Sleep paralysis an astral experience, not a brain malfunction?

hey i wuld like to share my experiences of when i was a kid i havent experienced since then but i used to see demonic monkey things that wuld play with my hair and ping my ear and poke my eye lol funny now but when somthing like that happens to you as a kid you get terrified but the last time i ever got it i broke out of sp and i pushed the thing off me yes it was real and not a hallucanation ad i hit it in the head i can even remember the feeling of its fur type hair weirdest experince of my life but ever since then its not happend again but i get weird images wen i close my eyes and i can imagine holding sumthing like a ball and it actually feels like a holding 1 its weird anyways so try like breaking out of it coz if am a kid and i did it its possible

I never really browsed the paranormal forums before, but after reading this I think I'll make it a habit. I have had SP my whole life infrequently, I actually just posted something that I suspect might be related to it, although I was too young to understand what was going on at the time.

I read through the whole Waterloo study that was linked from the 2nd post. Seems pretty inconclusive to me. I don't really think there is one certain way to write this phenomena off as.

Normally when I would have SP it felt like I was being possessed or something was trying to work it's way into my mind. The last time I experienced it I left my body, and went walking around the hallway in my friend's home yelling to no one, then rubberband snapped back and sat up with a jolt on my buddy's couch.

I don't have any real meaningful insight, I'm sorry. Other than to say I experience this infrequently, but consistently, and I believe that there is more to it than simple chemicals in the body. It's somehow related to the spirit or soul and its relationship to the body.

I wish it wasn't always so frightening.

reply to post by Kandinsky


This post is posted as a reply to your post because your post inspired this post, but the contents of it are relevant to the OP's post and the entire thread.

I'll try to explain some things here. Both you and the OP are correct.
Sleep paralysis is usually a sleep disorder caused by lack of sleep and so on. But astral travel is not a sleep disorder.

If sleep paralysis occurs without one wanting to then yes its diagnosis as a sleep disorder is correct. But however if one is able to achieve sleep paralysis when he wants regardless of whether he has had enough sleep or not, and also can avoid sleep paralysis even if lack of sleep and such conditions are present, then I do not think its diagnosis of a sleep disorder is correct.

As for astral travel, sleep paralysis is not required for astral travel.

It seems counter-intuitive that at our most exhausted we have 'astral' adventures. Is our spirituality dependent on fatigue?

well exhaustion and fatigue is not needed for astral travel. What is needed is calming of the body functions and moving mental focus out of the body, thus having your astral follow the focus and move out while the body remains and thus astral projection.

It is unfortunate that achieving such calm and focus at same time happens easily only when we are exhausted, and often happen without our control in form of (unwanted) sleep paralysis.

It is possible to go from a full waking state to a full astral projection state without going through sleep paralysis, however it is very difficult.

If you can Lucid dream (this does not need exhaustion ) you can go into astral projection from the lucid dream without exhaustion or sleep paralysis. there are many ways of doing so, but some of the easy ones are "flying really really high" or "the well". Details are somewhere on the web, I don't know where but its somewhere there.

As usual my post did not come out as I wanted it to, but what I wanted to say is somewhere within the post.

I have also experienced what others have called "sleep paralysis." When this happened, I was spoken to by the the voice as well. Actually, I awoke when my spirit was re-entering my body (something was assisting me with re-entry), when the voice told me to "be still." I was aware that something else (unseen) was in my bedroom doorway watching what was going on.
Just recently, I have experienced a whooshing of air sound in my ears as I was falling asleep. I next vividly dreamed (or experienced) that I was flying. Not like normal, cause I have dreamed of flying before, this was effortlessly. Like my spirit was sharing this flying experience with me. I realized (in my very lucid dream) how real this was and I immediately thought and saw the Light and said, "God" and I knew I immediately went to Him. I don't remember anything after that but awakened knowing that something special had happened.

Originally posted by fraterormus
..however, as we still know little about that 9/10ths of our brain, it is still too early to conclude that Astral experiences are anything external to ourselves.

I can only speak from my own experiences that an Astral experience is somehow connected to an external power. I have had many hallucinations and dreams which go well beyond my knowledge in terms of content and creativity and my subconscious mind absorbs it like watching a TV channel with my eyes closed.

ve got a question(s) i hope the humble and intellegent people posting on this topic can shed some light on.

let me try and explain. sometimes when im about to fall asleep and i focus on my minds eye i begin to feel myself go into sleep paralysis(this is when your body is shutting down and your slipping into your 'dream state' )however your still concious and aware of what is going on, but you cannot move your physical body and your still 'in your minds eye' or in the 'dream state. at this exact moment of sleep paralysis i feel my concious body and mind leaving my physical body . i can only describe the sensation as being sucked through a wormhole. it is the most overwhelming feeling ive ever had besides doing mushrooms. am i hypotheticly going to another dimension if so which dimension is it. i must say that ive always been afraid of the sensation i get when trying to astral project or get 'sleep paralysis' its the sensation of thdivine unknown. from the point on i can manage to wake myself up and snap out of itl but it us quite hard since u are paralised you have to start by breathing deep thenwiggling a toe or something to wake yourself up.

is this simply the exactmoment when your brain releases the dmt from your pineal gland and the other chemical which paralises your body while your sleeping.
could i be experiencing interdimensional travel if so which dimension?
could this be explained by quantum physics?
hope someone could shed some light.

thanks and peace!

Originally posted by elena
Just recently, I have experienced a whooshing of air sound in my ears as I was falling asleep. I next vividly dreamed (or experienced) that I was flying. Not like normal, cause I have dreamed of flying before, this was effortlessly. Like my spirit was sharing this flying experience with me. I don't remember anything after that but awakened knowing that something special had happened.

wow i get that whooshing sound its so loud and overwhwlming then you feel your biody go thru a wormhole or something and its as if your fkying effortlessly in the cosmos, i havent bin able to get any farther cus i wake myself up. maybe im scared of the unknown or what i might see... i heard your thoughts manifest what you see.

id really like to learn from other people who gave felt this way how to make the experience positive as it can be!

I experienced this once as a young kid. It seemed to be some kind of malfunction- the mind and physical body was disconnnected although becoming wide awake. Terrifying to go through.

reply to post by amilot1


The state you're describing is called "mind awake, body asleep".

You should take advantage of that if you can induce it easily. When you're at that stage all you need to do is turn the door handle and open it. Then you're free to explore the astral plane...

You have to let go of the fear though.

If you want to experence a real OBE...Visit another world, Talk to Beings, Hear strange music, Hear a unknown language being spoken to you, ... TRY '___'...."The Spirit Molecule" .. The most Eye Opening, Life Changing spiritual 5 min of your life...You will never see this world in the same light again.

This is something I'd really like to know the truth to and I mean truth as 100% un deniable facts and proof.

I have suffered from SP for a really long time the first time I can remember it was when I was about 5 years old, as I got older and was able to use the internet and I began to learn how to lucid dream.
Then I started to have OBE experiences this is something that comes very easy to me and I did it by accident and never even knew what it was the first few times I did it.
When this happened I asked my neuro surgeon and he said that it was most likely due to the nerve damage and possibly some kind of damage to my brain from all the anesthesia I was exposed to since the age of 9 months old.
That made sense to me, but I still don't know for 100% sure if that is the case.
The more people I tell about my experiences that are pretty much are on a nightly basis they are amazed and tell me I have some type of gift which at times feels like a curse, some people actually 100% believe I've been in contact with alien life in the astral plain as that's a common dream theme, I can't help to laugh because that's a very hard thing to swallow for me as I was taught to believe that is simply because my brain is a little skewed and things just misfire to in the end cause this effect.
So if this were a real physical action that took place between some kind of life force within in my body and a different plane/real/dimension whatever I'd love to know, and hope that one day there will be something that comes along that can either for sure confirm or deny what kind of event this truly is.

i dont think id have the balls to try dmt...
i get pretty anxous and panick when i do too many mushrooms.... i can only imagine what would happen on dmt.....

Originally posted by adrenochrome
i swear it felt like my eyes were really open when it happened to me, though...

maybe they weren't!

[edit on 10-5-2009 by adrenochrome]

very interesting because when I did Magic Mushrooms (Mexican Cubensis) I once was tripping and I didn't know if my eyes where open or not. I was feeling them and still I don't know if they where open or not but I think they where because I was feeling with my fingers and I felt my eye-balls and my fingers became wet. It was very weird but cool to experience.

might give some insight in the issue.

PS: many of the sleep and esoteric paranormal stuff has alot of connections to psychedelic substances which in my opinion is a link. Sometimes I think it's all just a chemical reaction and there is no other world or aliens but sometimes I think that all must have a higher meaning. But as Bashar sayes: "nothing has meaning,... I know it might sound harsh but nothing has meaning,... you give the meaning to it" which is something I still can't grasp.

So there is meaning because you make it? and people that don't make/see the meaning don't experience it? So everyone makes his reality basicly?
but what about the skeptics having paranormal stuff happening to them? its not about there belief system because they have none, or do they have one in the sub-conciouss? anyway this is off topic.

[edit on 12-6-2009 by colloredbrothers]

Originally posted by amilot1
i dont think id have the balls to try dmt...
i get pretty anxous and panick when i do too many mushrooms.... i can only imagine what would happen on dmt.....

'___' is fast and strong, you won't even move because of astonishment. The reason why you get so anxious on shrooms is because a trip lasts 6 hours while a '___' trip lasts 5 minutes.

Iv tryed salvia 4 times and I realy enjoy it, you are unable to move almost. And the weird thing is that immediatly after I took it and the trip commes, i forget that iv taken it which is very messy for the brain :p.

The reason why I state salvia is because it resembles '___'

[edit on 12-6-2009 by colloredbrothers]

Everyone who suffers from sp. try this one night when your really sleepy.

stare at a light bulb for 5 seconds before you go to bed. now your gonna be really tired now and sp will happen way faster.
lay on your back and shut your eyes as if your going to sleep, but this time in your minds eye youll be able to see the the crazy colors in your minds eye vibrating around like fractals, keep staring at the colors until you start falling asleep, after a few minutes you should feel your body paralize and be fully concious. Now if you have all experienced this like me, you may hear a 'wooshing' noise in your head and feel as if your mind and body are leaving your physical body at a rapid speed (staring into the minds eye seems to help sp happen faster) , now from this point on its anyones choise of what they want to do . you can ususally feel like your flying effortlessly above the earth, then come right back down to a street in a half a second, its the craziest thing ever, ive only bin able to fully fly around once skimming against the ocean at 2000mph it was amazing.

i cant seem to do it anymore because of fear of the unknown i guess you could say, its weird, sometimes ill be dreaming and all of a sudden realise im dreaming and start controlling it, other times ill jsut go abut my dream as if it were real...

'___' is fast and strong, you won't even move because of astonishment. The reason why you get so anxious on shrooms is because a trip lasts 6 hours while a '___' trip lasts 5 minutes.

Iv tryed salvia 4 times and I realy enjoy it, you are unable to move almost. And the weird thing is that immediatly after I took it and the trip commes, i forget that iv taken it which is very messy for the brain :p.

The reason why I state salvia is because it resembles '___'

[edit on 12-6-2009 by colloredbrothers]

yeah ive heard of salvia and my friends have done it, and they said the experience was like dreaming , your eyes are open but your so overwhelmed with wahts going on you dont even move and are unable to talk...sounds pretty crazy... maybe one day ill try it...

i am wondering if all the feelings and sensations at the exact moment of sp is the feeling of dmt kicking in? youve done dmt correct? is it the same kind of feeling

[edit on 12-6-2009 by amilot1]

It can be be both, rarely OBE, and mostly brain

Read up on hypnogocic hallucinations (i had them with spiders years ago when i had sleep deprivation from losing family in war)
neurology.health-cares.net...
you could not tell me to this day they were not as real as a spider in my face. But it wasnt there.
Sleep paralysis similar

www.stanford.edu...


[edit on 13-6-2009 by zazzafrazz]

Hmm it seems reasonable, but i dont think its a sleeping disorder and i wudnt take any pills even if there natural to reduce the amount of sp i have, id rather learn to control it or turn it into a positive thing

There was this one time I had suffered from an episode of sleep paralysis. Well, I usually always call sleep paralysis "the gateway" as it seems like a vital part in separating from physical to astral.

I've told this story way too many times, and I can't really be too bothered to discuss the whole experience, though I'll share the important part.

The paralysis was initiated by a dream. In the dream I started floating upwards toward the sky with no control. As soon as this happened, my body had undergone some sort of lockdown. Yeah, the sleep paralysis. Now here's the interesting bit. I am totally convinced that we're definitely immortal.

Subjective banter out of the way, though, while I was in sleep paralysis I wanted to break out. No idea why, just couldn't be bothered I guess. I could open my eyes, but I couldn't open them the whole way. Maybe only quarter of the way, if that. What I saw was just everything as it was in our world. I could only sustain my open eyes for only so long, though, and they forced themselves shut and it seems that I gained vision in my astral body and I started my ascent to the ceiling. I then open my eyes again in my physical body, still having no luck in actually keeping them open, only for them to force shut so I could carry on an astral ascent toward my celing.

One weird moment was in my physical closed eye vision I saw a big white orb glide from the left and maybe in the same place as my astral body. From readnig various posts on ATS and other places these can be spirits. I'm not too sure, but it was benevolent thankfully, and I believe I met this benevolent beauty in a dream that succeeded my failed astral projection around half an hour later.

I don't know if this helps the OPs case, but I found it to be a particularly diffeernt experience to what I have read.

reply to post by Whine Flu


Cool another kiwi

Interesting account mate, sounds kind of similar to mine. I posted this in my first OP but didn't go into as much detail.

Then a few weeks ago I had sleep paralysis for the first time. I was lying on my side under the sheets because it was cold, but my arm was sticking out the side. I was paralyzed but I could move my eyes. What happened next amazed me. This entity came through the ceiling of my room and grabbed hold of my exposed wrist with both it's hands, and start to "pull me out".

The odd thing about this was, I was under the sheets but I could see through the duvet and I saw this thing come into my room. I could make out a humanoid form - head, arms legs etc, but it looked kind of foggy or smokey. It had long blonde wavy hair and I instantly knew it was female, like I knew who it was! I fell asleep after being awake for about ten seconds, so I don't know what happened next.

Apparently sleep paralysis is a great time to exit the body. Maybe I was half out, because I could see this spirit?

Could this have been my "spirit guide" trying to pull my astral body out of my physical body, assisting me? It was only a couple of days previous to that, that I started studing astral projection. I am not 100% convinced that they exist because it sounds a bit cheesy, but what else could it have been? I had a strong feeling this thing was trying to help me.

[edit on 13/6/09 by dmorgan]