Sleep Paralysis

My_Sojourn said:

Does anyone else suffer from sleep paralysis? You experience a hypnagogic state -

that state between being awake and falling asleep. For some people, this is a time of visual and auditory hallucination.

and hypnopompic state

and the hypnopompic state is the transition state of semiconsciousness between sleeping and waking. For some people, this is a time of visual and auditory hallucination.

This happens to me very often and since I was adolescent and even now. For me I am dreaming and need to do something so I wake up and go do something like go to the kitchen, close the door, open the door, use the bathroom, get up get dressed and go to work and come home, so many things..... and then I find myself still in bed. So I wake up, get up and do it all over again... and then find myself still in bed. So I wake up and do it all over again and then discover I am still in bed, so I wake up and do it all over again... and then find myself still in bed... and this cycle repeats itself again and again but I am awake and I hear every thing going on around me, people talking, the TV, the birds singing, but I can't move a muscle .... and things touch me, I hear creatures flapping their wings, swoop down on me and jump on me and sit on me and I open my eyes and see the creature, demons...

I hear them breathing and I open my eyes and see them. I have seen one demon again and again standing next to me, breathing on me, smell the stink, and he is short about 3 feet and has big black eyes, long white scraggly hair, big mouth with fangs, long arms, short legs or this demon sits on me, jumps on me, touches my leg or my arms..... I am awake, but I cannot move a muscle.... I know if I can move my little pinky, a little twich, utter a noise, I can break this spell and the hallucinations will stop and this state lasts so long. I am so terrified.

Or I am levitated and thrown agains the walls, thrown against the floor and I am tumbling down and down flipping over and over and there is no bottom.... and sometimes I hit the bottom and the impact is so great I jump fully awake now.

Sometimes as I drift to sleep, the demons come and I wake up aware of them and the hallucinations continue when I am awake but I cannot move. I hear and see and feel them.... and the only thing that makes them go away is to utter Jesus, Jesus, Jesus help me. Sometimes I wake up they come and attack me and I am paralyzed and I'm in a panic and when I finally twitch my finger they go away and I fully wake up and get up but so often I don't know if I am really awake or still in bed.

Recently I have heard of sleep paralysis and now I believe the demons attacking me is not real. I always believed the were really attacking me all my life. It is so real and I am awake, so awake but apparently I am not. I cannot tell the difference.

Wondering how many others experience this and how prevalent this is with bipolar.

Click to expand...

This was talked about in another area, I do not recall where, but it was interesting.


Found it

http://www.christianforums.com/t2566470

Under edification
Dreams and visions

I have experienced this too. It is actually a medical condition. I pray when it happens, but it is soooo scarry!

How old are you?

Sleep paralysis tends to become less frequent with age. Mine stopped being a nightly occurence sometime between being 23 and 24, but it started when I was seven or eight and it was awful. I had also never heard of it and I became terrified of sleeping, which led to insomnia, which I think had a lot to do with the depression I developed.

You're definitely not alone in experiencing this.

I have suffered with this on and off for years. I'm 43. It hasn't happened in several months, but when it does, !!! (In fact, I think I've only had 2 episodes in the last 3 years or so.) I thought it might be medication related, because I'm on, like, 5 drugs. I don't know. Years ago, I had had one of these experiences and I was telling my therapist about it, it was so VIVID, and he said, "I hate when that happens." It was the first indication I'd ever had that it happened to other people.

I thought I hadn't experienced this since I was a kid or young until it actually happened today.

I've had insomnia for a couple days and am really tired. I was also getting anxious and dark thoughts were starting in. I took 1mg Ativan which I do during the day on ocassion on an as needed basis.

I took a nap and actually slept which was nice at first. Then I thought I was waking up and my wife was there asking me something, but I couldn't hear her because of super loud tinitus. Then I could hear her say, "Are you crying?" But I couldn't answer her because I could hardly move.

Then I woke up and realized she wasn't there and I was on different part of the bed. This was really spooky and my heart started racing a little.

I suppose that's what a hypnotic like Ativan can do, but nothing like this has ever happened before. It still bothers me.

Don't be so quick to just believe that this is a medical condition!

Why can it not really be Demons that oppress us in our sleep!

Look up the term (or name) Incubus, it might change what you think of SP!

Why when one says the name of Jesus, the attack's seem to stop!
Just some food for thought!!

I had this happen to me about 6 months ago!

I had gotten down on my knees to pray, I had not gotten down in prayer like this in a long time, I prayed for God to use me however he wanted, to fill me with his life.
I thought no big deal, but I awoke a few hours later from a horrible nightmare, with all kinds of thoughts of fear, etc... Plus I had a heavy pressure on my chest. Then remembered all the research I had done on SP\entity attack. So I begin to pray for this thing to leave me, but the nightmareish dream was still playing all the thoughts of fear. I felt as if this thing wanted me to die, then I remember the prayer that I had prayed! Thinking this must have made something very upset.

So I played my CD player which had a book of the Bible in it, so I played that and got a cross and placed it on my chest and kept praying, in about 2-3 minutes I felt it leave.

a short time later, talking with my roommate, he had a heavy pressure on his chest, which was about the same time of mine, within a day or two.

This a far more common than most people think!
Many stories are out there of people feeling as if they are being choked, or pressure on there face or back or legs, with a sense of Evil in the room or darkness around them. Some will wake up with scratches on their bodies.
Many people see something like a demon looking down at them, or sitting on them.

more food for thought

My_Sojourn said:

Does anyone else suffer from sleep paralysis? You experience a hypnagogic state -

Click to expand...

My_Sojourn said:

that state between being awake and falling asleep. For some people, this is a time of visual and auditory hallucination.

and hypnopompic state

and the hypnopompic state is the transition state of semiconsciousness between sleeping and waking. For some people, this is a time of visual and auditory hallucination.

This happens to me very often and since I was adolescent and even now. For me I am dreaming and need to do something so I wake up and go do something like go to the kitchen, close the door, open the door, use the bathroom, get up get dressed and go to work and come home, so many things..... and then I find myself still in bed. So I wake up, get up and do it all over again... and then find myself still in bed. So I wake up and do it all over again and then discover I am still in bed, so I wake up and do it all over again... and then find myself still in bed... and this cycle repeats itself again and again but I am awake and I hear every thing going on around me, people talking, the TV, the birds singing, but I can't move a muscle .... and things touch me, I hear creatures flapping their wings, swoop down on me and jump on me and sit on me and I open my eyes and see the creature, demons...

I hear them breathing and I open my eyes and see them. I have seen one demon again and again standing next to me, breathing on me, smell the stink, and he is short about 3 feet and has big black eyes, long white scraggly hair, big mouth with fangs, long arms, short legs or this demon sits on me, jumps on me, touches my leg or my arms..... I am awake, but I cannot move a muscle.... I know if I can move my little pinky, a little twich, utter a noise, I can break this spell and the hallucinations will stop and this state lasts so long. I am so terrified.

Or I am levitated and thrown agains the walls, thrown against the floor and I am tumbling down and down flipping over and over and there is no bottom.... and sometimes I hit the bottom and the impact is so great I jump fully awake now.

Sometimes as I drift to sleep, the demons come and I wake up aware of them and the hallucinations continue when I am awake but I cannot move. I hear and see and feel them.... and the only thing that makes them go away is to utter Jesus, Jesus, Jesus help me. Sometimes I wake up they come and attack me and I am paralyzed and I'm in a panic and when I finally twitch my finger they go away and I fully wake up and get up but so often I don't know if I am really awake or still in bed.

Recently I have heard of sleep paralysis and now I believe the demons attacking me is not real. I always believed the were really attacking me all my life. It is so real and I am awake, so awake but apparently I am not. I cannot tell the difference.

Wondering how many others experience this and how prevalent this is with bipolar.

Click to expand...

This happens to me as well. Not very often but often enough. Happened alot when I was a child. I'm bipolar II. I remember one ocassion where my hands were lifted off the bed, pulled behind my back involuntarily. I hear screeching noises and everything seems either amplified or distorted. The noises are sometimes what scares me most. I very rarely see things, faces and motions but I hear and feel things that I suppose aren't there. I'm in the sleep wake phase and I feel things creeping around me, I fly up...pray some more and it's like it's impossible to stay completely awake, like I'm drugged or something. And it'll start again and when it's really bad I hear growls, strange languages coming from the things I see...Everything is very angry. And I can't move or speak. I just lie there trying to scream JESUS! I persist and the paralysis subsides.

I plan to ask my pdoc about the "scientific" reasons why this happens. But truth be told, I think it's demonic.

Youthwalk