The thought of Sleep Paralysis is stopping me attempting LD

Quest for Lucidity
1

I drifted onto the subject of Lucid Dreaming a while back and read about it, but never really gave it a go.

Now on a forum I use regularly somebody brought it up again. I still think it would be amazing to experience, and I must admit this time i’m a little more enthusiastic after seeing how many people claim that it works.

Only… I think I would actually die if I experienced sleep paralysis. I could handle the fact that you couldn’t move for a short period of time but If I hallucinated some shadowy hag standing beside me (or sitting on my chest as my old psychology teacher once claimed to have experienced) I don’t think I would ever sleep. Ever. Again.

Is it a frequent occurance when trying to learn? And is there any way of trying to LD without risking paralysis?

2

Sleep paralysis is rare, usually you get it from waking up suddenly from a lucid dream. Mostly you can just fall asleep again from sleep paralysis by closing your eyes and relax, or you could just freak out and wait for it to pass. If you freak out you wont see any shadows or wierd stuff cause then you’re practicly awake.

Don’t let this keep you from experience something as wonderful and exciting as lucid dreaming.

3

But can you get them in WILD?

4

SP is very rare, usually only occurring during WILD or after a sudden wake-up after a LD. If neither of those happen, your chances of SP are slim to none. Also, if you do find yourself in SP experiencing the old hag phenomenon, try to laugh and feel as happy as possible. The hallucinations are scary only because of you existing fear. Turn that into happiness, and the character will be less frighting, and in some cases, help you enter another LD.

5

Yeah that sounds easy enough but what if you’re a newb lucid dreamer and cannot control your emotions or actions very well in a dream state yet? Or am I misunderstanding - are you actually AWAKE but paralysed during SP? Or still half asleep?

6

I have wanted to experience SP along time but never succeded, and i’ve had some lucid dreams.

I was afraid of the old hag in the beginning too, then after a while i started testing WILD and i got very close to get SP and then I anctually wanted to get SP because i think the feeling is cool when it feels like your arms and legs are gone and it would be awesome to be paralysed xD

Right now i actually want to have SP through a WILD more then the LD.

The posters above me have good tips what to do if the old hag happends.

7

In SP you are awake, but since you woke up so sudden your mind is still set on “dreaming” which might make you see stuff.

8

Oh okay it makes sense now. I think I may avoid WILD for now … not quite ready to try that. Tonight will be my first (hopefully) dream to put in the dreamlog. I’m going to start the log, and the MILD stuff and reality checks… and hope I can get some results :tongue:

9

Good Luck :happy:

10

I can’t really begin to describe what happened last night. I have had a lot going on recently and not tried anything lucid for a couple of months. But last night was certainly weird. I woke up needing the bathroom at around 5am, went, then got back into bed. It was still dark and I was really sleepy.

Just as I lay down I almost immediately began to drift off, but felt very weird like my whole body was shaking and vibrating. At first I thought I was dreaming because I was suddenly back in my bathroom, looking into the mirror, seeing completely distorted images. But then I was back in my bedroom; It seemed so real im SURE I was awake, because I then tried to shake it off and stop myself drifting any further out of conscious; I remembered back to everything I had read on lucid dreaming and that the vibrations I felt could lead to sleep paralysis which scared the daylights out of me. I worried it would happen so tried to prevent it.

That may have all sounded confusing. But never in my life have I had a dream about any room in my house, which makes me think I was still semi-conscious last night.

Just thought Id share.

11

You know SP is kinda making me think of the Dementors in Harry Potter’s books ^^

When they are here, you’re terrified and want to die and you must think about something really happy if you want to get rid of them.

Well, isn’t that the same thing with SP?

12

You mean old hag? SP itself is not that spooky - It’s the old hag that is :tongue: I remembered seeing a post here in which someone said they had been in SP and seen the kid from “The Grudge” come crawling up their bed :confused: Now that’s scary omg - Seeing something like that and not being able to move :confused: