Sleep problems / paralysis / night terrors

[BabyHeadCrab]

Had a particularly strange episode tonight. I fell asleep with the TV and light on due to suddenly being overcome with tiredness (and laziness). And almost as soon as I began to drift into the later stages of sleep, in which the brain shuts down your ability to physically move about, I began to hear a voice. I knew I was awake, but I wasn't able to look around and investigate, nor open my eyes and control my body.

I've had episodes like this, sleep paralysis. Before, they were likely the result of the medication I was taking and some unresolved neurosis blah blah. This time was a bit different. It was a harsh and memorable female lecturing voice, and it didn't let up. It seemed to loop forever, giving the same information. She barked about various terrible diseases that I might have (as if I was some kind of test subject or research project). All the while I knew I was asleep and it was some kind of hallucination. My neck and face muscles kept having spasms (leftward, in an almost parkinsons patient manner). I woke up and my body was still in convulsions, with my neck tensing up and face pointing leftward.

The longer I've been awake now, the more I realize I'm in full control again, but I'll be damned if that wasn't one of the most frightening episodes of sleep paralysis I've ever experienced.


tl:dr version: I had a ****ed up sleep experience, it probably has to do with anxieties I have about transferring to a new university and a lot of lifestyle changes I'm making.

 

[Overclock]

WHAT EXPERIMENT!?

There is no lab here, just forget about it.

Yeah, was just a dream.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

It took me by such great surprise really because I haven't had episodes like this in what seems like years now. I know much better how to deal with them now, but it was still scary as hell.

 

[kineaesth]

That sounds nuts. Here, let me contribute to the thread.

Last night I was playing TF2, at about midnight after coming home from my school leaver's dinner.
I was playing on cp_steel as a defensive spy, and doing quite well.

Then I kind of fell into this trance, where the screen was all that existed, and the back-stabs were these little euphoric bubbles of colour and the only things that were right with the world. I became extremely paranoid and would hide in corners, waiting for ages for the perfect stab. Pyros became larger, and exuded an aura of fear. Sometimes I'd turn on my mike and mutter fearfully as they came around corners.

Basically I started tripping balls, and achieved something like Spy Nirvana, where I was an invincible (but not really) wraith who killed all that he saw.

Then I somehow realised what the **** was happening, and posted about it in chat.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

That reminds me of a story, K.A. A few years back (well, actually this was back in the days of CS 1.3/4). I would ditch school and play my favorite CS_assault 24/7 server. Needless to say, I was a machine and actually played quite well. After a particularly long and unhealthy binge of headshotting and yelling profanities into my microphone, I began to realize how tired my body and brain were actually becoming.

I actually had a visual hallucination of my gun floating away, out of my characters arm, and disappearing into the dawning sky over the terrorist building in a bubbly and colorful explosion. Shortly after (and every bit of this is true) I remember vaguely slumping into my bed and waking up after getting nearly 14+ hours of sleep. It was such a bizarre and vivid visual hallucination, induced purely by lack of sleep.

 

[Vegeta897]

I used to have what I thought were night terrors, but the more I think about it, they must have been some kind of.. frightening incidents occurring during the night due to my micropsia/macropsia affliction (I'm not even sure which one I have, the descriptions don't exactly match what I have.. I'm convinced they're the same thing. Micropsia is seeing things appear small, macropsia is seeing them appear large, yet for me it's not really a matter of large or small, but rather near or far.)

My micropsia is induced by being tired. My vision is distorted in that things seem far away, and if I focus on an object it seems to pop back and forth appearing large and small. Hard to describe. But it's a very convincing phenomenon. It also feels as if I can't view a wide angle at once.. like I always have to be focusing on a specific point.

In addition to the visual distortions, there are strange aural symptoms... The degree fades in and out depending on whether I'm focusing on it or not, and I can't really describe it well, but it'll feel like everything is very very loud, like blasted out of a speaker, including white noise, and yet it's still very quiet. Sometimes if I'm reading text on the computer, a voice will be shouting the words in my head, and yet it will be very quiet yet loud like before.

But it doesn't stop there. Strange physical feelings occur.. This is hardest of all to describe. I honestly don't even think I can. It's hard to remember exactly what it feels like unless I'm experiencing it, and it doesn't happen very often. So I'll just stop there.

Anyway, so I think what I used to call night terrors were actually me waking up and being heavily induced by this micropsia, and it suspending great fear into me. I can remember things looking very weird, as well as hearing very scary things. It gives me chills to think about. I would scream and call for my mom and she would come in and sit down on my bed and try to comfort me while I calmed down.

As an interesting side note, I discovered when I got older that digital alarm clocks in my view while in bed seemed to induce these occurrences. Admittedly I didn't investigate this very much, but I hadn't had a night terror ever since I kept the clocks out of my view. Though I haven't had any night terrors in the last several years regardless of my surroundings, so I'd say I'm definitely well over it. I'd guess that waking up to experience those symptoms just doesn't frighten me like it used to.

I can still vaguely feel a tingle of fear as a remnant of these horrifying experiences whenever I experience micropsia these days. It just reminds me of them. That's the main thing that leads me to believe those are what my experiences were.

So yeah I suppose this is a bit off-topic, but I felt like sharing.

tl;dr: Ummmmm yeah.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Nah, Veg, that's not offtopic. I can actually heavily relate to those types of experiences (and they are essentially the same thing). Physical ailments, and particularly anxieties about this ailments are amplified when we enter altered states of consciousness.

I can imagine it being particularly scary with vision/perception style problems as those are senses we associate so strongly with control, yet in sleep (and particularly in episodes of paralysis or night terror) we have no control over these functions or the realizations we may have about those ailments in waking anxiety or neurosis.

That sounds awful. I've had sleep paralysis a few times. Recently it was when I was stressed out about college/uni. I'd hurt my back so I had to go to sleep lying flat on my back instead of my side and that led to almost nightly nightmares or sleep paralysis... it was awful. Nothing as terrifying as you just described but it still scared the hell out of me.

Yeah, it often highly relates to the amount of comfort I allow myself to have before I fall asleep. Tonight what happened was I didn't allow myself to get comfortable (turn off the lights, think things through, slowly drift to bed) etc etc..

Hell, now that I think about the only things running through my mind were some latent anxieties I had about school work / women and how much higher the work load will be at my new uni. It's no wonder I had an episode like I did.

 

[morgs]

Probably just regular sleep paralysis, it can happen often or once a lifetime, sleep paralysis can cause pain (your body going numb) and hallucinations (e.g sounds, images feelings etc). When many people have sleep paralysis they get visions or images of themselves in some sort of danger or harm, a lot of people see their own rotting face for example.

I wouldn't get too worried about it, just read a book before bed with a nice hot chocolate

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Actually I think part of the problem was I ate a bunch of this leftover chocolate cake we had from a fancy seafood eatery at our mall. It was so damn rich and tasty I had to eat the whole piece . I'm a relatively small/lanky dude so the sugar rush was lasting long into my normal bedtime hours.

I often have uncomfortable or interrupted sleep if my blood sugar is high before getting into bed.

 

[highlander]

jesus christ. :|

 

[Darkside55]

The first time I had sleep paralysis I didn't know what the fuck. My brain was awake but my body wouldn't respond; couldn't open my eyes, couldn't move, couldn't scream out or make the tiniest squeak to let someone know I was in trouble. I was absolutely horrified.

So, to get out of it I tried something that my mother had actually warned me against doing--vibrating my brain. She used to say I'd end up giving myself brain damage, but it was all I could think to do because my body was just plain not responding. So I concentrated really hard and started shaking like crazy, slowly at first and just my head, but then I started getting some sensation back into my chest and shoulders so I started shaking them too, rocking side to side violently. Had anyone been around to see me I probably looked like I was having a seizure, or was quite possibly possessed. And as I shook, I suddenly gained feeling in my left arm and with all my might I THREW my arm across my body, rolled over and hit the floor jolting my body awake.

And then I screamed in joy really, really loudly, because I seriously thought I had been in a coma or something equally as horrible.

 

[Raziaar]

Alien abduction.

When I lay down to sleep, I often suffer from exploding head syndrome.

 

[Tarkus]

I've had sleep paralysis numerous times before. In my case they were all related to sleep deprivation combined with eating alot and going to sleep immediately after.

At first it was a really scary experience. I got damn anxious because I just wanted to be able to move again, and I really didn't know if I would be able to, but after the first, oh I don't know, 10 or 20 times (almost in consecutive days), I learned that the best thing to do is to just relax because I know I'll be able to move sooner or later. It's not easy, but it sure helps, and at least I'm no longer scared of going to sleep.

Fortunately this hasn't happened again in months

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

The first time I had sleep paralysis I didn't know what the fuck. My brain was awake but my body wouldn't respond; couldn't open my eyes, couldn't move, couldn't scream out or make the tiniest squeak to let someone know I was in trouble. I was absolutely horrified.

So, to get out of it I tried something that my mother had actually warned me against doing--vibrating my brain. She used to say I'd end up giving myself brain damage, but it was all I could think to do because my body was just plain not responding. So I concentrated really hard and started shaking like crazy, slowly at first and just my head, but then I started getting some sensation back into my chest and shoulders so I started shaking them too, rocking side to side violently. Had anyone been around to see me I probably looked like I was having a seizure, or was quite possibly possessed. And as I shook, I suddenly gained feeling in my left arm and with all my might I THREW my arm across my body, rolled over and hit the floor jolting my body awake.

And then I screamed in joy really, really loudly, because I seriously thought I had been in a coma or something equally as horrible.

This is exactly how I wake myself each and every time I get sleep paralysis. I have to sway my head or somehow lob my extremities until I wake. It's impossible to describe, but there's a part of you that can move your body as a whole (or at least your head) and swing it side to side. It sometimes takes what seems like hours to finally throw myself awake, and when I am finally awake, I'm usually gasping for breath and broken out entirely into a cold sweat. You remember vividly what just happened. Sleep paralysis in it's worst form is one of the most horrifying things I've had to deal with.

 

[McGooTheWise]

When I was 5 to 7 years old I used to have horrible night terrors, and it would cause me to fear sleep, so I would keep myself awake as long as possible, and, inevitably, cause worse night terrors. I remember some of the dreams, I would be walking down a long, dark hallway, with many doors, and I would hear a roar, and then what looked like the pinkey demon from the early DooM games would be running down the hall after me. I would try all the doors around me, but they would lead nowhere, and just bring me back to the same hall on the other side. I would then run as far as I could away from the monster, but at the end there was simply a single door. I try to open it, but it is locked, and the handle won't turn at all. I tun around and the monster is right there, stretching out it's hands, and right before it grabs me I wake up.

I had this dream many many times, and each time it scarred me more because I subconsciously knew what was going to happen, and, in my dreams, I just began giving up running, and would run toward the beast, and at one point, I ran around it (Odd dream, I know.) and there was a door behind it, but it was just the same as the one at the other end of the hall, and, yet again, the monster would stretch out his arms, and I'd wake up.

Has any of you ever had the waking up dream? You wake up in bed, only to wake up again, and do it several more times before you finally scream, and fall into a deeper sleep?

I would have that dream after the first many times, and from what my dad saw, he told me it wasn't a dream. He said i would sit upright in bed, fall back over, sit upright, and fall over again, several times before I fell back to sleep. At one point he tried just going to sleep with me, keeping his hand on me so that I felt safe, but I kept having horrible dreams and waking up.

I lost computer privileges, and it all went away. Funny, that. If I have nightmares now it's only because I know something bad is going to happen the next day, and I dream about that thing...

Sometimes I have weird cases of deja vu, where I remember thinking about what is happening actually happening, then something socially awkward, or dreadful happening shortly after. Needless to say I began to fear such events, till I started to realize that these dreadful events were created in my head.

Yeah, I have a lot of sleep related symptoms, but nothing quite as bad as paralysis.

 

[G(ordon)-man]

2 years ago when i was a little UFO enthusiast i fell asleep and woke up 2 hours after after i heard startling noise. I looked to window and i saw something. Two red eyes glared at me. Then i turned on the lights and saw this creature. Big head and two eyes. It went away. I stayed up whole night looking into a same spot on the wall. After this ninght i still sometimes see those two red eyes. My brother saw them too. And, to a note i live alone in a big apartment so you can imagine it.

 

[Raziaar]

2 years ago when i was a little UFO enthusiast i fell asleep and woke up 2 hours after after i heard startling noise. I looked to window and i saw something. Two red eyes glared at me. Then i turned on the lights and saw this creature. Big head and two eyes. It went away. I stayed up whole night looking into a same spot on the wall. After this ninght i still sometimes see those two red eyes. My brother saw them too. And, to a note i live alone in a big apartment so you can imagine it.

That reminds me of one time at my Grandpa's house when i was young. It was Christmas time I think... or maybe it was halloween. I cannot remember. Anyways. We had this scary looking gorilla mask with glowing red eyes.

It was getting late and we had just come inside. We saw something outside and peeked through the shades and saw glowing red eyes just like the ones on the mask. Only the mask was inside with us on the couch

No doubt somebody had bought a duplicate mask to scare us. Either that or there is an evil ape living in Carson, California.

 

[Naph]

I remember being young and a voice went through my head. Kind of a whisperey sound that gradually got louder and louder. It eventually stopped when I shouted stop, I was awake at the time too.

 

[NeptuneUK]

I sometimes experience these things, not so much now but they used to happen regularly a month or so ago. As soon as I wake I remember it vividly as if it was real, but more often than not I'd fall asleep again and my memory would be really hazy about it the following morning.

Edit: Actually last night I kept nearly drifting off to sleep but Id hear someone whisper some crap in my ear and I'd wake up, weird stuff like this happens so often to me I just sort of put up with it S:

 

[Dynasty]

Back home I have a fairly large window looking out into our back garden, which has a fairly big pond in a 3 tier layout, bushes to the side and behind it with firn trees dotted around it, so fairly 'dense', and theres a wooden fence behind it, which has admitedly seen better days and has the odd hole in it.

Now I was stood looking out the window talking to my sister on the phone, and I spotted two lights close together at the base of the fence. I stood staring at it and carried on talking.

The lights disappeared and came back a few times, so I figured it was light coming from behind the fence for whatever reason.

Then the lights moved slowly to the left. I said 'what the ***k', and my sister asked what was up, I leant toward the window and cupped my hand to see the lights better.

The lights then moved relatively fast down toward my window, I saw a cat for a split second (the light in my room was obviously reflecting off its eyes) but it was too late, I had shot back from the window SCREAMING down the phone as I ran out my room and backed up against the wall in my corridor, only to hear my sister pissing herself with laughter down the phone at my scream.

Ahhh fun times, but damn it I didnt want to look out my window again at night for a few days, and it was keeping me up at night thinking about it.

Also woke up to a catfight outside my window once, scared me shitless considering I didnt know what was going on for a few seconds when I woke up.

 

[Geogaddi]

No experiences with sleep paralysis, but my girlfriend talks in her sleep. Seriously. All the time. You can even whisper in her ear and she'll respond with gibberish or even something related to what you say. It's quite fun and interesting. Her dad does it too. One time they were asleep a few feet apart, and I, the only person awake, got to listen to two sleeping people have a conversation. Or something like that. It was very surreal. Girlfriend: "The little Russian boy lost his submarine"
Dad: "They don't care! They just want new pavement"...
Me: D:

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

I leave the light on outside of my room with the door cracked. I also have to have the light on and check my room before I walk to the bed.

 

[Kula Meenur]

Have a couple every now and again. Mine includes a feeling of a swinging pendulum on a string, which pushes my mind like waves on a shore. There's no sound or sight, just the feeling of slow moving wieght moving across my face like a calm breeze with varying degrees of severity. I know it's there, i cant see it or hear it can only feel it, like gravity gently pushing you up when you lean into a corner. Like meditation. Not a negative feeling or a positive one either while i'm experiencing it.


I ****in' love it.

 

[dfc05]

I've only had it once. Just remember being awake and wanting/trying to get up, but I couldn't. It was like my brain signals weren't getting through to my body. Strange thing to experience.

I'm glad I don't hallucinate voices though. That only happens when I'm tired before I fall asleep or when I'm half-asleep.

 

[danil1]

Have a couple every now and again. Mine includes a feeling of a swinging pendulum on a string, which pushes my mind like waves on a shore. There's no sound or sight, just the feeling of slow moving wieght moving across my face like a calm breeze with varying degrees of severity. I know it's there, i cant see it or hear it can only feel it, like gravity gently pushing you up when you lean into a corner. Like meditation. Not a negative feeling or a positive one either while i'm experiencing it.


I ****in' love it.

I know exactly what your talking about
and I ****ing love it too (happens only when I'm extremely tired)



When I was younger and went to bed if I couldn't fall asleep I sometimes concentrated at the wall and if I did it good I suddenly felt dizzy and lost my balance (lying on the my bed!) and it's like I would go up and down
(dunno how to describe it good..) any way I LOVED it and did it almost every time.

terror nights = one time I played an mmorpg the whole ****ing day (yes yes I know..) and the music there was with the same ****ing beats and was the same every where there. anyway when I went to bed and turned off the comp, I suddenly heard the music (really loud) and I told my brother to turn off the comp, obviously he told me that I am stupid
and I got ****ing scared.

and few days ago I had a dream that I don't really remember what happened but in the end (still dreaming) I told myself "you know you are dreaming, right?" (yes in 3rd person) woke up and thought how cool that was

 

[G(ordon)-man]

In my young days i loved to think that there is a monster under my bed. Well, i saw a dream that featured a brown monster. I falslely woke up and saw somthing under bed. It was brown. And big. And it had my moms bloody head. I woke up and screamed. Since then i have problems with sleeping alone.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

I've been kinda screwed up in the past week or 2. I haven't been able to go to sleep until past 4 am, last night it was 6, I'm kinda hoping I'll get so messed up this weekend I'll just auto-correct by monday D:

 

[Krynn72]

I had a dream I was in the game Left 4 Dead last night, and when I woke up, I had a shotgun in my hands. Whats really weird about it is that I neither own a shotgun, nor have I ever played Left 4 Dead.

 

[evil^milk]

Micro/macropsia

I know what you're talking about. I would have these same things happen to me, but it was mostly induced by bouts of fever when I was younger.

Perhaps the most memorable experience was when I went camping when I was about 11 or 12. I appeared to be walking in circles in a huge stadium, but the actual walls of the stadium (with tremendous red Coca-Cola ads on them) were rotating very fast and would zoom in and out of sight. I could also remember trying to have conversations with my parents about this (it was so horrifying) and the volume of the speech would go from an indistinguishable, peaceful dialogue to an erupting, violent fight. This was the scariest part because my parents never really yelled at me with such anger.

Sometimes when I go to bed, if I focus really hard, I can picture a few things zooming in and out of sight, as well as the volume going up and down. Strange shit.

I've also only had one time with sleep paralysis. I knew I was half-asleep, but I could see myself from a distance, coming closer, with my face rotting (as someone posted above) and I was trying to drag myself closer to the "camera" or point of view.

 

[Ravioli]

A ninja shot a paralazys thing into your neck and then played weird things on a tape recorder while she stole everything you owned, just like in movies.

Or you had quite a terrible experiance of sleep paralazys, i ****ing hate those. I dont think the following is one, but it felt somewhat like it. I was still conscious in my mind but i couldnt move my body, yet there were two copies of my body, one of which i could move. The real body was in my bed, unmovable. The fake one i could move, and but it was extremely weak. I could switch between the two, but the fake one was more dream like as it had blur effects and different colors on everything, very spooky. I didnt know what to do so i used my fake body to crawl into my moms bedroom, slowly and weakly i came closer, it really felt like a battle against death, i MUST wake her up to save myself. I reached the edge of her bed and then WHOOOM i gained control of my real body and i woke up for real.

Weird shit.

 

[G(ordon)-man]

That's really weird. Better check your closet for yourself.

 

[Sandspider]

Had a particularly strange episode tonight. I fell asleep with the TV and light on due to suddenly being overcome with tiredness (and laziness). And almost as soon as I began to drift into the later stages of sleep, in which the brain shuts down your ability to physically move about, I began to hear a voice. I knew I was awake, but I wasn't able to look around and investigate, nor open my eyes and control my body.

I've had episodes like this, sleep paralysis. Before, they were likely the result of the medication I was taking and some unresolved neurosis blah blah. This time was a bit different. It was a harsh and memorable female lecturing voice, and it didn't let up. It seemed to loop forever, giving the same information. She barked about various terrible diseases that I might have (as if I was some kind of test subject or research project). All the while I knew I was asleep and it was some kind of hallucination. My neck and face muscles kept having spasms (leftward, in an almost parkinsons patient manner). I woke up and my body was still in convulsions, with my neck tensing up and face pointing leftward.

The longer I've been awake now, the more I realize I'm in full control again, but I'll be damned if that wasn't one of the most frightening episodes of sleep paralysis I've ever experienced.


tl:dr version: I had a ****ed up sleep experience, it probably has to do with anxieties I have about transferring to a new university and a lot of lifestyle changes I'm making.

Sounds like you have a classic case of hypoicondria manifested by paraoid r.e.m. episodes :thumbs:

 

[Saturos]

I used to have night terrors when I was about 14. Sucks too.

I sleep with all the lights turned out because it's the only way I can sleep. My parents had been having relationship issues and even considered divorce. I got my first F ever during my sophomore year of high school, so I was already a broken mess on top of all the family problems since I was mostly an honor student. All this I think, plus the lack of sleep is probably what triggered them. I would wake up screaming like a mad man flailing and destroying anything within reach and one night I even pulled down the thin, sharp, vinyl blinds next to my bed and got all tangled up. I got all cut up from them and was covered in blood before my dad rushed in to wake me up. I had no memory of any kind of nightmare. I had to toss my heavily blood stained sheets the next morning.

Another time was when I slept in a sleeping bag. I got clausterphobic in my sleep or something and freaked out. I fell off the bed and kicked a hole in the wall in my panic.


Bottom line: Maybe your nightmares are stress related and try to get some more sleep.

 

[Dog--]

I once had a night terror where I was being chased by some killing thing/monster, and I gradually became slower and slow and it was harder and harder to move with each step.

Then for some reason, the thing caught me and it was a hot chick and she ****ed me (I was still paralyzed, too).

That actually seriously happened to me. :|

 

[Adrik_Senturu]

I get those sleep paralysis episodes every now and then to the point where I've kind of trained myself to snap myself out of them. I just try as hard as I can to roll over in bed. Usually gets me out of it, but it also ends with me freaking out while im sleeping. My friend witnessed it he said I was rolling back and forth mumbling something and then I just snapped straight up.