(no subject)
Do any of you all experience sleep paralysis?
This is when you're awake and conscious (usually either when you're first falling asleep or when you're waking up), but can't move. It's often accompanied by visual and/or auditory hallucinations and the feeling that someone/thing (usually malevolent) is in the room with you.
I've had this since I was about 12 or so. Very odd experience. It still has the power to really scare me sometimes, but most of the time now it's just an annoyance.
I had a weird one today. I fell asleep in the afternoon at work, and seriously thought for a while that my manager had someone unlock the door of the office and was giving CDs to a client. They had a whole sensible conversation. I was somewhat annoyed that he didn't wake me up, as it was embarrasing to be asleep like that, and he seemed to be giving the client the wrong CDs.
At some point (while I was still paralyzed) the voices abruptly disappeared, and I realized that no one was actually in the room with me. Shortly after that, I managed to snap out of it entirely, and found no evidence that anyone else had come into the room.
This isn't "just a dream". Rather than being in a dream world, you're in the place you really are, just not able to move or interact with the environment at all.
It's really quite odd.
There are certain sleeping positions that tend to trigger it. Sleeping on my back tends to do it. Sleeping sitting up, with my head resting on a desk or something, does it about 50% of the time. This is a bit odd, as it isn't one of the positions listed as typical for sleep paralysis. That one may be situational more than positional, though - I tend to sleep like that only when I'm in a situation that really isn't ideal for sleep, like at work or on a plane. It happens in other positions as well, just not as frequently.
One time it happened on a plane, and I was convinced that if I didn't wake up, the plane would crash, which was pretty frightening as it can be quite difficult to wake yourself out of it.
I've been taking part in this study on sleep paralysis for the past while. It's kind of fun, and a bit of a silly ego boost to think that my random bizarre experiences might actually be useful for a research study.
This is when you're awake and conscious (usually either when you're first falling asleep or when you're waking up), but can't move. It's often accompanied by visual and/or auditory hallucinations and the feeling that someone/thing (usually malevolent) is in the room with you.
I've had this since I was about 12 or so. Very odd experience. It still has the power to really scare me sometimes, but most of the time now it's just an annoyance.
I had a weird one today. I fell asleep in the afternoon at work, and seriously thought for a while that my manager had someone unlock the door of the office and was giving CDs to a client. They had a whole sensible conversation. I was somewhat annoyed that he didn't wake me up, as it was embarrasing to be asleep like that, and he seemed to be giving the client the wrong CDs.
At some point (while I was still paralyzed) the voices abruptly disappeared, and I realized that no one was actually in the room with me. Shortly after that, I managed to snap out of it entirely, and found no evidence that anyone else had come into the room.
This isn't "just a dream". Rather than being in a dream world, you're in the place you really are, just not able to move or interact with the environment at all.
It's really quite odd.
There are certain sleeping positions that tend to trigger it. Sleeping on my back tends to do it. Sleeping sitting up, with my head resting on a desk or something, does it about 50% of the time. This is a bit odd, as it isn't one of the positions listed as typical for sleep paralysis. That one may be situational more than positional, though - I tend to sleep like that only when I'm in a situation that really isn't ideal for sleep, like at work or on a plane. It happens in other positions as well, just not as frequently.
One time it happened on a plane, and I was convinced that if I didn't wake up, the plane would crash, which was pretty frightening as it can be quite difficult to wake yourself out of it.
I've been taking part in this study on sleep paralysis for the past while. It's kind of fun, and a bit of a silly ego boost to think that my random bizarre experiences might actually be useful for a research study.