I’ve always been a frequent SP-er. I’m familiar with the sensation of my body being paralyzed, my body vibrating, the HI/HH sounds, feeling as if my body is being contorted and flying through space. However, I experienced something a little different yesterday and am wondering if anyone has any ideas.
I took a power nap before heading to work yesterday afternoon. I’ve always used my iPod/in-ear buds to help me nap, using apps like White Noise to play gentle sound loops and block out the noise. I got the Catnapper hemi-sync, and decided to put that on and see how it goes. It is a guided relaxation track that I guess is supposed to put you to sleep? Basically, he counts from 1 to 10, each time suggesting which parts of your body to relax. There are long pauses in between the numbers and suggestions. I think it takes about 15 minutes for him to get to 10. By the time he said ten, I was deeply, deeply relaxed. He then said he would count from 10 to 20 and by 20 I’d be in a deep, refreshing sleep. I remember sort of snickering to myself because it sounded like he was doing some hypnosis thing and I’ve always sort of been skeptical about myself being able to be hypnotized. But when he got to 15, this really weird sensation came over me, similar to the buzzes during SP, only not as intense. Also, my heart started pounding, or at least I think? I had lost all sensation of my body (my hand was even on my chest over my heart and I couldn’t feel it, but I could hear it because of the in-ear buds I think seem to amplify inner noises). I had to really relax my eyes because they started twitching really bad, like, insanely bad at first. I was sort of scared because I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I thought I was going into REM with my conscious wide awake. I also remember distinctly the feeling that I was started to get an erection, but that didn’t last. After quite a while being in this state, and talking to myself saying I’m fine, I’m safe. Nothing can harm me, I’m in this state every night… etc, he counted down from 20 to 1, saying all 5 senses would be restored and refreshed. With each number it seemed like his voice was getting louder and louder (even though it wasn’t?) and by 1 I could finally hear the higher tones/frequencies used to actually wake me up. I was still a little shaky after the whole thing.
Weirder thing now though, when I went to bed last night and relaxed to fall asleep (without the track or anything, just my earplugs in) the same thing happened!!! I remained calm again and it last about 4-5 minutes again, then I tried opening my eyes this time and my body started to wake back up. A few minutes later, same thing! I said to myself “Aww you gotta be KIDDING me!” I just wanted to fall asleep! LOL I finally got up to go to the bathroom and when I did, it felt as if my body was groggy and had been sleeping, yet there wasn’t any pause in my stream of consciousness. It feels like I slept very deeply last night because I feel so refreshed and can’t remember a single dream, which is really unusual for me.
So, can anyone tell me what the hell is going on?
I should note that I had experienced this state only once before when I tried a self-hypnosis/relaxation before going to bed. It was exactly the same, only I don’t remember my heart pounding as much, but my eyes were moving rapidly as if in REM, and I actually did get a full erection. Is this close to a WILD?