Sleep paralysis...personal experience

I found a homeopathic remedy that stops, or helps to stop, night terrors: Belladonna.

Homeopathic remedies are a bit 'sensitive' and a few things need to be remembered. Coffee will negate them. Never touch the pills. Have a clean mouth when you take them - don't eat or drink for about 20 minutes before and after taking the remedy.

I've experienced a lot of phenomena including the feeling of having something like blunt bolts rammed hard into both ears. It only happened once and was excruciatingly painful.

One thing I have to add and I apologise because it's unpleasant. These sort of attacks can be triggered by somebody interfering in some way with the sufferer. If anyone finds they start having 'attacks' out of the blue it wouldn't be a bad idea to look back and remember if they'd recently slept in what might have been untrustworthy company.

Tbh I like it , I think the experience is worth the terror so I actually enjoy it , that's what got me here in the first place .

originally posted by: Denoli
Tbh I like it , I think the experience is worth the terror so I actually enjoy it , that's what got me here in the first place .

Me too - there was a time when I developed effective techniques to interrupt or end the experience, but I prefer to take advantage of it now (despite the terror that sometimes accompanies it).

I too came to ATS looking specifically for discussions on this topic (although I enjoy other topics and forums as well).

Sorry for repeating this, but I'm wondering if anyone uses video monitoring on a consistent basis to gain additional insights into this experience?

btw - thanks for the info on the Ireland study. I'd seen it before, but didn't participate because the article promoting it implies they want a sample of local (Irish) people. But the questionnaire didn't ask about location, so I did it anyway.

edit on 3-7-2016 by birdxofxprey because: (no reason given)

No never filmed my sleep, would do in the future but I have a 6 month old in the room so sleep gets limited lol , but tried the sleep app , didn't turn up anything tho .

well here goes. I had the same lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis, that brought on the shadow entity, mainly in my teens, im in my fifties now and never mentioned it much to anyone, but with the internet i read about it years ago, i experienced all the same symptoms, bordering on almost asleep one night, when i felt, more than saw, a presence of some sort in the doorway of my bedroom, i couldnt breathe, coudn't move, just frozen in absolute terror.

I looked away at one point and when i looked back it was still there.

What i remember the most was sitting up, at least i thought i was sitting up, it felt like i was sitting but at the same time i could also sense i was lying flat.

I shared a bedroom with my sister and tried to call her name, i remember the feeling of mouthing the words, but i was also aware that no sound came out, scared the absolute # out of me.

I had it a few more times that week but never told anyone, except my sister who thought i was just having nightmares.

I did not experience this again until i was in my twenties, same scenario, minus my sister.

My question in all of this is, I saw the man in the hat. Black cape, or shadowy area, black hat, fedora, no arms, no glowing eyes, just standing in the doorway staring at me. I saw him every time, i didn't see the Hag as they call the other witch entity, or aliens, or any other kind of shadow, just hat man. Why do some of us that experience this see different shadows, on some other forums alot of different people from different countries see and describe not just the same exact entity but also same surroundings. I saw hat man in the doorway, alot of people have seen him standing at the foot otf their bed, and alot of other people always see him standing in a field.

Does anybody know why we are all seeing the same but also different shadows, I don't believe they are real but i find it fascinating how we see that same things, why don't we see monkeys or puppys or whales, or is it our subconcious playing tricks by bringing out fears from childhood, boogymen, witches, aliens., etc.

On another note, as much as it terrified me, i remember feeling exillerated at the same time.
Thanks for bringing the subject back.

a reply to: alphacenturi

To me they are real , I believe we may have dipped our toe in another dimension , a bit like time slips , I've had it that many times that it isn't just playing on fear , maybe they just look weird , but never saw an actual threat ,just felt terror .

I'd be more terrified seeing lovely looking animals , hopping about my bedroom lol

a reply to: Denoli

lol, yeah i guess any unforseen thing that appears can be scary, the thing is, hat man and the other entities have been around for decades, i just find it a little disturbing how people from all over describe them in almost exact detail. in Newfoundland, the hag, witch, is the big one for people there who have had sleep deprivation or lucid dreams, most of the people there only see her, now the hag is an old english term for witch and alot of people in the east coast are made up of britons, irish and scottish, maybe thats there childhood terror. strange eh.

Im in Ontario canada and the few, very very few,( lest they think im nuts), people that ive mentioned it to, have only heard of the man in the hat.

There have been times over the years when i have actually tried to make it happen again, sucker for terror i guess.

a reply to: alphacenturi
But I must say it is real , I'm very intrigued by it all , but it's the same as all the weird and wonderful .
You get believers , non believers , people who want to believe and the people who have witnessed it , who know its real.

It's just how can you prove its real ?

I tie sp in with sort of shamen type spiritual planes .

Anyway a lot of these mysteries have stood the test of time , so there is something there .

I had it happen a few times to me and the first was quite scary. First off I'm new here and had a cool time shift story to share, but no idea what thread to post it in and i can't make a thread myself yet lol but anyways, my grandma was dying from cancer in 2004. The day she died I knew 10 minutes before the hospital called that she had passed. Why? I was bending over to pick up some shoes and suddenly everything went black around me, like a black fog went into my eyes. Weird huh? So we get the call but just after that black fog went in me I said quietly that I knew she was gone. So the call happens and that night I felt a weird and heavy presence sitting on me and I actually shoved it off and sat up gasping. It happened a few times after and now I don't get it anymore, not after we removed her cremated remains from our home. I have no idea why or what happened but I feel that black fog and the sleep paralysis were connected, but it still makes no sense to me.

originally posted by: alphacenturi

My question in all of this is, I saw the man in the hat. Black cape, or shadowy area, black hat, fedora, no arms, no glowing eyes, just standing in the doorway staring at me. I saw him every time, i didn't see the Hag as they call the other witch entity, or aliens, or any other kind of shadow, just hat man. Why do some of us that experience this see different shadows, on some other forums alot of different people from different countries see and describe not just the same exact entity but also same surroundings. I saw hat man in the doorway, alot of people have seen him standing at the foot otf their bed, and alot of other people always see him standing in a field.

Does anybody know why we are all seeing the same but also different shadows, I don't believe they are real but i find it fascinating how we see that same things, why don't we see monkeys or puppys or whales, or is it our subconcious playing tricks by bringing out fears from childhood, boogymen, witches, aliens., etc.

There might be many different shadows to see. Somehow, SP makes it possible to see at least some of them. It is remarkable indeed to consider the implications of this. During SP our “dreams” have remarkably similar content regardless of age, sex, culture, religion, what continent we live on or even what century we live in.

Sleep research and brain science tells us that:

SP = REM + wakefulness.

Since REM is when we dream, the “intrusion” of wakefulness into REM (or the “persistence” of REM during wakefulness) is alleged to produce “hallucinations.” But this hypothesis makes it quite difficult to explain how it is that:

REM + sleep yields dreams of wide variety and dissimilar content
but
REM + wakefulness yields dreams of little variety and similar content.

How many people would have to see the same things under the same conditions for it to be a reasonable suspicion that they might actually be seeing the same things?

a reply to: birdxofxprey

I'm curious. This might not be related, but we hear of shadow people and a man in a top hat, and I think I have seen him, but I was awake. Each time I saw him someone died. I could not see a face. He was always right behind me. First time at my uncle's work )my grandpa died), second when I was crossing the street (my grandma died). He was dressed old fashioned and had a cape (I'm good at seeing out of the corner of my eye without turning, but when I looked down I did not imagine the dusty black boot and cape brushing the ground behind me where nothing stood), but when I would turn around no one was there and it was in broad daylight.

a reply to: summerdaze

Same with me about my nanna , I knew she died when I was walking home from school .
Let's say I was very close to her as I was one of her 36 grandkids . I had a instant feeling she was dead and ran home crying and burst in the door, my Mam thought something had happened to me and asked what was a matter and I shouted to her SHES DEAD ISNT SHE ? My Mam asked who told you ?
I said I just felt it .btw I was about 7 at the time .

Anyway a couple of years down the line I was telling her about my SP, she didn't believe me until we got cable tv .when everything I'd been saying came on a TVs show called UNSOLVED MYSTERIES .

A few people from America was having the same thing , and I said to my Mam everything they said , and more ...my Mam looked at me like I was a ghost !

That's how I got into the weird and the wonderful

originally posted by: Denoli
a reply to: alphacenturi
But I must say it is real , I'm very intrigued by it all , but it's the same as all the weird and wonderful .
You get believers , non believers , people who want to believe and the people who have witnessed it , who know its real.

It's just how can you prove its real ?

I don't think it's possible to prove the veracity of any experience. But, it could be shown to be highly probable (given the right kinds of information). So, let’s crunch some numbers!

Several professional medical journals regularly publish on this topic (Sleep, The Journal of Sleep Research, Sleep Medicine, The Journal of Clinical Neurology). Here’s a good starting point for some good references of this sort: www.periodicparalysis.org...

In many of these articles it is estimated that Recurrent Isolated Sleep Paralysis (RISP) occurs in a small portion of people; between 3% and 6%. Let’s stay right in the middle of that accepted range; 4.5%.

4.5% of the 7 billion people currently living is 315 million people.

[SP occurs much more often in people with narcolepsy (as well as a few other medical conditions), and a large portion of people experience some kind of SP once in their life. But, repeated occurrences in the absence of another medical explanation – RISP – is widely acknowledged to be quite uncommon. This estimate, then, reflects only a very small portion of those who have SP experiences.]

So, about 315 million people experience SP (independent of symptoms associated with other medical conditions). Since most of us don’t experience SP every night (fortunately), it is worth asking how often this happens; how many people will experience SP on any given night? I’ve not come across any figures that might indicate the average frequency of SP for those with RISP. However, it is possible, again, to make a fairly conservative guess; 5 times per year?

[While obviously somewhat arbitrary, it’s conservative relative to my experience which is 10 times during the last 12 months, and that’s very low compared to years past. Anyone else please chime in regarding the issue of frequency.]

5/365 x 315 million = 4315068.493150685 (about 4.3 million)

So, again, about 4.3 million people experience SP on any given night (independent of symptoms associated with other medical conditions). But the “intruder” (hat man, shadow people, etc.) is not present every time this happens. How often then? Over the years, I’ve found that shadow people are present during about half my SP experiences (and, given the impression left on us by these entities, it seems reasonable to estimate that half of SP experiences include this).

[Again, others please chime in – how often do you see intruders?]

4.3 million x 1/2 = 2.15 million.

We can say, then, as an educated guess, that every night about 2 million people wake up immobilized with an intruder in the room (a great many more than this if we include the SP experiences of those with another medical condition). And accounts of this experience have been written down for several hundred years.

As a general principle, the probability that an experience is an hallucination or otherwise unreal declines as a greater quantity of people have the experience with greater frequency. Regarding the experience of SP with an intruder, millions of people have had this experience every day all over the world for hundreds of years. Does it not, therefore, seem highly implausible that this is a “dream” or some other imagined experience?

BOP

originally posted by: Denoli
a reply to: summerdaze

Same with me about my nanna , I knew she died when I was walking home from school .
Let's say I was very close to her as I was one of her 36 grandkids . I had a instant feeling she was dead and ran home crying and burst in the door, my Mam thought something had happened to me and asked what was a matter and I shouted to her SHES DEAD ISNT SHE ? My Mam asked who told you ?
I said I just felt it .btw I was about 7 at the time .

Anyway a couple of years down the line I was telling her about my SP, she didn't believe me until we got cable tv .when everything I'd been saying came on a TVs show called UNSOLVED MYSTERIES .

A few people from America was having the same thing , and I said to my Mam everything they said , and more ...my Mam looked at me like I was a ghost !

That's how I got into the weird and the wonderful

Yeah I think I started to develop my senses at age 7, but the sleep paralysis only happened after my first true trauma occurred at age 19. I'm 32 now and I feel more in control of things and when I sense something or feel trapped in my sleep, I remain calm and focus and then life returns to normal.

I think the strangest thing that happened to me was I was riding in my uncle's car one night and I saw a sudden flash of a tombstone with my grandpa's name carved into it and the year he would die. He died that exact year I saw on it (2003). Before my grandma died I had a vision one day at home of her doctor telling her she had cancer and when she was diagnosed a few weeks later I was in a state of shock from seeing people's deaths twice.

I just have no idea what this "gift" is but it nearly drove me insane before I learned to accept what i saw, but in the past few years I see less now and just feel more. Very odd.

I have had 2 experiences in my life time.
I was in an abusive relationship at the time and i was sleeping on the couch, i had always wanted to experience it as i like the paranormal, i get visits from different ghosts including my grandmother who i believe is my guardian angel.

The first night it happened, i was in a deep sleep from which i woke from and i really had to struggle just to move my arms, my legs were impossible. I hate being held down so i immediately went into panic mode, i fought so hard but it was pointless, i could sense a presence standing watching me just behind my head, i tried to turn my head so i could see this presence but it was impossible and very scary, next thing i knew it was morning time.

I studied the event all day and came to the conclusion that i was not harmed in any way even though it was horrifying, so i told myself that if it ever happens again i will chill out and see how it all plays out.

The very next night it happened again, i woke up again not being able to move very much and that presence was behind me again, i went straight into panic mode once again and fought it so hard, i had to get up but there was no chance, after a few minutes of fighting i started talking to myself and i eventually calmed down.

I then could really feel the presence standing just behind my head, it was my late father, i burst into tears, i held my hand out to hold his and as soon as we touched it felt like someone had thrown a bucket of ice cold water over me, the air was sucked out of my lungs and i had to let go. I tried once again to hold his hand but it had the same effect, the air was literally sucked out of my lungs. I was crying so hard now but he calmed me down a little and told me what he had came to tell me.

The next thing i knew, it was morning time. He has never visited me again like that, maybe he wanted to fulfill my dream of an SP experience but i may never know that answer and to be honest i dont really mind.

I know there is people that find SP hard to understand and them people will always say that it is just a dream but it is far from being in a dream state, far from it.

If it ever happens to anybody, try to calm down and SENSE your surroundings and see what happens, maybe i was lucky that it was my father and not this creature that sits on your chest but i believe that creature is your own fear induced imagination of not being able to move, feeling like you are being held down but i could be very wrong on that!

Good luck to all that suffer this experience and thank you Sapphireblue for the thread

a reply to: Redback

What a sad yet beautiful story!

I think you are right about remaining calm. That's how I handle it and I actually managed to push whatever it is off me when I do it, then I wake up and after regaining air, return to sleep and usually don't dream after that.

a reply to: summerdaze

Thank you Summerdaze.

So you do actually have something sitting on you????
I was totally wrong then, damn.
I hope you were never physically hurt?

I have just went back and reread your stories, a little freaky TBH. I have ghosts call in with me, most i know but sometimes there are ones i dont know and i had that shroud of darkness around me once but nobody died that i know of.

I can accept what goes on in my life now, it was a little freaky at first but after accepting it, i quite enjoy it TBH and i always believe that my grandmother will keep evil spirits away from me (if they exist, i have always believed that the spirit world is all good even though i have read some horror stories).

I have an American friend and her late friend calls in with me when things are not going well for her, she had a hard time believing what i tell her but i have had a 100% hit so far and she is safe even after getting into a bit of trouble, deep down i am impressed by it.lol

Stay safe Summer

a reply to: Redback

It's not tangible whatever it is, but something always feels like it's trying to sit on me and suffocate me. I was on my stomach the first time it happened and after I counted to 3 I forced my eyes open (making myself wake up) and actually felt something tumble off my back. I'm still not sure if anything was actually on me, but that's the feeling I got. Like it was trying to take me over and dominate me. First time was scary, the next few times I just shoved it off again and it stopped when we removed her remains from our home (she wanted her ashes to be scattered anyways). Sometimes I think something was connected to my grandma and when she died it tried to join me, but I fought it. I loved my grandma but something was never quite right about her. Her eyes were always dark and almost solid black and late at night I would catch her staring blankly at me. I never felt like it was truly her as I aged and my senses enhanced.

I believe after that thing left though and I felt her presence later (my grandpa too as they died a year apart) and she always showed up when I was hurting, I think that was really her and not that thing.

I think you were being protected by your loved ones when you first felt that feeling and saw your late father. I think he was stopping whatever was trying to take you.

Sleep Paralysis seems connected to trauma and pain and sadness and if something really is trying to sit on us, I suspect it waits until we are most vulnerable to strike.

a reply to: summerdaze

It is getting late here in the UK Summer and you are starting to freak me out a little.lol
I thought i would come back to this before i hit the hay..... should have left till the morning
Joking...

I wonder if your grandmother ever played with the ouija board and sometime attached themselves to your grandmother?
Did she have a good side and a bad side to her personality?
Maybe the entity needed a new host and it had plans for you? (i cant believe i am talking like this as i always believed the spirit world to be full of love, no evil) but your story has intrigued me Summer.
Maybe once the entity (i dont know what else to call it) left, your grandmother became herself once again and that is why she showed up when you were hurting.


When i had my experience Summer, i only ever felt one presence each night, i had always thought it was my father on both occasions but maybe it wasnt him on the first night. On both nights though, the presence was standing just behind my head, i never seen who it was on both nights, just felt my father on the second night.
I will normally "sense" a bad person near me so i am guessing i would have felt it if the presence the first night was evil but i cannot say for sure on that and this all happened about 5 years ago so my memory is hazy on it now, especially the first night.

You make a good point about attacks when we full of pain and hurt but my biggest events which were good all happened when i was in bad places but like i said before, maybe it is my grandmother who protects me in that way, she had a heart of gold but not a woman you would play games with. I only have a few memories of her as she died when i was very young but she loved me very much and i loved how safe i felt with her ( i felt as if i belonged and attached with her).
I do fear the day i meet her again because if she really is my guardian angel, i gave her a hard time when i was young.lol

a reply to: Redback

I am so sorry to freak you out lol I know that feeling so well myself. I'm just finally able to talk about everything that I can't share with anyone but my mother and best friend.

She was a strange woman. She seemed kind to me but was abusive to my mother all her life, a drunk and addicted to pills. She would pull all sorts of stunts to get attention and cause everyone grief. When I was born she settled down and spoiled me rotten, but as I grew older and became more aware of odd things, she started trying to kick me out of the home (we all lived together. Her, my grandfather, mother and uncle). I sometimes think if anything happened to her it was when she was a child. I saw pics of her as a kid. She had long red hair and white skin but her eyes... they always seemed dead or empty. My mother and I and my uncle also seem to have some sort of Native American in our blood and it seems she had an affair with one and then had my mom and uncle. Maybe that's why I'm so sensitive to things too. Especially nature.

She told me a story once of a relative of her's who died telling people not to step near the end of the bed because of the flames. They saw no flames and thought she was crazy, but when my grandma's relative died her feet had burn marks on them. She might have grown up with that sort of stuff. She was born in Quebec and moved to Ontario when my mother was born. I have always been raised in Ontario and never knew anyone from Quebec (and Ottawa) but the pics I saw did unnerve me.

Loved ones will always love us even if we gave them a hard time lol