(Untitled)

[eljayismybitch]

I have, over the course of my life, had some very strange experiences related to sleep and dreams. Some of those experiences were wonderful, and some were quite unsettling. There is one experience that I've had on several occasions that was so unsettling I've only shared it with one or two other people. I mean, dude, it seriously freaked me out

Comments

[frostbyte]

Sleep paralysis IS completely normal, at least during the REM, or dream state, stage of sleep. It's the brain's way of, essentially, putting the transmission into neutral. The motor's running, but the car's not gonna move. It's a protection mechanism

[eljayismybitch]

For me, the experiences occur just previous to wakening. I think I'll google "hypnopompic hallucinations", too. Now that I know just how common this is the dread I felt before has been replaced with excited curiosity.

I seem to have a lot of sleep issues/disorders. You may recall that I've suffered through some pretty awful bouts of insomnia, and I've had what I believe are premonitory dreams. Dreams for me have always been extraordinarily vivid. I can recount, in detail, dreams I had when I was as young as four.

It's strange, I suppose, that I never associated these particular instances in my head with the myths alluded to in the articles I linked, but there was no visual element to my experiences. I'll write about them in detail tonight, after work, and then this comment will make *so* much more sense. :)