, my brain just says this is a dream.

When something bad happens I just know straight away its a dream now.......apart from the occassional night terror which still scares me awake.

I am sure there are tutorials that can teach you it, I know there are for Lucid Dreaming which is basically making you control your own dreams.

This is all sounds like the film Inception! Crazy stuff!

I've never experienced any sleep paralysis or lucid dreaming. Is it quite scary the first time it happens?

I've always imagined they're very closely related (lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis), because although I lucid dream less than I used to, I've almost always known I'm dreaming and I've always been able to wake myself up from a bad dream (it's why I pretty much never have bad dreams I think).

Happened to me for the first time last night, and undoubtedly the scariest experience of my life by a mile.

I just wake up with a morning glory most days

I do think you are right Barry, there has to be a relationship in there, I find myself in my dreams hunting for a urinal and then I know that I need a piss and can wake myself up.
Nope its scary pretty much EVERY time it happens :) but yes the first time is the worst probably.

This also happens to me.

Other than that I sleep normally.

 :clap:

I used to get it when my sleep patterns were all over the shop.

Bit of an odd one but as soon as you realise what it is just chillout and then focus all of your will on moving a hand or leg.  It's hard bloody work but with any luck you will jolt your body awake. 

Get up have a piss, tab or a drink and give it a few minutes before heading back off.  I used to find heading straight back off to sleep meant it happened again.  The time out usually breaks the cycle.

There's been a few occasions I've rolled over and smacked myself due to having a dead arm. Pow! Right in the Risser!

The past few weeks I've been chronically sleepwalking after a night on the beers. This Saturday was an exception which was lucky because I was staying in a hotel and would have had an epic wander otherwise.

Exactly this. I wake up, grab a glass of squash and hope it doesn't happen again. If I go straight back to sleep it happens again. Once was so tired that I couldn't wake up and it repetitively kept happening. It is seriously messed up. Will try what you say JJE. I will read up and see if I can begin to train myself.

I beginning to wonder whether this is what I had a few episodes of about 10 years ago.

With me it happened when I had a bout of anxiety that eventually needed medical treatment. No idea if it can be triggered like that.

Symptoms were similar, brain awake, felt like a pressure on the head, couldn't move. No noise in the ears that I can remember, more a "tickly" horrible sensation.

When I eventually woke up the first time I put it down to a bad dream or some sort of fit. Happened a few more times over a month or so, but eventually disappeared.

Really didn't help with the anxiety issue though.

If it was sleep paralysis, or like that, I pity anyone who gets it..

Totally agree. I never do get up shake it off though and I find it funny how you can wake from it and your body feels weird in a light headed way for a few minutes.


Sounds exactly like it to me. I invariably have a tingly, tickly like sensation on my neck and chest when I wake from it.