You don’t actually stop the bloodflow, or your arms would die. You press on nerves, it’s called obdormition I think. It could possibly affect the dream in such a way, but it’s not the only reason it happens. I know because I have beaten it inside the dream, and so it cannot be an outside source in that case. That is a case when running is in slowmotion. But even when it gets so bad I was completely stuck, I only needed to wait a few seconds for it to pass. That would not be the case if I was still laying on my arms, or, in that case, my entire body.
I think it is because of an awareness of sleep paralysis. I have experienced trying to punch, but I can’t use any strength. It feels like I am too weak. I imagine I might be trying to punch IRL and being paralysed am unable to. But the paralysis is not absolute, you can still move ever so slightly. If you imagine how that would feel if you were awake, that is about how I feel in the dream. That is what leads me to the conclusion that I am, in those cases, experiencing the sleep paralysis.
Well I got in a fight in one of my dreams last night, and my punches started to be slow, and I remember this thread. I overcame it just by thinking “To hell with this, I can punch as fast as I want!”. It worked. However I wasn’t lucid, and was kind of pissed because I thought about this thread, meaning I thought about LD4all, meaning I SHOULD HAVE REALIZED I WAS DREAMING! But I didn’t. That angered me.
Oh, man, I thought I was the only one who experienced the “slo-mo running” phenomenon. It’s weird, yet it works exactly like everyone has mentioned: a strange, invisible force that prevents you from running more than a mile an hour. And it always seems to happen when I’m being chased, as if my mind wants me to be caught by whatever’s chasing me. Punching, on the other hand, has never really come up in my dreams. Usually I end up using knives or guns when I fight something (although my guns seem to jam way more often than I’d like, particularly in critical situations).
I have exactly the same problem , with both running & punching!.. so glad everyone else does too, im not the only one … but the weird thing i do in dreams is run on my hands seriously works haha!
All my worst nightmares are due to not being able to run away from danger. but what was said about your subconcious is telling you running wont help is really interesting.
Anyone have the same sort of thing but with screaming? you just cant scream atall? nothing comes out?
I have had a lot of dreams where my punches seem like I am punching underwater, and when whomever I am fighting hits me it doesn’t hurt at all. So, in my dream I get really frustrated because I know if I could just punch normal, I would easily win.
Anyway I did a ton of research on the subject, including talking to some psych majors I know. Apparently, if throughout the whole dream you feel like everything you do and say is in slo-mo, than they believe thats you realizing you are paralyzed during rem sleep. Although if everything else is at normal speed and just your punches feel inhibited, or you feel like your running in quicksand, (both have the same meaning) then you have to identify the challenge or relationship that is causing us to feel “stuck” in your wakened life and to begin thinking about a new plan of attack. The dreams represent challenges we will win with our minds, and not our fists.
Ugh! It’s so frustrating when this happens. I go to run from something that’s chasing me, only to find out…I can’t bloody run at all!! One of my DCs usually have to drag me a long. Sometimes I can’t even keep my eyes open. Now THAT annoys me most.
^I like that post. Makes sense, use our minds and not violence that we usually tend to think/use first. Thank you! Good post.
Heh, well, one would think that it was encouragement to seek other, non-violent methods of dealing with conflict, but that’s not really been the case for me .
The last time I tried punching someone in an LD and it failed, I was going to take down my doctor (who apparently was a child molester, in the dream). So… well, my determination to take him down only made me inventive when I couldn’t punch him. I think I ended up snapping his neck and hiding underneath a cardboard box, Solid Snake style .
I used to have punching thing but ive recently had dreams where i actually could. NON-lds by the way. It was kinda more like i was letting the dream me attack someone rather than the real me. Also, i was kinda the one who attacks the other on those occasions so that could have something to do with it.
one dream i had, i was running away frmo someone in slo-mo, like i was in quicksand and i thought “hang on a second - im always in slo-mo when im running away in my dreams, so this must not be a dream”
for some annoying reason i didnt realise that slo-mo was in dreams not real life
… but the weird thing i do in dreams is run on my hands 
seriously works haha!
Yeah, dreams like that are freaky, I don’t have them often though which is, to say the least, a relief. 
sucks though.
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