posted on Dec, 5 2006 @ 03:33 PM
I have a list of dream oddities that professional help (for some other things, not specifically this) has not addressed or provided any sort of deeper
explanation as to why certain things occur. Without further ado, here's what I'm concerned with...
It's rather long but I kept each paragraph on the topic mentioned in the first sentence so that skimming would be easier.
I started experiencing sleep paralysis when I was 18 and it's increased in it's frequency since. It happened twice in one night two days ago. At
first I would not be aware of the dream but would wake up in my bed unable to move. As time passed I began to remember what was happening in my dream
that led to the paralysis. It's always something specific, like taking a drink of water or starting to fall that starts it. I feel my body start to
tingle and time slows down in my dream. Like two days ago I was falling back in a chair but never actually hit the ground, once i was half way down
the experience of time in my dream had come to a slow halt. This specific incident is the first time I ever consciously started the paralysis in my
dream and stopped myself from awakening. In my dream my mother was in the room and I didn't want her to see me like this, I fought as hard as I
could to will myself back to sitting upright and it worked. Time slowly started moving again and it felt like I was pushing myself against gravity
like it was molasses. I then had it again later that night and woke up from it eventually. The second experience was one of my floating or
levitating ones. Sometimes I experience the levitation in my dream (like this one) and very rarely I'll experience it after i've 'woken' up.
Sometimes I'm able to control what direction my body levitates to, sometimes I can't. That night I was in a friends house and was lifted upstairs
to the hallway where I heard a voice that sounded like three people speaking at once. Weird, but I woke up right afterwards.
I'm at a point where I'm consciously aware of transfering between wakefulness and sleep. I'll start lying in darkness, fully aware that I'm
laying in my bed. Then I'll slowly start to see images come from the darkness or back of my eyelids. The most clear time it happened I saw a
literally rectangular picture start to form of a viewpoint in a kitchen that I'd never been in. At first it was black and white and contrasted like
a negative image but then i slowly began to see whites, blacks, and then red. As the color started to fill the picture drew closer and felt like it
wrapped around me. But by 'me' I mean just my floating intangible consciousness/soul or where ever I 'hear' my thoughts. The picture I saw just
became my field of vision and I entered the dream. It felt like I had been teleported into this kitchen because I knew a moment ago I had turned my
tv off and laid to rest.
I've been conscious in a dream and experienced waking as well. It's almost the opposite of falling asleep. I feel my body start to slowly vibrate
and then the entire image of my environment begins to vibrate to a point of almost violently shaking. After a few moments it begins to pull away and
I can see darkness filling in the missing space, creeping towards the center of my focus. Once the image has left I become aware of a roundness or
presence right in front of me. It's then that I sense my eyelids, or maybe eyes, are very close to my 'thoughts' or brain, again just the place
where our thoughts reside. Once I sense that I immediately become aware of the rest of my body and then I start to feel the sheets on my skin. Next
I feel whether I'm hot or cold or if I'm hungry. It feels like I'm being slowly walked through turning my body back on. It's actually quite
relaxing when I experience it. I feel that I wake with much more energy, as if I've already snoozed a few times, and I feel comfortable with my next
thoughts.
I've experienced the sensation of being able to 'see' through my eyelids. It rarely occurs but it normally happens when I wake. It's like I'm
only controlling my eyeballs, it's an odd sensation of being very in the visual moment. I'm sort of aware that my eyelids are there but I'm
looking through them quite easily. I can rotate enough to a point that my eye muscles would be unable to accomodate, my movement is quite free. I
can see my hands, even though they're under my sheet, but I'm aware of the sheet as well. There isn't much color to the image but it doesn't seem
to matter, every object is clearly defined. It never lasts very long but the images match what I see when I wake and open my eyes, like the
positioning of my hands. Of course my brain is aware of their positioning and what my room looks like, so it's very likely a hallucinaction. It's
accuracy and contrast to other pre sleeping and waking images is what intrigues me.
I'm becoming more conscious in my dreams although not always with the power of lucidity. I've had the lucid dreams where I am completely aware i'm
dreaming and can control anything in my environment by thought, those are great. But lately my dreams have been playing out normally, without my
influence, but I'm experiencing them with the awareness that I'm dreaming. I've made moral decisions in dreams knowing they would have no
repercussions on my actual life because I consider my personal thoughts and intentions to be a more accurate representation of myself. If I was given
the opportunity to control or live in a world without consequence and the things I chose to do were bad (however you want to define that) then what
kind of person would I be? My spiritual beliefs in God also play a factor in that. Knowing that I can't hide anything from Him means I can't hide
anything from myself. Anyways, this is the kind of stuff I'm wrestling with in my dream, fully aware that I'm in a dream, but yet still very much
caught up in the action. I wake up feeling exhausted sometimes because even though my body's been sleeping I feel like my mind has been awake the
whole time. I never get a break from my thoughts.