Does anyone feel like explaining this Old Hag thing to me?
I am new here, but I gather that she (?) is a hallucination that is common to many people? Across different ages, times, and cultures?
If that’s so, that is just too weird. Kind of like the bright light at the end of the tunnel with NDE’s, only WAY harder for the skeptics to dismiss, if it’s true. I kinda want to see her - I’ve got a few questions for her
If anyone can point me to more info on her, or set me straight or whatever if I’m way off base, I’d appreciate it
I guess I’ve never had hallucinations with SP. I used to get SP in childhood a lot. Less so now, and I don’t even always recognize it. Now I usually just think one of the cats is sleeping on my back. I don’t find it to be scary, but then I don’t see hags or demons attacking me, either - that might change things a little!
my brain often incorperates my real surroundings from my bedroom into sleep paralysis… for example: one time i was having SP and it was like i was fully awake, i was sliding off the side of my bed onto the floor in slow motion and i could not move at all the right myself, i was desperatley trying to get the words “help me!!!” out to my brother who was lying next to me. in reality he wasnt there at all. sometimes i dream people are all around me too, people i know just going on and chit chatting like im not there and nothing is going on… all in a dream tho while im in SP. very weird.
Ok. Tonight I’m going to WILD. The hallucinations sound scary, but I go through it every night. Nothing can hurt me, and if it does, I’m in a vivid dream
I had a SP a few months ago, before I knew what it was (I assumed it was an incredibly realistic dream until I read a book on sleep). I woke up in bed (flat on my back), and just intuitively knew that there was an animal on the floor next to my bed, that it was poisonous, and that it would kill me if it knew I was there. I tried to surreptitiously move away from the edge of the bed, at which point I realized I couldn’t move; I didn’t have any problems breathing though. Eventually I was able to scoot over some and pull the covers over my head (typical mature adult response grin) and go back to sleep.
After I learned about SP (and LD), I tried various MILDs and WILDs, one of which was to try to get into SP purposely. I managed once; my toes started tingling, and the feeling of numbness continued to creep up my body until it reached my chest. My breathing got faster and shallower until it was extremely hard to breath, and though I knew exactly what was going on, my brain still kind of went into panic mode, and I fell out of it (the SP). Definitely an interesting experience.
Ok I THINK I had SP once. I see a flash of lightening. In that moment I felt as if I was between worlds (Real World and Dream World). When I ‘wake up’ I am sitting up a little (my body from the legs up is slightly raised) and my legs and arms and fingers are apart almost as if I had really been struck by lightening! Is this SP because I wasn’t exactly paralized per say.
The only time I had HI was when I decided to sleep in a tent in my backyard. Wasn’t scary though. On the contrary, it was a vase of flowers right in front of my face. I expected HI to be a little blurry, but this was clear as crystal. Clear as RL.
Clear as real life. That sounds about right. In my opinion SP and Old Hag are terrifying…until you know what they are. Then it can be entertaining, and it offers and excellent opportunity to LD since you are so close to being in the dream state.
Actually one of the reasons I want to learn to WILD so badly is because the very first time I tried it (about a year ago), I got to the point of very vivid HI and then SP.
I felt extremely strong vibrations in my whole body for what seemed like 5-10 seconds and after that (or during, not quite sure), I saw all kinds of weird colors and heard strange sounds etc. Then it went black and moments later I found myself in a sort of starry tunnel, with me floating in the middle. And then I decided to move, thinking I was in the dream world. Woke up, disoriented, standing next to my bed, still half asleep
But anyway, I found that experience so interesting that I’ve been wanting to do it again, though I never got to that stage again. About two weeks ago I started getting into LDing again, after a 10 month break, and I’ve come close a few times.
So yeah, it’s definitely entertaining, so long as you’re aware that it can’t hurt you in any way. When I told my friends they asked me if I was high. I guess, them being the experts on that, my experience was similar, haha.
I just took a nap and when I woke up I didn’t move a muscle. I could feel tingling all over my body, but I could move. Well mostly… The tingling was strongest in my right hand especially the pinky finger and I could NOT move these parts. It felt exactly like when you cut your blood circulation off, but I wasn’t in a position to do that, and it didn’t go away after staying still for at least 10 min. I was seeing if I could WILD from there but gave up. Even when I got out of bed my hand was still numb and unable to move. I started touching it and I couldn’t feel a thing, but after a while I slowly regained ability to move it and to feel. This feeling was all over my body, but much weaker in the rest so I could still move and feel. What I’m asking is, Was this SP? My right hand was definitely paralyzed and the reset of my body felt similar but less extreme.
Sounds like you woke up at the very end of SP, just as it was beginning to fade. Many people describe a tingling sensation as something that comes with the onset and departure of REM paralysis.
I had a wierd experience last night. I was trying to WILD and felt some symptoms of SP, like seeing flashes of light, having a tingling sensation in the hands, eyes twitching etc. Then after a while, I suddenly felt like I melted away into the bed somehow, the feeling just came suddenly in my whole body, and here’s the wierd part, as I “melted” away I got a hard on!
That has never happened to me before with pre-SP, have any of you guys experienced it?
I usually get SP when I am not waking up on schedule such as sleeping in on the weekends, and I seem to be getting them more often lately. Anyways, at first I was very scared, borderline terrified when it happened because my breathing speeds up rapidly and it seems as if my heart is beating very fast. I managed to let out a whimper which i guess woke me up from the sleep paralysis.
Nowadays I learned to like them because if I just relax and realize that nothing bad is going to happen then I can see some pretty cool images and hear some pretty wicked sounds, and eventually venture off into a dream where becoming lucid is very easy. Hope this helped some people fearing sleep paralysis.
Aww man,just read the first post of first topic.
I was always wondering what the old hag is.
I hope i won’t get one
That could be the manifestations of your worse physical fear
Is it possible that some people dont hear/see anything in SP?
In all the SPs I had, I never saw/heard anything.
The only feeling I had was that I was feeling my body in another position than it was lying and some shaking, i never had something scary.
I was/am always scared by SP, I often had sleepness nights because of fear.
Is it possible that my brain blocks those scary images/sounds out because I know that these could be psychically dangerous for me??
I’ve had several experiences of SP combined with fear and sometimes the feeling of a “malign presence” throughout my life, but recently I had an encounter with a special kind of the “old hag”: I woke up, flat on my back, paralyzed, feeling that BOB (from Twin Peaks, see large scary picture here) was lying on my chest, invisible, growling into my ear. At first I was overwhelmed by fear, but then I realized that he was only imaginary. This made me confident and I kind of started taunting him and making fun of him, since I knew he actually couldn’t harm me It was great. Finally, he faded away.
