I couldn`t find the thread that I read, so id post my discoverings here.
Some people on the forum, thinks that LDs cannot induce sleep-paralysis. And that its just the people on the forum here, who found this site when searching around about sleeping-disorders and then found this. This has been proven wrong. about 4 months ago I discovered lucid-dreaming, and since then, Ive probably hade about 30-50 sleep-paralysis. I didnt have ANY SP before I discovered LD…
Well most people talk about sleep-paralysis when they are AWAKE and not able to move. I KNOW, we all have sleep-paralysis when we are sleeping, but of course I was referring to awake SP like everybody else does.
Thank you Childhood for this very interesting information.
About SP, I suppose you mean that when you wake up you cannot move during some seconds or more? And it’s possibly (but not necessarily) accompanied with hallucinations? Is it what you meant?
When Fadem asked you if you never had SP before, you said you had it a few times. Thus it seems you were naturally subject to SP. Moreover, you just are 17… and it’s the age when you are the most likely to experience SP!
Thus I think there are three possibilities:
LD’ing may provoke SP.
LD’ing never provoke SP: you just were subject to.
LD’ing provoke more SP when people are already subject to.
To verify the first and second solutions, it would be necessary to have 30 years or more old people who never have been subject to SP before they experienced LD’ing. As for me, LD’ing has never provoked 1 SP. It would be interesting that more SP’ed people tell us about their experience in relation to LD’ing.
Could you please tell us in which conditions you experienced SP? In what those experiences were related to LD’ing practice? And of course what technique are you using? Thank you.
I actually had one this morning, I woke up about 9:00, its saturday, and nothing really special to do during the day so I thought I might try to fall asleep.
My last LD was when I took a nap in the middle of the day so I thought that I might have one now. After awhile I fell asleep, and had those weirder dreams that you have when your mind is filled with LD thoughts. I do the MILD method becuase usually it takes about an hour to sleep. Anyhow, waking up in the morning and going of to sleep again is easy for me, what a paradox…
I Wasnt that motivated so the autosuggestion wasnt that successfull, I dreamt a lot but didnt really realise that I was dreaming.
After a while I think I opened my eyes in sleep, so suddenly I woke up half-way and couldn`t move at all. I thought first id try to WILD while being in SP, but then suddenly I started to think about “old hag”. No hallucinations, other than hearing weird hypnogogic noises wich kind of sounded like trees flowing in the wind.
I got scared and wanted to get out of the SP. Ive heard things you can do to snap out of it, such as moving your toes and fingers (wich is possible in SP) after awhile moving I finally snapped out of it. Then I stood up from bed so that I wouldnt fall into it again, because ive sometimes had several SPs after each other. Each time after a SP when I relaxed again trying to sleep, I suddenly had SP again.
I don`t know about you people, but when I hear the word SP, I mostly relate to the occurance of when you are awake and not able to move, because of this mechanism that is supposed to keep you in bed and not living out ones dreams in RL.
The only thing I can say is that I practise MILD/autosuggestion methods and I tried WILD without success for years and I never got SP. Thus, in my opinion, you were naturally subject to SP and it was triggered when you became 17 years old. By the way, SP is more likely to happen during afternoon naps.
I think we should wait for more reports before deciding, especially reports from older ones cause the SP trouble is very common indeed.
Technically, everyone has sleep paralysis every time they enter REM sleep, it’s just that we don’t usually notice because we’re unconscious. Sleep paralysis is a natural phenominon which prevents us from acting our our dreams and risking injury to ourselves.
So, I suppose if you were very skilled at controlling LDs and WILDs, you could use your lucidity to wake up partially and enter a conscious state while you were still in sleep paralysis.
I’m positive it works the other way around (for me). (SP->LD)
I’ve only had SP during a “regular time” (not really regular, had to get up extra early for school) once, Mom was yelling for me to get up and I was stuck in an SP…most annoying thing ever. I’m not sure how long it took me to snap out of it but it seemed like it took forever, even though it may have been only a minute or so.
I don’t think that lucid dreaming causes you to have SP I think it just makes you aware of the fact that you are having SP.
We all wake up several times per night for a moment. It happens so quick that you don’t remember it in the morning. In LD practice we work to improve our dream recall and get more in tune with your sleep state in general. Now if you are lucid in a dream and you wake up you might well wake into SP. I have had that happen to me. If I am about to loose a dream I try to extend it. If I fail to extend the dream or awaken from the dream suddenly I might wake into SP. That does not bother me much though because I know SP is harmless and it is so easy to go from SP into a lucid dream.
Your arguement that you never had SP before practicing lucid dreaming therefor LD’ing causes SP may be in error. You see, now you are paying attention to your sleep and trying to remember what happens to you while asleep( i.e. improving dream recall). As you practice dream recall I believe you will also improve your memory of other things that happen to you while asleep (like those brief awakening). I am not saying you are wrong. I just don’t think you proved that lucid dreaming causes SP, at least not yet. It could very well be that before you started practicing lucid dreaming you went through SP ever night. Perhaps even several times per night. It is just that you remember them now.
What about this concerns you? SP is harmless and when you learn how to use it you will be able to easily turn SP into a lucid dream.
Nothing really bothers me, and I know SP is harmless, I just question the people here at the forum.
I mean why not? Why cannot LD thoughts in your mind provoce SP? Maybe I got excited and woke myself up in the middle of that kind of state of mind, BECAUSE I was trying to LD.
It’s not clear but it’s probably due to the melatonine rate. It seems there is an increase when you’re around 17. It decreases then. For instance, old people melatonin rate is rather poor and they don’t experience SP.
In my opinion, LD’ing is unlikely to provoke the sleep paralysis trouble cause it’s a matter of hormones rate. This has still to be prooven though. But as milod789 said, LD’ing may make you aware of the fact that you are having normal SP. Thus you could experience SP because you’re more aware of your sleeping body. By the way, LD’ers often experience dreams which seem to be closely related to the paralyzed state, for instance dreams with vibrations, paralysis, dreaming of being in their bed, false awakenings, etc. Moreover some LD’ers have unvolontarily experienced true SP cause they wanted to suddenly wake up from a dream - generally a nightmare - and they found themselves in a SP state.
