Has anyone had any Paranormal Sleep Paralysis experiences? (spirits, phenomena, lights)

[ParallelJJCat]

Originally Posted by spm62

Why do you suppose demons, aliens, darkness, gloom, or dread is mostly associated with sleep paralysis? That`s the part that is perplexing to me.

There's a few possibilities. Keep in mind that in sleep paralysis, your waking phase and REM phase are overlapping. So you are awake...BUT, you're also dreaming (except really it's a hallucination.)

(I apologize for this example, it was the best one I could think of) Now, have you ever fallen asleep or woken up knowing that you REALLY had to urinate? Have you ever had a dream while your bladder is overfull that centers around water? I certainly have. I've also had dreams about feeling sick or vomiting if I've fallen asleep with an upset stomach. What your body feels can influence what your dream about.

I think it's very likely that the sensations of paralysis and suffocation associated with sleep paralysis trigger frightening visions, just as sleeping with a full bladder triggers dreams of rain. Your body and mind are feeling something that is uncomfortable and scary, thus you tend to hallucinate about something uncomfortable and scary.

And this is why I believe most cultures experience sleep paralysis in slightly different ways. The underlying sensations are the same, but they describe seeing DIFFERENT 'monsters' visiting them. What culture you belong to influences what you 'dream' in this state. The old hag and succubus and incubus were commonly associated with it back in the middle ages. These days, more people report visions of aliens. It's a cultural shift. If you've watched a few movies on alien abductions and one night you half-wake to a feeling of not being able to move or breath properly...your brain will fill in the rest just like it does for all dreams. And your brain will ever so nicely fill in aliens.

For me, I stopped having 'old hag' type visions once I figured out what was happening. Now I just repeatably see myself waking.

The other possible answer is that the altered brain chemistry responsible for the sleep paralysis is also responsible for the feelings of doom, etc. Since it affects your REM state, it could also affect the types of dreams you have. There's something about lucid dreaming, for example, that causes almost everyone who experiences it to jump pretty much immediately to flying. It's such a common motif in lucid dreaming experiences that it seems to imply that type of dream (flight) is triggered by something about lucid dreaming...either the feeling of freedom associated with it or some fluke of chemistry.

I think though just based on my experience and a few others I've spoken with that the first is more likely because these feelings/hallucinations do stop if you don't panic. I think it's a simple manner of waking and going 'oh crap, what's happening!! Can't move can't breath oh god WHY?!' and the unconscious mind going "uh...here's why! Enjoy!'

[GoldyViolet]

I can't believe I haven't commented yet on this thread. For years, this was my life!

For much of my 20s, I had a lot of stress and a lack of sleep (due to the stress) in my life due to an unhappy marriage. So, it's not surprising this plagued me for a long time. At first I thought it was paranormal....heck I thought maybe I need to be exorcised! But after doing a lot of research, I discovered I was suffering from sleep paralysis. I will say in all the times it happened to me, and it was alot, for a while it was almost every night - I never once "saw" anything. But I certainly did hear and feel things.

It hasn't happened for a while, as my stress level has decreased dramatically, plus I sleep much better these days. But when it did happen, I would be "awake" but asleep, I would see my room but it had a dramatic dark edge to it..scary feelings. My body would tingle, sometimes vibrate very loudly (at least to me), I had feelings of being dragged off the bed and onto the floor, wierd, wierd stuff! At times also it felt I left my body and was floating although it was never anything I could see, just a feeling I had.

Very strange stuff but I chalk it up to Sleep Paralysis. It's interesting to me that only certain people have this issue. I've asked other friends and loved ones and only some of them have ever experienced this. I've read this goes hand -in -hand with lucid dreaming and astro projection, the former I have experienced twice, the latter I think I was on the verge of but I don't want to experience it and will never pursue it.

I've come to terms with this...it was really a frightening thing in my life for a long time ....but it hasn't happened lately and I'm fine if it never happens again. I did learn to just go with it and let myself fall "back" to sleep...and it would subside. But at first, it was truly terrifying.

[NLVgal]

I've had the "normal" sleep paralysis experience a few times where you wake up, but your body hasn't gotten the message from the brain yet. Usually lasts only for a couple of seconds. I did have one experience with this that was a little more strange. It was in an apartment that I strongly felt had a presence. This was about twenty years ago. The other day I asked my ex-husband if he ever felt anything strange when we were living there and he said he had.

Anyway, back to the experience. I was sleeping in our master bedroom which had these weird little windows towards the top of the wall. I distinctly remember the sensation of levitating up to the level of those windows and viewing my husband down on the bed. I remember feeling panic and hoping to God that my husband would just please wake me up.

It was the most bizarre dream I think I've ever had. I feel bad for people that experience this type of thing on a regular basis.

[Osito]

I've had sleep paralysis with and without paranormal experiences. I hate it too. I always feel some kind of pressure bogging me on places I feel uncomfortable such as certain spots on my sides or where I'm ticklish. I'll be stuck in positions I don't like, and yeah sometimes I swear I see stuff that's not there. When I was little I remember having one where I was experiencing sleep paralysis and somehow I was like floating around a lamp, I don't know if I was dreaming or what, I could've sworn I was awake but yes, it's very strange.

[lmw36]

I've had lots of sleep paralysis, I get it at least once a month. It's terrifying every time, but I usually just "positive" talk myself out of being afraid as it's happening. That is, talking in my head of course.

[Jude1948]

Originally Posted by Time and Space

Has anyone just out right been 'humped' by one of these deviant entities?, like in the movie 'The Entity'...

I hate to say it, but yes. I was lying on my stomach and I felt someone or something on my back with a feeling of "that" pressure. I could not move, and I started moaning. My husband woke and thought I was having a nightmare. It took several seconds to come out of it and then I swore I saw a dark shadow go by in front of the window.

Several years ago I was staying with a friend in WV. She lived in an old house maybe 100 years. I awoke the first night and saw a figure all black and it looked as if it was wearing a sombrero. I closed my eyes and covered my head with a blanket. I cannot remember if I went back to sleep. The next night I slept with a light on and no reoccurance. One night I was listening to Art Bell talking about shadow people, and I went to his website to see depictions of what people had seen and there was a shadow being in a sombrero!

[Icy Tea]

I recently had a creepy dream that jolted me awake. I was in my house at night and some men were talking to me, I took them to be federal agents. They were detaining me for some reason but didn't seem threatening, just up to something. I heard a noise outside and looked out and could see some figures moving around in the backyard. I wondered why the security lights hadn't gone on and I tapped at the window trying to startle whoever or whatever was out there.
Immediately I heard a hissing sound in my head that made me stop, like I was being warned not to do anything that would harm them. I then saw what they were.... aliens. I yelled "Oh No, the Grays!" and remembered that I encountered them sometime before and they were back and I was terrified. I woke up at that point.

[jerseygal4u]

I have had these experiences,except the thing was doing "sexual things" to me.
I felt it,but didn't see it. I heard it walking in my hallway one night,but didn't really think about it,until it happened. That's was the first night it did happen. I was 13.

[Spirit Chaser]

Lots of times, found it to be over-rated, and nothing really that odd to go through. As to what causes, depends how superstitions one is as to what causes it, the natural or supernatural...I'll go with the "dark side' every time.

[Montguy]

This thread needs revival--I love this topic.

I've been experiencing sleep paralysis periodically for many years now, probably since the age of 4 or 5 (which, from what I understand, is an extremely young age for this to begin). I've never experienced hallucinatory (or paranormal, whatever have you) sleep paralysis, but I definitely understand the life-or-death panic that can occur during a 30sec-2min+ period of complete immobility, shallow breathing/breathlessness, inability to vocalize, chest/abdominal pressure, etc. For me, it continues to be a most frightening experience, regardless of the fact that I've always managed to jolt out of it right at the peak of fear (you know, when you begin to feel like a particular episode could actually kill you). Hallucinations certainly wouldn't help.

What's interesting for me is that I appear to be amongst a minority of people on this thread and elsewhere who experience sleep paralysis without hallucinations or some sense of a supernatural presence. I'd day that 99% of the time, I become completely cognizant and aware of my surroundings when the paralysis occurs, whether it sets in during the process of waking up or falling asleep. You'd think that this could have a calming effect overall, but it certainly doesn't.

With or without hallucinations, though, I ultimately struggle to believe that there's anything indisputably paranormal about sleep paralysis. No matter how terrifying the episode, I do think that sleep science has offered viable explanations as to why many people suffer arguably worse instances of this occurrence than I and certain others do.

Does anyone else have similar experiences to mine, which sort of lead you to reject the supernatural theories surrounding these occurrences of sleep paralysis? Just curious...