Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This morning I woke up at like 5:40 am took a shower got out at around 6:10 and fell back asleep. During my sleep I could feel myself being awake but my body was sleep. Allow me to go into details. My eyelids were closed slightly so I could still see my window, my muscles felt heavy and I felt paralyzed. I could feel tension and anxiety running through my body. It was weird I could feel myself trying to move my arms and legs and while I tried they moved in slow motion and I could see them from a different angle (imagine laying flat on your back and holding something up in front of you, that angle). So everytime I tried to move my arm I could see my actual arm moving but my arm didn't look like my arm it looked like thick black dust or even powder, so as I am trying to move my hand toward my face in slow motion it finally reaches my face and I could feel a light brush go against my eye lids and as soon as I felt that I fell to sleep (normally).
What is this? Is this normal? I googled sleep paralysis and those people seem to have hallucinations like they see people hear things experience paranormal activities which is something I didn't experience and then I also googled OBE (outter body experience) that didn't seem to fit my incident either. Everything just seems so far fetched with their experiences. Maybe everyone is different?
If you have advice on what could've happened I would appreciate it. It kind of creeped me out.
First of all, this is normal, if disconcerting - it's called "sleep paralysis", and it is just as you described it: the mind awakens before the body, and I've never heard of people having paranormal activities or hallucinations associated with it. I would think such accounts might be dramatized, or else were the result of whoever wrote about them mistaking some other phenomenon for sleep paralysis.
It's also not uncommon to dream that you are asleep - I once dreamed I was seated under a tree at Mount Vernon, talking very solemnly with a couple of cousins, telling them that I wasn't really there, but was just dreaming about it, and I wouldn't actually see them until the following summer. It was true that I was asleep and dreaming and wouldn't see my cousins for several months - but I certainly wasn't under a tree at Mount Vernon!
However, perhaps your perception of your arm appearing like black dust might be considered a hallucination.
Stress or excessive tiredness or lack of adequate sleep can contribute to it. Sleep paralysis can be frightening, but knowing what it is can help you either ride it out until you're fully awake, or just go back to total sleep.
The other possibility I can think of (I am NOT a health professional) might be that you had a TIA - or mini-stroke. If you have high blood pressure, are seriously overweight, are middle-aged or older, or have other stroke risk factors, it would be a good idea to talk with your doctor about this, as a temporary ischemic attack can be a forerunner of a "real" stroke.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
