I’m still a newbie to this forum and lucid dreaming in general so if this topic’s in the wrong place could someone move it?
Looking up lucid dreaming I naturally came across sleep paralysis. Now, I will not claim for a second that I’m an expert of sleep paralysis, so I wouldn’t know if I went through it or not. I did, however, have an interesting experience so I’ve decided to consult this forum.
I was taking a nap and I began to dream. I forgot everything about the dream except for one thing: I was going to the fridge and my teeth started making intense cracking noises. I must’ve been briefly lucid because I distinctly remember thinking “Okay, do not want anymore of this dream, I’m gonna wake up from it” so I did.
When I opened my eyes, I found it to be really hard to do so. Not only that, but I couldn’t move save for my foot(and barely at that). I didn’t hallucinate, feel anyone or anything else in the room, nor did I feel any pressure on my chest though(granted, I was sleeping on my side at the time). It felt really weird, but not all that scary, so I just let it run its course and I could move again shortly afterwards. I resumed my nap and it didn’t happen again.
So did I go through sleep paralysis, or something else? Is sleep paralysis on a spectrum and I just suffered a “light” case of it? Is it a syndrome, where I can go through some things and not others? Let me know, as I’m really curious.
Simple answer:
Yes, that was sleep paralysis and it is normal.
Hallucinations and chest pain/pressure problem to breathe aren’t a must.
These aren’t part of sleep paralysis, they may just happen together.
Then you have faced a normal sleep paralysis actually.
“Normal people” always have sleep paralysis while sleeping, specially when dreaming, but they usually don’t notice it.
It makes you unable to move while dreaming. If you think about it, it helps much much more than causes trouble.
Questions and answers about SP are tricky because I think that the experience of SP is different from person to person. Sure we all experience it in one exact way and that is not being able to move but everything else that comes with SP in very individual experience.
When you experience SP then you can’t move at all, not even a muscle. That’s SP. I guess even when you find yourself in SP and if you realize that it’s SP and if you don’t panic in that period of time your brain already stops paralyzing your muscles and you are able to move, maybe not the whole body but leg or arm as you described in your experience. So I guess that you experienced SP at some level.
Well if you let yourself more into this world of dreams, SP, hallucinations and such things trust me you will not be so sure about what you hallucinated and what you didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a positive thing, it’s a funny and entertaining thing.
What you hallucinated and what not you will mostly realize after a few false awakenings(FA). You’ll see how awesome is that, how easily your brain can trick you into thinking that you are not hallucinating…
