The BIG sleep paralysis and old hag topic Part IV

the Stuff Dreams are made of...
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I started to get interested in SP a few months ago…( a little story though: I remember when i was little that when I woke up in the morning but was still tired I got like smth like a fraction of a second that buzzing that happens when I get in SP.but how I said it happend like a fraction of a second…U know…like a buzzing and then whaaamm I woke up …couse …I don’t know felt strange…anyway back to my story)
A few months ago…had this SP…didn’t knew what it was…First time woke up paralised.
The second time heard the buzzing…and felt like moving to a kinda tunnel…no point in telling I got scared…Anyway…I was so intrigued about this.Felt so unnatural.
Next SP…i was dreaming…a very vivid dream…but then I was starting to vibrate (in my dream)…I looked to my hand …u know…(in my dream) …and they were vibrating…didn’t took long then…the buzzing started…I said in my head this exacts word : oh man…Here we go! …So the buzzing started …and tried to go whit the wave… ( Iwanted to see what is at the end of the tunnel)…From here I don’t know exactly couse it happened real fast…and I was madly scared. It went black…I don’t know if the buziing was still on couse I was realy scared…freaked out …I couldn’t felt my body…and tryed to get out…
The thing is that I did a little research and came across on youtube over the Coast to Coast radio program whit Albert Taylor as a guest. ( you shoul try and listen to it if u haven’t heard it already…on youtube…do a search)
He said that SP is before an OBE.So if ppl would overcome their imense fear…they could focus theire thought and could move out of body…and from there u know…the greatest thing in the world…

If> SP> OBE> then:

  1. Going anyware you want ( like Mars for example)
  2. Going to the past and even future
  3. Going to othere astral planes

U get the point…

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Like moving past the fear is the hardest obstacle…
The scaryest thing u ever experience…damn…I will probably have more of this…couse u know…if ur tired…u got to bed…u somehowwake up being tired…and then go back to slepp…it will happen…but I don’t know if Iwill overcome the fear and just go whit the wave and try to get an OBE…lucid dreams may be great but OBE would be even more

123

Lately I’ve been having trouble with SP. I tried to WILD once, a long time ago, and entered SP consciously for the first time in my life. I didn’t get a LD out of it, but SP scared me so much that I haven’t tried WILDing again since. Lately though, I’ve taken sort of a hiatus from LDs and stuff, and suddenly I’ve started getting SP insomnia.

Whenever I’m having a hard time falling asleep (especially if I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep, I’ll automatically start going into SP without falling asleep. Basically my body says “You are going to sleep NOW, whether you like it or not!” but my brain says “No, I don’t want to!” So I end up in SP, having to deal with the vibrating and weird noises (I usually get pretty bad HI), unable to move for what feels like several minutes. I just wait it out and eventually I “wake up” and can move again. But I still haven’t gotten any sleep! This cycle can repeat itself two or three times a night, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t fall asleep through the distracting HI.

Anyone know how to get past this? If I can’t fall asleep into a normal dream while conscious during SP, how will I ever learn how to WILD so that it turns into a lucid dream? SP isn’t as scary to me now as it used to be, but it’s still not pleasant to deal with when you really just want some real sleep.

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Last night I decided to try a WILD and to my complete suprise it was very succesful! I saw the HI and managed to retain a state of alertness while my body relaxed and for a while it was entertaining.

Then things started to happen, the first was that my heart rate became really fast, I could hear it beat in my ears like drum beats. I felt as if I was moving very fast through a dark tunnel, and, trying to follow things I’d read about WILD’ing, I attempted to “reach out” mentally. At this point though I was completely terrified. I’ve never experienced sleep paralysis previously and didn’t know what to expect. I was so scared though, that I decided that I would rather awaken than pass the threshold into a lucid dream. At first I couldn’t open my eyes and that got me even more frightened, especially when I realized I couldn’t move anything. But suddenly I opened my eyes really quickly and everything stopped, the sensation of motion ended, but my heart hadn’t stopped beating really fast. When I got out of bed I was shaking all over and my teeth were chattering.

I’m not sure if I’d want to go through it again for the sake of a lucid dream, approximately how long can SP last before you sink into lucid dreams?

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It gets easier as you go, don’t worry. Trust me, everyone is terrified at first. All you have to do is remind yourself that it’s all hallucinations, that it’s not real. When you think about how convincing your brain can be just with hallucinations, it actually becomes kind of cool.

It usually feels a lot longer than it really lasts. Just be patient and stay calm. Don’t wish for the hallucinations to end. Just kind of ignore them (as hard as that is) and keep visualizing what you’re visualizing, and soon you’ll find yourself in a dream. It may take a few tries, but keep working at it.

If you’re really not into WILDing, though, why not try MILD? It works for many people and doesn’t involve any conscious SP. :content:

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Thanks :content:
I’ll try to stay calm next time, and I’ll try the MILD technique, too. Hopefully one of them will work for me!

127

i have this sometimes too but i am lucid dreaming and know i am dreaming but my head is stuck and i know someones sitting behind me on my bed, it feels like a woman n im scared of her, but my neck wont turn 2 see her, then i wake. i didnt think other people had the same thing, glad 2 no they do :smile:

128

I had a freaky one last night, but it wasn’t with an old hag (at least not that I could make out).

As usual I’d woken up a couple times during the night, remembered the dream I’d just had, then went back to sleep. But this time one time I woke up I was laying there and felt someone pushing down on my legs and arms, holding them tight as if they were restraining me (I was on my side). I was freaked out and opened my eyes to look, there right next to my bed was the shadowed shape of a person bending over my bed. I could feel the sensation of being held down as real as if I were to grasp my arm right now.

I thought I was dead, that this was it. I couldn’t move with them restraining me and wanted to yell but didn’t dare, so I just shut my eyes so I wouldn’t see whatever it was they were going to do to me. After a few seconds the feeling of being restrained was gone, and I opened my eyes to look. No one was in the room, my bedroom door was still shut.

It registered that it must not have been real at that point, but it felt so real at the time. It was freaky :eek: Took me a while to fall asleep again after that, lol.

edit: OMG, I was reading about this today and came upon the wikipedia hypnagogia page. There was a link in the Sleep Paralysis section…

“SP has been proposed as an explanation for at least some alien abduction experiences and shadow people hauntings.”

I followed the link of “Shadow people”.

“Some individuals have described being menaced, chased, or in some rare instances, attacked by shadow people. …Witnesses report that encounters are typically accompanied by a feeling of dread.”

That is exactly what this was :eek: There’s a picture on the page (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_people) and every time I see the Hooded Figure my back and neck turn to ice. That looked so much like what it was!

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You should have thought about that shadow man something like: “You have some very interesting ways in trying to get the freak out of me, would show me more about them?” That was my first thought when I had the very first SP during the night, when I was about 8 or 9 years old.
Since then that shadow tried only 3 or 4 times to scare me again but it couldn’t because I always realise that this is not an IRL scenario, so I start to get excited about it, like: “Wow, another creepy man to come visit me” :lol:
In the last 3 years, my SP’s are not followed by any kind of fear or strange feelings, sometimes I start to hear people talking when I’m about to have an OOBE but they are not harmful in any way, just boring.

130

Interestingly enough, it seems that I have managed to enter Sleep Paralysis before actually going to sleep in the first place. I happened to be laying still in bed with my eyes opened, as I found that i couldn’t fall asleep. The next thing I knew I was seeing visual hallucinations and my body was paralyzed. I person that looked like a shriveled up prune materialized in front of me, and I saw strange patterns in front of my vision.
Also, since I experienced this before sleep, does this mean that I could successfully complete a WILD without initially falling asleep? :confused:

131

Could you guys maybe give me your opinions on this?

The first time I experienced sleep paralysis, I was lying flat on my back, had no idea what was going on, felt like something evil was standing beside my bed, and was terrified. That was many months ago, and since then I’ve discovered lucid dreaming and became knowledgable of what SP is. I know for a fact that what I experienced that night was SP.

The night before last, I was in the middle of having a very vivid dream, then suddenly I felt myself laying in my bed on my side, facing the wall. I couldn’t move my body, and had the sensation that someone was standing beside my bed behind me. My eyelids felt like they couldn’t open all the way. I recognized this as probable SP, and just relaxed and closed my eyes, waiting for it to pass, feeling no fear this time. However, things weren’t as “clear” this time as they were the first time I had SP. It almost felt “dreamlike” this time, when the first time everything was so vivid and clear and terrifying. Then I had a false awakening. I got out of bed in an unfamilar room and began getting ready. Again, my eyelids felt like they couldn’t open all the way. Not too long after that, I actually awoke.

Last night, I had my first lucid dream. When the dream finally faded away, I again felt myself laying in bed on my side, not facing the wall this time. My body felt heavy and paralyzed yet again, and I felt the familar scary presence in my room associated with SP. My eyelids felt like they couldn’t open all the way. Again, I closed my eyes and relaxed, waiting for it to pass. Like last time, it didn’t feel very clear, it felt very foggy and “dreamy”. I had another FA after this. This FA was very vivid and clear, unlike last time. In the FA, I got out of bed and thought “Wow, I just had my first lucid dream. I need to write this down before I forget it.” I walked over to my bookcase and found some random journal that I’ve never even seen before and sat on my bed to write. Then I woke up.

My question is… Do you think the “SP” I experienced over the past two nights was actual sleep paralysis? Or was it… Maybe false sleep paralysis? Because things seemed so dreamlike and I had false awakenings immediately following them, I was thinking that maybe I just dreamed that I was having sleep paralysis and conquering my fear of it, and maybe the “sleep paralysis” was part of the FA? I just remember feeling such an intense fear the first time I experienced this, and everything was so vivid and clear. These past two times haven’t been scary at all, and they just seemed very dreamlike. However, I did wake up both times in the same position I was in during the sleep paralysis, so this leads me to believe that perhaps it was actual SP… Hmm, I don’t know… :confused:

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What about your breathing during these SPs?
I don’t believe the 2 SPs were fake, because FA occurs when you are very close to reality but your subconscious still doesn’t want to wake up. You could not feel them very clear and vivid because of the first time. If they would become very clear and vivid, then that fear would also become extremely powerful and possibly lead to very fast heartbeats which can affect your health. This way, you just kept it “dreamy” and then stepped again into the dreamworld. Unlike the first time, you kind of “ignored” the SP.

133

Ahh, that makes sense. :happy: I don’t really remember what my breathing was like, though. Thanks for the insight! You’re right, the past 2 times it has happened, I knew exactly what was going on, so that must have toned everything down so to speak.

134

I’m frustrated, like many of the people in this thread, but not because i suffer from SP, or anything like that. I’m actually frustrated because so many of you are frustrated with it!
I tried WILD once successfully, and i had the fast heartbeat and everything that a lot of people seem to get. Unlike most people, however, i wasn’t afraid at all, i was just excited!
I just wish i could somehow have the issue some of you have, and experience regular SP naturally, without having to bother with deep meditation.
The way i see it, SP = Trance = focus 10 = mind awake body asleep. It’s the psychotic bad trip threshold to lucid dreams and astral projection.

Maybe rather than treating SP as something that you should get rid of, or get used to, consider that the issue isn’t SP. The issue is that you’re afraid of SP.

Thanks for putting up with me while i complain, i hope i haven’t offended anyone :shy:

1 Like
135

I have a question. My friend was sleeping in my house yesterday, and she’s into LDing too (Perhaps not as much as me but anyway). I made her read a couple of LD articles and we went too sleep. We were both trying to get a Lucid Dream, but neither of us were succesfull; When I closed my eyes I fell asleep after a second, but my friend made FILD and she got sleep paralysis (On her first try :woo: ). Now in the morning, we woke up and talked, and when she did FILD (Just for fun) she got sleep paralysis after a couple of seconds. The SP only reached her right above her legs. Was that really an SP, or was she just making fun of me? (Okay, I know she wasn’t doing it becouse she didn’t look tense or so, she was completely relaxed). And is it possible to have it in the morning, when you’re fully awake? She didn’t freak out at least, and I thought it was quite funny. Luckily, I knew how to get her out of SP, so everything went well.

136

Oh my god, I should have never read about this old hag stuff O_O

137

Knowledge is power. People who know about it, if it occurs during SP will know it is nothing to be afraid of and can relax and look forward to a possible LD.

138

Well, its better than not knowing what is going on, I guess.

139

I’m not sure if this was SP or what, but please help me out!

After having one of the best LDs of my life, I woke up very early and went for a walk/took a shower. Still being tired, I fell asleep in bed while half sitting on my back (a way in which I can never usually fall asleep unless I’m napping) facing my open window. Anyway, I have several dreams in which I almost become lucid (this is where I doubt it was an SP) and have a false awakening (or so I believe). However, usually when I have a false awakening my room doesn’t look right and in this one it looked perfect.

It gets fuzzy…but I am aware I am lying in bed in this position yet do nothing to move (so I’m not sure if I could move at this point) when I start imagining my dream body slowly getting up from a couch in a similar sitting position I am in. I feel like I’m imagining this because I’m trying to get up myself but all I can do is let my dream body get up. I repeat this several times and suddenly I feel totally disconnected from my body and like a vacuum in my roof is forcefully pulling me up through it! It felt so real–I could feel it pulling the skin on my cheeks up really hard (it hurt!). I’m hearing a voice repeat my name very fast. I start to think that this could be SP, so I try to induce a LD (though I don’t really know how, so I just try to let it take me somewhere–anywhere!) but all I can feel is myself being sucked up. Finally, I’m back in the original position and I open my eyes (at least I think so) to see my room and close them quickly because I want to try to LD again. Same thing happens to no avail. Finally, I’m getting scared so I try to move my hand and I just have a sensation of numbness for a few seconds before I fully wake up.

Now my question–was this SP or a lucid dream where I had a false awakening and thought it was SP? Gaaah :confused:

140

Ive heard the term old hag lots of times, but have no Idea what it is. Think anyone can help me on this one?