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Sleep Paralysis is for sure my favorite oddity. I've not experienced it in 20 years and I miss it. It happened about once a year when I was young and into my ea

Sleep Paralysis is for sure my favorite oddity. I've not experienced it in 20 years and I miss it. It happened about once a year when I was young and into my early 20s. Mine often had weird noises and hallucinations and creatures floating around. The first few times it was rather scary but then I realized it was pretty neat. The trick I learned is to tell myself I just have to move my toe.

deleted 15d ago
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pavel_lishin 15d ago
I've experienced it once or twice, and mine was the classic "can't move, malevolent presence just barely in the corner of your vision". Once, I think I was actually still half-asleep-ish, and trying to yell and my wife woke me up. Definitely not pleasant, even when I'm rationally aware of what's going on.
- krapp 15d ago
  I had it happen twice that I can remember. Once I hallucinated that I had a third arm that snaked around to my desk lamp, and just last night that someone whispered "hello" into my ear. Apparently that last one's pretty common. I've never seen the shadow man or anything.
Rendello 15d ago
I've never seen someone miss sleep paralysis before. I get it, but the hallucinations that people describe never happen to me. I just become aware that I'm about to wake up, but I can't yet control my body or even breathing. I always know not to panic, yet I always panic and try desperately to start moving. I can always see the room, but it's a dream version because my eyes aren't really open and it looks different once I'm truly awake. I don't have much sleep weirdness, but when I'm about to fall asleep, I frequently imagine 3D object spinning and rapidly changing size. Kinda like the 3D TempleOS sprites [1], but 5x faster and increasing/decreasing size at the same rate. 1. https://youtu.be/LtlyeDAJR7A?t=451 https://youtu.be/LtlyeDAJR7A?t=451
- all2 15d ago
  Mine was always accompanied by the sensation of being watched. I could 'see' where the watching was happening, but not the actual thing watching me. Also always accompanied by fear.
  - hermitcrab 15d ago
    I believe sensation of a presence in the room is very common in sleep paralysis. Interestingly the belief of what the presence is has changed with culture. It used to be demons, now it is more likely to be aliens.
hnedeotes 15d ago
Sleep paralysis is when you're having an intervention in the monitoring realm but your matrix being becomes aware while so. Sources can't agree if it's done on purpose or just the analgesic dosage that was too short. Next time you have one pay attention to hear if there's sound of steps as if moving away from where you are.
hermitcrab 15d ago
Why do you miss it? It is usually described as being terrifying. BTW sleep paralysis is likely the cause of many 'alien abduction' reports: wake up, can't move, presence in the room, sexual element (e.g. probing!).
- nephihaha 14d ago
  No, it's not always terrifying. I think the terror is because some people feel they're being pressed down. Once you know what it is, it's a lot less scary. It's to stop you acting out your dreams.
cameronh90 14d ago
I was prescribed Xanax for a bit and it gave me the absolute worst sleep paralysis imaginable, with nested false awakenings.
- intrasight 14d ago
  Nested false awakenings are the worst. Now I have a phrase to use for when that happened to me. I dreamt that I was attacked and killed by a monster. Getting killed in a dream makes one wake up immediately, lol. I was hanging out with a friend of mine and telling him about the dream and as soon as I told him what happened he turned into a monster and killed me. I was driving down the road with my friend Lloyd who was a passenger beside me in the car and telling him about this crazy dream. As soon as I mentioned the monster killing me, he turned into a monster and killed me - while I was driving my stinking car! Then I woke up and I was like "am I fucking really awake now?" I was.
  - MiloLeo 12d ago
    ugh, I would get those as a kid. I've never heard the term 'nested false awakening' applied to them, but I like that. I'm glad I don't get them anymore.. the feeling of wondering if it is a dream or not and feeling like you are locked onto a roller coaster you can't get off of. Luckily in my experience once I actually woke up I would know for sure that it was real. I think it would mess with your psyche if you couldn't tell or convince yourself you weren't in another nested dream.

deleted 15d ago

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pavel_lishin 15d ago

I've experienced it once or twice, and mine was the classic "can't move, malevolent presence just barely in the corner of your vision". Once, I think I was actually still half-asleep-ish, and trying to yell and my wife woke me up. Definitely not pleasant, even when I'm rationally aware of what's going on.

krapp 15d ago
I had it happen twice that I can remember. Once I hallucinated that I had a third arm that snaked around to my desk lamp, and just last night that someone whispered "hello" into my ear. Apparently that last one's pretty common. I've never seen the shadow man or anything.

Rendello 15d ago

I've never seen someone miss sleep paralysis before. I get it, but the hallucinations that people describe never happen to me. I just become aware that I'm about to wake up, but I can't yet control my body or even breathing. I always know not to panic, yet I always panic and try desperately to start moving. I can always see the room, but it's a dream version because my eyes aren't really open and it looks different once I'm truly awake. I don't have much sleep weirdness, but when I'm about to fall asleep, I frequently imagine 3D object spinning and rapidly changing size. Kinda like the 3D TempleOS sprites [1], but 5x faster and increasing/decreasing size at the same rate. 1. https://youtu.be/LtlyeDAJR7A?t=451 https://youtu.be/LtlyeDAJR7A?t=451

all2 15d ago
Mine was always accompanied by the sensation of being watched. I could 'see' where the watching was happening, but not the actual thing watching me. Also always accompanied by fear.
- hermitcrab 15d ago
  I believe sensation of a presence in the room is very common in sleep paralysis. Interestingly the belief of what the presence is has changed with culture. It used to be demons, now it is more likely to be aliens.

hnedeotes 15d ago

Sleep paralysis is when you're having an intervention in the monitoring realm but your matrix being becomes aware while so. Sources can't agree if it's done on purpose or just the analgesic dosage that was too short. Next time you have one pay attention to hear if there's sound of steps as if moving away from where you are.

hermitcrab 15d ago

Why do you miss it? It is usually described as being terrifying. BTW sleep paralysis is likely the cause of many 'alien abduction' reports: wake up, can't move, presence in the room, sexual element (e.g. probing!).

nephihaha 14d ago
No, it's not always terrifying. I think the terror is because some people feel they're being pressed down. Once you know what it is, it's a lot less scary. It's to stop you acting out your dreams.

cameronh90 14d ago

I was prescribed Xanax for a bit and it gave me the absolute worst sleep paralysis imaginable, with nested false awakenings.

intrasight 14d ago
Nested false awakenings are the worst. Now I have a phrase to use for when that happened to me. I dreamt that I was attacked and killed by a monster. Getting killed in a dream makes one wake up immediately, lol. I was hanging out with a friend of mine and telling him about the dream and as soon as I told him what happened he turned into a monster and killed me. I was driving down the road with my friend Lloyd who was a passenger beside me in the car and telling him about this crazy dream. As soon as I mentioned the monster killing me, he turned into a monster and killed me - while I was driving my stinking car! Then I woke up and I was like "am I fucking really awake now?" I was.
- MiloLeo 12d ago
  ugh, I would get those as a kid. I've never heard the term 'nested false awakening' applied to them, but I like that. I'm glad I don't get them anymore.. the feeling of wondering if it is a dream or not and feeling like you are locked onto a roller coaster you can't get off of. Luckily in my experience once I actually woke up I would know for sure that it was real. I think it would mess with your psyche if you couldn't tell or convince yourself you weren't in another nested dream.