Sleep paralysis or OOB?

I use to have episodes where i'd lay down for a while, not really tired, but relaxed. I would fall half-asleep so to speak, and could see everything around me but could not move. Only once did i really feel a sensation of someone else being in my bedroom, and only once did i see some sort of dark mass that looked like a person with a wide brimmed hat on.
Many of the OOB experiences sound like this, and mention so called shadow people.

To me, it simply sounds like sleep paralysis and my dream was filtering into my half awake state, and vision.

So, how do you know that your OOB's are not simply sleep paralysis and dreams filtering through your half awake, half asleep state?

I dunno. It probably can't be that feeling of tearing out of your body, and floating above your paralysed, sleeping self, having complete control of this astral form, having the ability to float around or anything. No, it can't be that.

Damnit, sometimes I wish these shadow people would just kill people. They deserve it.

[edit on 24-10-2008 by Angry Potato]

OOB's are just sleep paralysis. Its like how the Greeks explained the sky and the sun, etc. OOB's were mentioned before sleep paralysis was. Sleep paralysis is the explanation. But some people like the believe they are, gifted? Like you said man, it is a state between dreaming and reality. Mixing your imagination with your real-time senses does some crazy things!

I'm pretty firmly convinced that claims of out-of-body experiences, alien abduction and the like are the result of sleep paralysis. I remember the first time I experienced an episode--it was terrifying. I was convinced that a ghoulish female figure was pinning me face down on my bed (I had just begun to doze off). These events can seem absolutely, unequivocally real, but I believe they just aren't. The human mind is a funny little machine and it can conjure the most amazing images seemingly out of the blue, making for truly terrifying hallucinations. I believe that especially close scrutiny is due for any reported paranormal event occurring while the subject is sleeping, dozing, or (as the OP states) very relaxed and in a resting position. If you'll notice, most alien abductions are claimed to have occurred when the subject(s) were sleeping or just about to go to sleep. I do not think that this is a coincidence.

[edit on 24/10/08 by paperplanes]

This happened to me once a few years ago, and I'd never heard of anything like it at the time. It scared the HELL out of me, I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night.

I was having trouble getting to sleep, and every time I'd start drifting off, I'd get this loud ringing in my ears. The closer I got to asleep, the louder it would get, making it harder and harder to actually sleep.

When it seemed like the ringing couldn't get any louder, it all the sudden cut off and I found that i couldn't move any part of my body, even a tiny bit. I panicked, like anyone would, and put all my effort into willing myself to move or scream. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, the far wall of my room started to darken, it kind of looked like one of those little flat face toys full of metal slivers that you can move around with a magnet to make mustaches and eyebrows. It started to pull out from the wall and create a three dimensional shape in front of the wall, at which point I guess I was finally scared enough to snap out of it.

All at once I could move again and the black mass disappeared instantly. I screamed my head off for a minute, then jumped out of bed and ran shrieking into my roommates room.

He sat up in bed to me running in screaming "There's something in my room, it's trying to get me!!!" He didn't take me seriously at first and was pretty mad at me, but when he could see how seriously upset I was he tried to calm me down. I didn't have the internet at the time and couldn't look it up, and chalked it up to a waking dream. I figured whatever switch shuts off your conscious mind when you fall asleep had failed this once, and allowed a dream to be projected onto the reality I was seeing with my open eyes.

A few months later I was watching tv, discovery or history probably, and they mentioned this exact phenomena, it sent chills down my spine. They said reports had changed over time from demons appearing to aliens appearing, but the basic story is pretty much the same for everyone who experiences this.

I still haven't ever looked it up online, but since it was one of the strangest and most frightening things I've ever experienced, I'm off to do that now.

You have to agree though, isn't being completely paralyzed about the worst most disgusting feeling ever?

By taking advantage of the sleep paralysis, you can actually have an OOBE. It's very real.

I can't prove it or anything. Just learn to harness the sleep paralysis and get it to work for you. Your own thoughts are what are stopping you from even gettnig to OOBE stages.

Sleep paralysis is natural and normal, even though it sounds scary. Every single person has sleep paralysis when they sleep. If you didn't, your body would move a heck of a lot while sleeping and you would be a danger to yourself (and your wife/husband).


When every single person wakes up, for a split second they experience the sleep paralysis while waking from sleep. But due to something (I forget what the term is) they forget about it right after it happens. But sometimes they remember experiencing it, and that's when they get scared about it or think they had an "OBE", or whatever.

I have had an oob probly once a month for the last fifteen years and I promise you it is real.
The only thing I can say to you in order to get you to understand is;
Q: Are you awake right now?
A: Yes
Q: How do you know?
A: because I just do

Well you are just as awake during an oobe and how do I know it was a real oobe

A: I just do.

Originally posted by Angry Potato
By taking advantage of the sleep paralysis, you can actually have an OOBE. It's very real.

I can't prove it or anything. Just learn to harness the sleep paralysis and get it to work for you. Your own thoughts are what are stopping you from even gettnig to OOBE stages.

Ohh and by the way, Angry Potato
is right. Sleep paryalisis is the step just before slipping out of your body.
Your thoughts (being freaked out) are what stops it from happening.
Even if you are already "out" and you get freaked out you will instantly snap back in.

I used to have these OOBs or sleep paralysis episodes, but I haven’t had them now for 40 years. I know why I no longer experience them and I’ll explain why in a moment.

I am the eldest of six children. All of my siblings and my mother “suffered” through this phenomena that we called “stupors”. They always started the same way. I would be in a state where my body was exhausted but my mind was wide awake and racing. A typical example would be when I came home from school and had just finished my homework. I would sit down in a large recliner to watch TV. After a few minutes, my eyes would close and I would feel my body stiffen. I would hear a high-pitched whining sound and have the sensation that I was falling. The faster I fell, the louder and lower the sound became. When I “hit bottom”, my body would jerk and the sound would disappear. At this point, my body is completely paralyzed. The only thing I can do is open my eyes. I could see things that were in the living room, but nothing was very clear. It was as if I was looking through a thin sheet of water. I could make out the TV and anyone that may have been in the room at the time. Even though things were a little blurry, I was acutely aware of my surroundings. I felt as if I was in a state of “super-consciousness”. The sounds from the TV were extremely clear … so much so that I would interpret them in “3-D”. I know this doesn’t make sense, but that is the only way I can describe it. The sounds seemed solid and my ears were able to “see” them.

After a few minutes (or at least it seemed so, as there was no real way of timing these experiences) I would be gripped with fear. From past experience I knew the only way to “wake up” from these stupors was to somehow force to move a part of my body. I would concentrate on trying to wiggle a finger or shake a foot. It was exhausting. When I could finally will my foot to move, I would suddenly snap out of it and become wide awake and able to move freely again. I would have these stupors dozens of times during my childhood.

As time went on, I became less afraid of the stupors and would actually look forward to exploring them. After I would “hit bottom” and become paralyzed, I eventually discovered that I could move my sense of super-consciousness around the room. It wasn’t like moving a physical body around, but more like my mind’s eye existed in a sphere that I could float around. It was during one of these episodes that I tried an experiment that would “prove” this was really happening and not just some type of hallucination. This time I was lying in bed when the stupor started. When I got to the point where I could float my consciousness, I decided that I would travel down the hallway into the kitchen. We kept a clock on the wall there and I figured if I could see the clock and noticed the exact time, I could rush back into my body, wake up, go to the kitchen and see if the time was what I saw in the stupor. I was quite excited about the experiment and my fear level was much lower than in past stupors. I rushed my mind’s eye down the hallway toward the kitchen. But when I was just a few feet away, I felt myself being pulled back to my bedroom. While being pulled back, my “super-consciousness” was soaking up everything. I was intimately aware of everything in and around the hallway. I knew which doors were open and which were closed. I could see the Lego blocks on the floor where my sister was playing before. Very quickly I was zapped back into my body and immediately awoke. While I was disappointed the experiment didn’t complete, I none-the-less felt a sense of exhilaration. I ran to the hallway and noticed that everything was exactly as I saw it in the stupor. The Lego block house was precisely the way I saw it before, down to the colors of the blocks and the way the toy was oriented. The toys were not in the hallway before I had laid down.

(continued in next post)

After this experience, the stupors became less frequent. The last one I remember was when I was about eleven or twelve years old. When the high pitched sound started, this time I paid more attention to it. As it got lower and louder I realized that the sounds were actually voices! It was as if hundreds of people were around me talking. They weren’t talking to me in particular, just what seemed like random conversations. This time I was really excited. If I could make out what was being said, I might learn something. I could look forward to these stupors instead of dreading them.

But unfortunately, the stupors never happened again. I’ve come to realize that it was the fear of them occurring that made them happen. When I no longer feared them (and in fact looked forward to them) they stopped completely. I kind of miss them now.

Thanks for starting this thread. I haven’t really thought about OOBs in the last 40 years and it made me nostalgic for days past.

Originally posted by Shadoefax
After this experience, the stupors became less frequent. The last one I remember was when I was about eleven or twelve years old. When the high pitched sound started, this time I paid more attention to it. As it got lower and louder I realized that the sounds were actually voices! It was as if hundreds of people were around me talking. They weren’t talking to me in particular, just what seemed like random conversations. This time I was really excited. If I could make out what was being said, I might learn something. I could look forward to these stupors instead of dreading them.

But unfortunately, the stupors never happened again. I’ve come to realize that it was the fear of them occurring that made them happen. When I no longer feared them (and in fact looked forward to them) they stopped completely. I kind of miss them now.

Thanks for starting this thread. I haven’t really thought about OOBs in the last 40 years and it made me nostalgic for days past.

I few things you mentioned remind me of what i call my sleep paralysis experiences. I had several, and the only way out of them was to concentrate on moving a couple of my fingers, and slowly more and more muscles would respond until i zapped right out of it suddenly, and was awake. I also remember this happening one afternoon while i was listening to a track on 'don't techno for an answer'. after i fell into the sleep paralysis, the sounds of the techno music became very, very amplified and sharp. I was half asleep, but could hear the music in a way i couldn't normally. The music induced what must have been a dream, where my bedroom, and rest of the house turned completely red and was falling into pieces slowly. All these pieces were floating though as they came apart. I knew it had something to do with the sounds of the music. It wasn't pleasant and this same track has put me into this sleep paralysis state more than once.

What song? Because I'd be interested in giving this a go.

Interesting thread!!

I have suffered and been scared of SP for most of my consciously aware life. I am now getting close to my 50th birthday and I still get it.

I have read some posts here and would say that my experiences are similar to the OOBE or maybe even AP. You just suffer alone until you come across a thread such as this

With me the OOBE/AP seems to be beyond SP. I am aware and conscious of SP then I get an all body throbbing/vibration and a feeling of tremedous acceleration..like falling. Sometimes I feel there is a pop? I am not as advanced as many here but I am aware of my ceiling and sometimes my body. I once was seated at my bed at an impossible angle, turned round and saw my feet to my left...then "pop" I was laying there looking at the ceiling!!!

I can understand how people who have not suffered any of this nonsense can think it a simple, rational mind trick. There again my Doctor has never had SP and to hear him rationalise it, then I explain what it means to a sufferer LOL I would suggest that even a broken leg maybe a Doctor can have a little understanding but it is nothing like the real thing...maybe Docs should be given broken legs etc to help their empathy lol

But I see it as this, everything that man has done is a result of a thought and we can't prove thought either :-) TBH it is that, generally I am a rational man and that makes such things more weird. 4 years ago I would scoff at the very idea of the paranormal in any guise....but now?

I do feel that I am a control freak and need to know how to control this thing before I try it out LOL But it is the unknown for me and I think that I am kind of scared of it? I wouldn't take a car anywhere unless I knew how to accelerate, brake and fuel up lol anyhow interesting thread thanks..

Originally posted by Angry Potato
What song? Because I'd be interested in giving this a go.

i use to listen to 'don't techno for an answer' volume 1 and 2 all the time while laying down. i think its number 4 on volume 2. i have both cd's ripped to my hard drive, but they are not labeled with song titles. i just labled them numbers this through that, but i have them.
i would lay on my bed on my stomach, with my arms down to my side, and i would simply not close my eyes. i'd get very relaxed, and my body would get tired, but my mind was awake and kept my eyes open. if i remember correctly, eventually i would get this slight buzzing sensation, vibration. and then i couldn't move, but could see everything around me, and my dreams would filter through to my vision. it hasn't happened for years. maybe the conditions have not been met since then, but it started to happen again about 2 weeks ago at night when i couldn't sleep. i was looking at my bedroom door and i could hear someone's voice, and some kind of form in front of the bedroom door. the blue light on my laptop was pulsating on and off slowly from charging, and would slightly illuminate the room with a dim blue light. that made things even more strange. before i fell any further into it, i snapped out of it and jumped out of bed.

honestly, what this 'sleep paralysis' reminds me of is a natural drug. it's like being on drugs, but natural, and i believe very harmless. the only reason it may be harmful is the fear of the unknown, therefore creating some anxiety about it.

all i know is, i've been reading about bob monroe, and i'm also reading tom campbell's book trilogy 'my big toe'(theory of everything), and so i know through science that OOB is real and scientifically documented as such by real world physicists. they have both stated there is nothing to be afraid of, and to not be afraid to explore. if sleep paralysis is a precursor to OOB experiences, then being able to induce sleep paralysis may be key in entering the OOB experience without much effort.

i think that learning OOB is required in any kind of significant personal evolution.

I was expectnig something a lot more sinister than this song. It sounds like a porn groove.

Still, though, I'll loop it and give it a go. The creepy thing about seep paralysis (at least this is how it works for me, anyway), I'll be in a dream and some really awkward thing would be out of place. I would think about what it is. It could be something really stupid, but for some reason it will feel out of place extremely. This gets me panicked and paralysis kicks in with the usual violent vibrations, extreme wind sound, a high pitched frequency, or very low pitched frequency (almost feels like your head is a subwoofer), and finally, little control of anything.

I'm still working on OOBEs myself. I've had a few strange experiences, but none of them lasted as long as I would have liked them to. For some reason, just prior to being paralysed, you sense extreme fear out of nowhere. I don't really understand it.

I have learned one thing from all of this, though. Positively telling your mind that you want an OOBE. Get semi-excited about it. I've found that these thoughts do get you into an OOBE state rather fast when you're undergoing sleep paralysis. I've found that in some states my body will automatically resist paralysis straight away, or I will get a flow of thoughts saying things like "Body asleep, mind awake".

I guess those didn't really help me get into the state, but it removed all fear, and it rationalised the situation. I had a bout of sleep paralysis on Thursday. Prior to the experience I was in a weird sort of dream. I was in a house and I just let one of my cats in through the front door. All of a sudden I just go to sit on the ground and I start going around in circles slowly. It was a weird experience. Then I started hearing a high pitched frequency and felt mild vibrations. Afterward, I felt like I just had some exercise or something.

Some weird things happen in sleep paralysis stages. I, myself, will actually endeavour to get more OOBEs, as it's such a great experience, and for some reason you feel a lot more happy afterwards, just knowing that you've encountered something spiritual. You can try out listening to binaural beats while you're sleeping. The frequencies can engage you into OOBE a lot easier, apparently. I don't use them, personally, but it's definitely worth looking into.

oops i was wrong. it was song 4 but on volume 1, not 2

i have some binaural beats and listen to them sometimes at night. i think i'm listening to them at the wrong times though, and should be listening to them when the conditions are created that use to put me in sleep paralysis. it was always in the daytime, when i wasn't tired, and had nothing distracting me. i've never had someone come into the room during sleep paralysis and into my field of vision. that could be very interesting...

The only time I might become concerned is if I had full control of my body and was not paralized due to sleep.

Then the question becomes, A. am I hallucinating, B. is this really happening.

My worst case of sleep paralysis was I was awake laying on my stomach and couldn't move. I had a shadow figure pulling my hair back and slicing my neck with a knife and I thought I could actually feel it. My body seemed at that point to kick into overdrive and I broke the paralysis state and jumped up with nothing on my neck, no marks or anything. It was extreamly real while it happened but obviously it wasn't.