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Imagine you suddenly awake in the middle of the night. Your heart jumps a beat and you realise you are concious. However something is wrong. Terribly wrong. You can't move a single muscle and you feel this incredible wieght on your chest. Your breathing is intense as you try to suck in air from your crushed lungs. You can still see however, eyes darting back and forth trying to identify what is going on. You start to panic, lungs being punished for air and the ability to yell out for help. This isn't even the bad bit.

Something comes into your room. You don't know what it is, just merely a shadow that drifts in. It stands over you watching you, and this is when you really panic, your mind begging the body to move. You are literally in the highest echelon of fear as you realise you are utterly helpless to this strange shadow. Now the shadow moves barely out of your vison to your left, just within your peripheral view. Its now by your side, whispering into your ear. Saying horrible, unspeakable things. At this point it feels like you are about to have a heart attack. The entity disappears as suddenly as it had appeared. Now you are laying there for maybe 5 minutes, contemplating what the hell do I do?

Then it feels like someone kicks you in the chest and you suck in deep breath. Your muscles relax and you finally regain feeling.

I have experienced this at least 7 times in my life and can only describe it as being awake in your nightmare. I only recently researched it after it happened to me twice in one night. This problem is known as Sleep Paralysis and occurs in nearly half the population. After my first experience I jumped up, turned on all the lights, searching for some kind of ghost or alien. Turns out it was all just a hallucination brought on by lack of sleep.

So tell me Dakka have you experienced the same thing? Also any other wierd sleeping habits or problems?

Could it be night terrors?

Isn't that where people wake up screaming, not remembering why they're so upset?

I had a dream about a demonic gorilla hurling balls of fire at me once.

Did you ask your Doc? it might be something else, better safe then sorry.

It didn't happen often enough for me to go see a doctor. This has happened across a number of years and I pretty much know what the problem is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Amaya wrote:I had a dream about a demonic gorilla hurling balls of fire at me once.

That happened to me too when I stayed up late with the old arcade machine.

Morning cramp in my calf is sheer agony. It usually lasts for about a minute and feels like the muscle is tearing itself apart - and to a degree is probably doing just that if the several days of pain that follow are anything to go by.

Probably exercise too much or not enough haha. Or dehydrated.

RossDas wrote:Morning cramp in my calf is sheer agony. It usually lasts for about a minute and feels like the muscle is tearing itself apart - and to a degree is probably doing just that if the several days of pain that follow are anything to go by.

Are you getting enough water and sodium?

Amaya wrote:

RossDas wrote:Morning cramp in my calf is sheer agony. It usually lasts for about a minute and feels like the muscle is tearing itself apart - and to a degree is probably doing just that if the several days of pain that follow are anything to go by.

Are you getting enough water and sodium?

I think so: I'm rarely without a water/tea next to me; as for sodium my diet certainly doesn't lack it, though it could be that I sweat more out at the gym than I'd estimated.
It's hard to quantify the overall salt loss/intake, but I do get the cramps during more exercise heavy months.

drunkorc wrote:Did you ask your Doc? i mught be something else, better safe then sorry.

Nah, it's definitely sleep paralysis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis


I've had it twice in my whole life - I'm 24, so it's not really a concern. My mum had it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and she's 54!

I didn't have the experience of struggling for breath or my heart going fast. I was completely paralysed (apart from my eyes, I could look around, too). The first time I had it I woke up in the afternoon and it was still light, I didn't notice any kind of presence. I was terrified only by the thought of being possibly paralysed for the rest of my life for no apparent reason, but after maybe 10 seconds or so I could move. The second time I woke up at night, and couldn't see very well, but I could swear that there was this scary old woman at the foot of my bed. She looked like a stereotypical witch, and it was pretty terrifying.

Having experimented with as many chemicals as I have, I've had some very lucid nightmares indeed.
But, it's all in the moment. As you get older you recover emotionally more from what goes on in your sleep and it's not as "looming", so to speak.
It's a thousand times better than actual pain though. Waking up in the night with leg cramps is fething agony.

Joey wrote:Having experimented with as many chemicals as I have, I've had some very lucid nightmares indeed.
But, it's all in the moment. As you get older you recover emotionally more from what goes on in your sleep and it's not as "looming", so to speak.
It's a thousand times better than actual pain though. Waking up in the night with leg cramps is fething agony.

Do you ever experience actual pain during a nightmare? I get this sometimes and wondered if it is normal.

To the OP -- you had sleep paralysis. Google it. It's not that uncommon.

Haha I know, if you read the entire post I had already figured it out.

Sorry, missed that. It's just that it's about the 19th thread we've had on this forum referencing the condition.

Private_Joker wrote:
So tell me Dakka have you experienced the same thing? Also any other wierd sleeping habits or problems?

You 100% described sleep paralysis, as others have pointed out. I've had it a number of times. I feel like gak when I snap out of it. Rare for me, though. It's been a few years since I last had it.

I've had sleep paralysis a few times, but mostly I suffer from chronic insomnia and when I do sleep I often have nightmares. When I was little I had them literally every night for months at a time. Less frequently now. Still, I average about 4 hours of sleep a night, and a couple cat naps on the train to/from work now.

I've had it a couple of times, its really hard to describe for me, as there are no images or sounds, its just an extremely intense feeling that is absolutely horrible.