Have you ever had Night Paralysis?

[slave to zep]

http://www.the-open-mind.com/have-you-ever-woken-up-in-the-middle-of-night-paralyzed-youre-not-alone/

[slave to zep]

I have had it twice now in the past few months.

First time, I awoke to feel someone about to touch their hands around my waist. I say awoke, but I couldn't open my eyes, or move at all. I was trying to scream to wake up my husband..... it lasted about 30 seconds or so, and slowly I was able to move again.....

The second time I was asleep, on my back, when I felt something grab hold of my foot which was hanging out of the blanket as it was a hot night. I quickly dragged nmy foot away, and as soon as I did that, I could no longer move any part of my body. Again I was trying to scream but couldn't. When I could finally move again, I lay there awake all night absolutely terrified. I am SURE I felt something grab my foot, and both etimes I was sure I was awake and not dreaming.....

[Ross62]

Jules,I experienced the old hag syndrome when I was a kid.The feeling of something on my chest weighing me down and making it hard to breathe and I could not move,it happened a couple of times and I haven't had it since.Although I never saw anything there was a bad/evil feeling accompanying the experience ie:something else in the room.

This link explains it as being mainly stress related and apparently more people experience it than care to mention it

[IpMan]

Oh yeah, this is what used to be called Old Hag Syndrome. What is happening is when you sleep, and dream, your body releases a hormone which paralyses the body so it does not physically act out the dream. Once you begin to wake or wake suddenly the hormone is immediately neutralized by another hormone and you can once again move. In a very small percentage of people, every once and a while the neutralization does not happen immediately as it is supposed to and you wake up paralyzed. What then happens, because our brains love to screw with us, is the brain which functions to recognize patterns and to fill in the gaps when there in an absence of pattern (this is why people can read horribly misspelled words with no vowels etc.) begins to manufacture all kinds of shit to explain the paralysis, thus the myth of the incubus & succubus. Many alien abduction claims are a result of this as well as proven by several college experiments.

Interesting stuff, but once you realize what it is, you will not experience the feeling of dread or the tactile illusions.

[aClockworkZoSo]

Happened to me 2 weeks ago, was the strangest thing ever!! Felt like the Grim Reaper was out to get me.

[slave to zep]

Jules,I experienced the old hag syndrome when I was a kid.The feeling of something on my chest weighing me down and making it hard to breathe and I could not move,it happened a couple of times and I haven't had it since.Although I never saw anything there was a bad/evil feeling accompanying the experience ie:something else in the room.

This link explains it as being mainly stress related and apparently more people experience it than care to mention it

Thank you, Ross I didn't have any choking or pressure feelings with mine.....

Oh yeah, this is what used to be called Old Hag Syndrome. What is happening is when you sleep, and dream, your body releases a hormone which paralyses the body so it does not physically act out the dream. Once you begin to wake or wake suddenly the hormone is immediately neutralized by another hormone and you can once again move. In a very small percentage of people, every once and a while the neutralization does not happen immediately as it is supposed to and you wake up paralyzed. What then happens, because our brains love to screw with us, is the brain which functions to recognize patterns and to fill in the gaps when there in an absence of pattern (this is why people can read horribly misspelled words with no vowels etc.) begins to manufacture all kinds of shit to explain the paralysis, thus the myth of the incubus & succubus. Many alien abduction claims are a result of this as well as proven by several college experiments.

Interesting stuff, but once you realize what it is, you will not experience the feeling of dread or the tactile illusions.

Thank you, IP Yes, it could explain some or even all.

Or there could also really be people who have been abducted ......

Happened to me 2 weeks ago, was the strangest thing ever!! Felt like the Grim Reaper was out to get me.

Isn't it a horrible feeling! I hope it doesn't recur for you ( or me! )

[slave to zep]

I did forget to mention that in the first occurrence, I had the feeling that something wanted to take me away or go with them, and I tried to yell out "NO! ", but couldn't, so I kept saying it in my mind, and then I was able to open my eyes and move ....

[aClockworkZoSo]

It's the worst, and then i made the mistake of googling about it and ran into more weirder and horrifying stuff.

[TypeO]

Incredibly enough, I had it twice last night, very short, and within a short time of each other.

Can't remember the exact situation specifically, but it was vaguely related to the sensation of being pushed into a bedroom against my will.

I go through periods of having violent dreams (being involved in fights, or gun battles where my weapon invariably jams, misfires, can't find the safety, or the bullets move ridiculously slow) and sometimes experience some version of paralysis as I usually force my way out of it trying to make a noise, eventually waking my wife. LOL

It also once happened to me when I was 18, what I've come to learn is sometimes referred to as The Devil Riding Your Back.
To this day I remember laying in bed, hearing footsteps quietly coming down the hall and into my room.
Then I felt what seemed the weight of a real person on my back and I couldn't move, and I distinctly heard the whispered words, "I'll cool your face until it warms."
It's a meaningless phrase, yet I remember the exact words over 35 years later.

Always creeped me out.

[IpMan]

BTW, the old hag has happened to me several times in the past and until I knew what it was it scared the living shit out of me. I felt a malevolent presence descending upon me, studying me as I lay paralyzed, trying desperately to move, to open my eyes, terror clinging to me like a shroud. Horrible experience.

However, what truly petrified me is something to this day I cannot explain. I lived in a home where the prior owner had died of brain cancer in the master bedroom. I never put much stock in ghosts or spirits, I believed in them and still do, though I always believed they had no power or influence on the physical plane of existence...until THAT night. I woke up at about 3am with an unshakable feeling of foreboding, I knew someone or something was in the room with me but the room was pitch dark, no light. I was fully mobile and aware, all senses and body parts working. I scanned the room and then, in the corner opposite my bed, directly in front of me and to the left was a figure, a silhouette darker than the surrounding area, almost drawing the black into it. Even though I could not see eyes I instinctively knew this thing was looking at me and was drawing energy from me. I instinctively remembered when I used to study the black arts, demons, dark entities so I forced myself to extinguish all fear and fill myself with positive strength and love. I looked directly at this entity and told it to leave, it had no power here and must go now in the name of God and al that is love. Immediately, like a shot this thing recoiled and collapsed in on itself, and in the process, I shit you not, I felt a wind, a vacuum drawn into the corner where this being stood. It was gone. The whole room changed in that instant from a stifling malignancy into a normal room.

I have seen some very strange things before this, as I said, I studied the occult, the black arts, demonology, the most ancient of writings on the subject and even attended a mass of the Temple of Set (the REAL devil worshipers) and nothing felt like this.

The next morning I bought a thatch of sage and used an old Buddhist ritual to cleanse the house. I never had another problem after that. BTW, any faith will work as long as it is positive. The Lords Prayer works great as do Muslim and Talmudic banishment prayers, the main thing is not to be afraid but to fill yourself with the light and love of positive thought and project that power. If you concentrate, the darkness can never stand up to the light.

And they all lived happily ever after...

[osoz]

I've experienced it only once over a decade ago, but it was such a vivid experience I remember it really clearly. I was in bed unable to move with a very strong sense of a presence in the room with me.

My son experiences it quite regularly and has also described out of body experiences to me.

[ksgemini]

Yes back in late 80's early 90's a few times. What is weirder happened to a friend who awoke to a foreign object under the skin behind his ear. I am not kidding and even saw the object after dr's removed it. He had some other weird stuff happen that his family even witnessed. I was really into reading about alien abductions at one time but became convinced it is a subject better left alone. Of course people will not believe this... I don't expect them to. I'd say most times it is just plain old explainable sleep paralysis but there are things I wonder about and I am a skeptic in general.

[IpMan]

Yes back in late 80's early 90's a few times. What is weirder happened to a friend who awoke to a foreign object under the skin behind his ear. I am not kidding and even saw the object after dr's removed it. He had some other weird stuff happen that his family even witnessed. I was really into reading about alien abductions at one time but became convinced it is a subject better left alone. Of course people will not believe this... I don't expect them to. I'd say most times it is just plain old explainable sleep paralysis but there are things I wonder about and I am a skeptic in general.

Anything is possible, one should always keep an open mind. After all, if al logical conclusions are exhausted, the improbable begins to become plausible.

[slave to zep]

I've experienced it only once over a decade ago, but it was such a vivid experience I remember it really clearly. I was in bed unable to move with a very strong sense of a presence in the room with me.

My son experiences it quite regularly and has also described out of body experiences to me.

Yeah, I don't think I will ever forget mine, either.....

Yes back in late 80's early 90's a few times. What is weirder happened to a friend who awoke to a foreign object under the skin behind his ear. I am not kidding and even saw the object after dr's removed it. He had some other weird stuff happen that his family even witnessed. I was really into reading about alien abductions at one time but became convinced it is a subject better left alone. Of course people will not believe this... I don't expect them to. I'd say most times it is just plain old explainable sleep paralysis but there are things I wonder about and I am a skeptic in general.

Well, I do believe you . There have been many cases of this. Did he have the object analysed? There is a you tube of a Dr that takes these things out, and one of them had weird properties, and they couldn't match it with anything on this earth....

Anything is possible, one should always keep an open mind. After all, if al logical conclusions are exhausted, the improbable begins to become plausible.

I agree.

[ksgemini]

Good question about analysis I don't think so because he had no idea about abductions People have a tough time believing that but he is not into sci fi or those kinds of things and after I read up on it and it hit me it may be what happened when I told him he was still unsure and didn't want to talk much about it.

[osoz]

Yes back in late 80's early 90's a few times. What is weirder happened to a friend who awoke to a foreign object under the skin behind his ear. I am not kidding and even saw the object after dr's removed it. He had some other weird stuff happen that his family even witnessed. I was really into reading about alien abductions at one time but became convinced it is a subject better left alone. Of course people will not believe this... I don't expect them to. I'd say most times it is just plain old explainable sleep paralysis but there are things I wonder about and I am a skeptic in general.

I believe it too. There are many things that we just can't explain away. It wasn't all that long ago that the majority of people believed in hobgoblins and fairies - perhaps aliens are simply a modern interpretation of the same thing?

I had several very strange experiences in childhood and in my early teens which I still find unbelievable.

I only believe it myself because it is backed up by friends and family that the events did actually happen.

One involved a 'time slip' when I was holiday at my much older sisters house. I thought I went out for a day in the countryside, but returned a full 6 weeks later. I have no recollection of aliens being involved, rather it was a very earthly but mystical experience, like I inadvertently stepped into a different realm. I was aware that a lot of time was passing, but it seemed like hours, not days and weeks. There were beings or entities involved, but I had no feeling that they were extraterrestrial. My mum use to say when I was little I was 'away with the fairies' which is a term used by country folk in the UK to say one lives in a dreamworld - I think for 6 weeks I may though have actually really been away the the fairies!

I'm very happy I had the experience, at the time I was being brought up as a Christian and I had a lot of trouble accepting the religion. This experience and others (such as distinctly hearing voices in hedgerows when walking with my other sister on numerous occasions) led me to study Celtic belief structure. I felt for myself this was the right path.

[IpMan]

I believe it too. There are many things that we just can't explain away. It wasn't all that long ago that the majority of people believed in hobgoblins and fairies - perhaps aliens are simply a modern interpretation of the same thing?

I had several very strange experiences in childhood and in my early teens which I still find unbelievable.

I only believe it myself because it is backed up by friends and family that the events did actually happen.

One involved a 'time slip' when I was holiday at my much older sisters house. I thought I went out for a day in the countryside, but returned a full 6 weeks later. I have no recollection of aliens being involved, rather it was a very earthly but mystical experience, like I inadvertently stepped into a different realm. I was aware that a lot of time was passing, but it seemed like hours, not days and weeks. There were beings or entities involved, but I had no feeling that they were extraterrestrial. My mum use to say when I was little I was 'away with the fairies' which is a term used by country folk in the UK to say one lives in a dreamworld - I think for 6 weeks I may though have actually really been away the the fairies!

I'm very happy I had the experience, at the time I was being brought up as a Christian and I had a lot of trouble accepting the religion. This experience and others (such as distinctly hearing voices in hedgerows when walking with my other sister on numerous occasions) led me to study Celtic belief structure. I felt for myself this was the right path.

Quantum Physics & String Theory both explain in scientific terms what religion and myth have been claiming since the beginning. Especially String Theory, which holds time is an illusion made manifest in the physical realm by our own conscienceless, the Theory of Relativity touched on this as well. In essence, the beginning of the universe to the end of the universe happened in one, very brief moment and that which we perceives as the passing of time is akin to bubbles in a bottle of champaign. Each bubble representing a moment in time through infinite possibilities. So, time travel is not only possible, both back and forward, but quite easy once we can transverse the dimensional barriers. So, when people experience time slips such as you, or even instances where they go for a walk and wind up in the 16th century for a few days and then suddenly return to the "present," they are possibly crossing fro one bubble into another and then back again.

It is all of course just theory but it does explain quite a bit.

[osoz]

I think one day science may provide explanations for many such experiences. The very odd thing about it was once I started to believe it had really happened I wondered why there had not been police involvement in my disappearance. This is when I found out it was not the first time it happened. My dad who was himself a retired police officer simply said "well you always turn up again eventually!" I only remember the last time it happened. In my memory it is more like an atmosphere than joined up memories. What I later found was such experiences have been described throughout history. Slightly more odd is that during the rest of my life I have met people who seem to carry the same atmosphere with them. Like they belong to the other realm I experienced. They seem to come in and out of my life at crucial times. It was not all good. I was treated for clinical depression soon after the last event. I was finding it difficult to adjust back to what I had been led to believe was "reality". I also felt somewhat abnormal or like a freak of some sort. Now though I feel it was like a special gift and these days I wonder if things like death are really just a state of mind.

[Disco Duck]

I think one day science may provide explanations for many such experiences. The very odd thing about it was once I started to believe it had really happened I wondered why there had not been police involvement in my disappearance. This is when I found out it was not the first time it happened. My dad who was himself a retired police officer simply said "well you always turn up again eventually!" I only remember the last time it happened. In my memory it is more like an atmosphere than joined up memories. What I later found was such experiences have been described throughout history. Slightly more odd is that during the rest of my life I have met people who seem to carry the same atmosphere with them. Like they belong to the other realm I experienced. They seem to come in and out of my life at crucial times. It was not all good. I was treated for clinical depression soon after the last event. I was finding it difficult to adjust back to what I had been led to believe was "reality". I also felt somewhat abnormal or like a freak of some sort. Now though I feel it was like a special gift and these days I wonder if things like death are really just a state of mind.

Something about your family's reaction to your disappearances doesn't sit well with me. I find it hard to believe that any father, particularly one with a law enforcement background, would be so cavalier about his daughter disappearing with no notice and being out of contact for days or even weeks at a time. He knows the horrible things that can happen to women and girls. You could have been laying in a hospital unconscious or in a morgue. If your father is still living you might want to ask him how he knew you were okay during your disappearances. Ditto your mother and siblings. Maybe your family knows more about your ability to time slip then they've let on to you.

[Mithril46]

I used to have these experiences up to about every couple of weeks up till about 10 years ago, curiously only if I slept on my stomach.

At some points I was so used to it that although it was still disturbing(the takeover, or paralysis) I knew that a tremendous effort of

Will could get me out of it and awake. No one ever mentioned this experience to me , but as I told others about it I found that many

Had this experience. The advice about doing the Lord's Prayer, various cleansing rituals, etc., is right on, but try to stay away from

Conjuring spirits and contacting the dead if you have the paralysis thing. Usually nothing will happen anyway, but some people

Are lightning rods for supernatural forces.

[slave to zep]

Good question about analysis I don't think so because he had no idea about abductions People have a tough time believing that but he is not into sci fi or those kinds of things and after I read up on it and it hit me it may be what happened when I told him he was still unsure and didn't want to talk much about it.

Does he still have the implant? It may still be able to be analysed.

I believe it too. There are many things that we just can't explain away. It wasn't all that long ago that the majority of people believed in hobgoblins and fairies - perhaps aliens are simply a modern interpretation of the same thing?

I had several very strange experiences in childhood and in my early teens which I still find unbelievable.

I only believe it myself because it is backed up by friends and family that the events did actually happen.

One involved a 'time slip' when I was holiday at my much older sisters house. I thought I went out for a day in the countryside, but returned a full 6 weeks later. I have no recollection of aliens being involved, rather it was a very earthly but mystical experience, like I inadvertently stepped into a different realm. I was aware that a lot of time was passing, but it seemed like hours, not days and weeks. There were beings or entities involved, but I had no feeling that they were extraterrestrial. My mum use to say when I was little I was 'away with the fairies' which is a term used by country folk in the UK to say one lives in a dreamworld - I think for 6 weeks I may though have actually really been away the the fairies!

I'm very happy I had the experience, at the time I was being brought up as a Christian and I had a lot of trouble accepting the religion. This experience and others (such as distinctly hearing voices in hedgerows when walking with my other sister on numerous occasions) led me to study Celtic belief structure. I felt for myself this was the right path.

WOW, I have never heard a story like this! But you say other people have had it?

I was also going to ask why the family was so blase about it....

Quantum Physics & String Theory both explain in scientific terms what religion and myth have been claiming since the beginning. Especially String Theory, which holds time is an illusion made manifest in the physical realm by our own conscienceless, the Theory of Relativity touched on this as well. In essence, the beginning of the universe to the end of the universe happened in one, very brief moment and that which we perceives as the passing of time is akin to bubbles in a bottle of champaign. Each bubble representing a moment in time through infinite possibilities. So, time travel is not only possible, both back and forward, but quite easy once we can transverse the dimensional barriers. So, when people experience time slips such as you, or even instances where they go for a walk and wind up in the 16th century for a few days and then suddenly return to the "present," they are possibly crossing fro one bubble into another and then back again.

It is all of course just theory but it does explain quite a bit.

food for thought

Something about your family's reaction to your disappearances doesn't sit well with me. I find it hard to believe that any father, particularly one with a law enforcement background, would be so cavalier about his daughter disappearing with no notice and being out of contact for days or even weeks at a time. He knows the horrible things that can happen to women and girls. You could have been laying in a hospital unconscious or in a morgue. If your father is still living you might want to ask him how he knew you were okay during your disappearances. Ditto your mother and siblings. Maybe your family knows more about your ability to time slip then they've let on to you.

I used to have these experiences up to about every couple of weeks up till about 10 years ago, curiously only if I slept on my stomach.

At some points I was so used to it that although it was still disturbing(the takeover, or paralysis) I knew that a tremendous effort of

Will could get me out of it and awake. No one ever mentioned this experience to me , but as I told others about it I found that many

Had this experience. The advice about doing the Lord's Prayer, various cleansing rituals, etc., is right on, but try to stay away from

Conjuring spirits and contacting the dead if you have the paralysis thing. Usually nothing will happen anyway, but some people

Are lightning rods for supernatural forces.

It seems it is more common than I knew. Hope yours are gone now

[osoz]

Something about your family's reaction to your disappearances doesn't sit well with me. I find it hard to believe that any father, particularly one with a law enforcement background, would be so cavalier about his daughter disappearing with no notice and being out of contact for days or even weeks at a time. He knows the horrible things that can happen to women and girls. You could have been laying in a hospital unconscious or in a morgue. If your father is still living you might want to ask him how he knew you were okay during your disappearances. Ditto your mother and siblings. Maybe your family knows more about your ability to time slip then they've let on to you.

You hit the nail on the head with that. It was their reaction to it that was far more disturbing to me than coming to terms with the experience being real. Initially I remember I was just annoyed that I had lost an entire school summer holiday. Then it became resentment like I was part of some huge conspiracy within the family.

Later it played on my mind more, things like it being remarkably 'convenient' that it should happen during a school holiday and that I should 'return' before anyone on the outside of the family would really notice I was gone. Both my parents have passed on but my father was an interesting man, he would talk to me for hours on end, often late at night, about the strangest of things, almost like he was preparing me for such experiences. He could be an angry man to though, I expected that he was going to go nuts over the whole thing. One of the first things I said to my sister when I got back to her house and she explained that I had been gone for 6 weeks was 'what about dad he must be going nuts'. She said, no he has been ringing but he knew you were 'away'.

My mother seemed angry or bitter more than anything, like it was something she did not want to discuss or would prefer to deny, but I always thought she knew far more than she was telling me.

I drifted away from both my sisters and brother and now have no contact with them. We have big age gaps in the family of 5 years between each of the four of us (I'm the youngest), they all are bit strange really in their own ways. Funny I haven't talked about all this for a long time to anyone, and here I am posting it all up on the internet!

[Disco Duck]

You hit the nail on the head with that. It was their reaction to it that was far more disturbing to me than coming to terms with the experience being real. Initially I remember I was just annoyed that I had lost an entire school summer holiday. Then it became resentment like I was part of some huge conspiracy within the family.

Later it played on my mind more, things like it being remarkably 'convenient' that it should happen during a school holiday and that I should 'return' before anyone on the outside of the family would really notice I was gone. Both my parents have passed on but my father was an interesting man, he would talk to me for hours on end, often late at night, about the strangest of things, almost like he was preparing me for such experiences. He could be an angry man to though, I expected that he was going to go nuts over the whole thing. One of the first things I said to my sister when I got back to her house and she explained that I had been gone for 6 weeks was 'what about dad he must be going nuts'. She said, no he has been ringing but he knew you were 'away'.

My mother seemed angry or bitter more than anything, like it was something she did not want to discuss or would prefer to deny, but I always thought she knew far more than she was telling me.

I drifted away from both my sisters and brother and now have no contact with them. We have big age gaps in the family of 5 years between each of the four of us (I'm the youngest), they all are bit strange really in their own ways. Funny I haven't talked about all this for a long time to anyone, and here I am posting it all up on the internet!

I'm sorry you're estranged from your siblings. If they're not toxic people it might be worth your while to re-establish contact with them. They might be able to answer some of your questions about your childhood time slipping experiences. Two questions that come to mind:

1) Did your father have these "strange" conversations with any of your siblings?

2) Why was your mother so angry or bitter? Do your siblings have any insights into her behavior? Since they're older than you they had more time to know her.

[osoz]

Toxic would certainly describe one of my sisters. Evil would be another way to put it. We all went our own ways really when my Mum died. My own family (Husband and son) have encouraged me to make contact again, which I have in the past but it always ended up in disaster and bad feeling.

Over the years I've felt more that I was the one in control, like subconsciously I chose when these things happened. I've never worried about it too much. I came to the conclusion with growing older and reading that reality as we perceive it is a very thin veil indeed. I related the experiences to the Theosphists/Wiccan Summerland and feel quite comfortable with that!

My mind is open to the fact that it may not be the only one we can experience. So when I hear about alien abductions I can easily believe that people do have such experiences as they are in many ways similar to mine.

I do not remember Dad going into the same sort of conversation with my siblings or discussing such things so much with them, though I guess they were all a bit 'out there'. But they were older than me (nearest 5 years older) so I may not have been aware of what they talked to Dad about.

He was very obsessed with UFOs, mysticism and astronomy. It was quite at odds really because though he was a very intelligent man, he always stayed in the lowest rank of PC his whole life. His mind was certainly far away at times, but some of the conversations did involve odd stories of his experiences during his time as a police officer. Such as things that would mysteriously disappear and reappear, UFO events, many things that just sound unbelievable, but he would talk about them in a very rational and convincing way. I do know he was a member of a secret society. I remember him going to meetings and him have cases that he took that we were told never to touch. He never uttered a word about that side of his life to me, though my Grandfather was a Free Mason. I found this out through old documents in the attic.

On the disappearing and reappearing notion, I have lost several items that were important to me. Having moved house, almost forgotten about them, years later they turned up again out of the blue. Again not something that most people would believe could happen. I certainly can't explain it, found it hard to believe myself, but I do know that it did happen and I've never had any form of mental health issue other the teenage depression. This became something I could control to a degree, where if I lost something I could just decide where it would be and it would be there. Though I haven't done that for a long time.

I would have to say Mum was kind of angry and bitter about a lot of things. Again strange goings on and she would often talk cryptically about the 'family secret'. Much of this had to do with my Grandfather on my Dad's side (or so I thought), a man I never met as he had died before I was born. There seems to me an even bigger can of worms there than in my own life. My brother has been obsessed with trying to find out more information about my Grandfather all his life, or certainly was still obsessed with it last time I spoke to him over a decade ago.

All odd stuff, I guess reading it nobody would think I'm really the most down to earth and practical person. (most of the time!)

[ksgemini]

My friend did not keep whatever it was and dr seemed to not really explain it but blew it off as some anomaly. Really I am not sure what to think..dreams, fallen angels, et's????? No clue and not sure i still want to know...