Er sorry?

I've had it happen to me once when I was like 13, if we're talking about the same thing. It was pretty freakin' scary, though it's a distant memory now. I woke up staring at the ceiling but I couldn't move a single muscle except my eyelids. I couldn't even feel myself breathe so I thought I was dying right there. I guess I was breathing, but after about two terrifying minutes I could start to move again. It was really weird sending signals to my muscles to move but having them not react at all.

I looked it up not long afterward to see the cause, and it's just because I happened to wake up in a stage of my sleep where my muscle tone was still inhibited by one of the hormones involved in sleep. That comforted me a lot. I'm not really afraid of having another episode because I'll know the cause and that it doesn't really pose any danger. Is this what you meant by sleep paralysis?

I've been able to lucid dream since I was about 11. It was never a process to learn for me, it just happened that in a dream I realized that I was dreaming and that I could do anything I wanted. If you remember the Jackie Chan animated show, my first lucid dream (which was a nightmare until I realized it was just a dream), I summoned all my friends and we each had one of the talismans from the show which give us special powers and we pretty much kicked ass.

To be honest, I don't even like lucid dreaming anymore. It's too predictable. I always end up kicking ass, scoring the winning goal, or fucking a hot girl. I much prefer classic mindfuck nightmares now. They're not so great while I'm in them, but when I wake up it makes for excellent brain fodder. I consider myself good at dreaming, in the sense that I've lived what felt like lifetimes in the 5 minutes before class ends or in the 10 minutes that my snooze button gives me between alarms. Also, I sleep like 10 hours a night, so I usually have a bunch of dreams. It often causes me to mistake them for reality.

Actually, just last night, I had some pretty lifelike dreams. I dreamt I had gone out clubbing with my friends, and I woke up, and I couldn't remember the latter half of the night, so I concluded that I had drank too much and blacked out. I met up with a couple of my friends from the night so they could help me piece together what had happened the night before. That's when I realized, I hadn't actually woken up. I met my friends way too quickly, as a result of dream transition, to be real life so I must still be dreaming. So I started telling my friends that they were in my dream, and they put on a good show of being pretty angry at my arrogance. I remember trying to prove it to them by making something appear (I don't remember what), and they just sort of looked at me like I was crazy and said something like, "Dude, are you on drugs? Everyone can do that..." and proceeded to each make the same thing appear. It was a hell of a jolt when I finally woke up and realized that those friends are in another city, and not only had I dreamt waking up before, but I had been convinced out of my dream's lucidity by my dream friends.

It happens to me one year ago, that was very scary.

Sounds scary and awesome at the same time. It's never happened to me.

If you'd like to dream lucidly...might I suggest acid? Beats dreaming any day! I'm pretty damned convinced I saw gigantic purple, red and orange jellyfish floating in the sky one awesome afternoon after a rainstorm in college...

Sleep paralysis is when your mind wakes up during REM sleep but your body is still asleep, making you paralyzed. You are unable to move anything but your eyes. It is often (usually) accompanied by auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations which are usually terrifying and always utterly life-like (though not always possible in the real world... you could be visited by Cthulhu for instance). They are thought to explain people being fully convinced that they were abducted by aliens.


Just imagine. You wake up. You can't move. This freaks you out. Then you notice the most terrifying monster you can think of (literally... since it is you thinking of it) in the corner of your room. Then it comes up to you and touches you. And you feel it. But you cannot move. Yeah. It's like that. And then you black out and wake up later. Many people aren't always sure the whole instance wasn't a dream.


Anyway I also thought I was dying when it happened to me.

Had you heard of sleep paralysis before you had this? I did a quick read-up on lucid dreaming and I was intrigued. I already have an A on my hand and a notebook by my bed. I don't think I should worry about sleep paralysis because I'd know what's happening to me. Am I mistaked? I'm sure it would shake me a little bit, but certainly not as bad.

lol Chrisp that's awesome. I don't dream much anymore (or remember them at least), but I remember once I was dreaming about some snowy woods. I realized that I was dreaming and rubbed snow in my eyes to try and wake myself up. :D

@hunter - I've never done that, but I can remember ending dreams (well, nightmares) thinking "I hope this is a dream, I hope this is a dream"

I've done a fair amount of sleep pattern experimentation Long periods without sleep 84 hours one summer, trying to remember thoughts as I fall asleep, lucid dreaming too. I still haven't been to induce sleep paralysis, which I want to do at some stage if I can, although I may have experienced it at a really quite young age (7ish) and not realised what it was, so thought it was just a dream. My memory isn't good enough to really make a judgement on that any more.

Holy crap. I didn't that hallucinations were common accompaniments! That would have made it much worse! It was bad enough I thought I was going to die.

krellin, I don't think LSD and dreaming are similar experiences. I've also tried LSD, and at the very least, I am firmly in the first person perspective, though in dreams I am often looking at myself in the third person. Dreams have more of a muffled feel while LSD is clearer, sharper, but perhaps more disorienting.

Haha Hunter, nowadays I rarely want to wake up while I'm dreaming. If I do wake up, I'm often disappointed, but sometimes I can go back to sleep and continue on with the same dream, or at least it starts similar to the last one ended. Dreaming that you've woken up is disturbing, especially in the like 30 seconds after you've really woken up, but you're not quite sure if you actually have. The first 45 seconds of this music video illustrate the phenomenon well, though it doesn't happen nearly that fast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z_Ys3BO_4M

TGM, 84 hours? That's nuts! How was that? I've gone 48 hours max and it was only because I realized during a "sleepover" that I had been awake for 44 hours and I might as well go for an even 48. Those last four hours were absolutely brutal. I actually regret not just going to bed at 44 hours. Definitely an altered state of mind.

well. i've decided to try to lucid dream. i dunno. i'm still wary but not afraid anymore. i was just really creeped out by the idea last night and this morning. i think i can handle it now.

i keep reality checking myself and repeating "tonight i will have a lucid dream"

84 hours is horrible. I was trying to go for a full week, but i gave up with a massive headache.

lol only halfway there.

you might have died man.. i wouldn't recommend a second go

i keep reality checking myself and repeating "tonight i will have a lucid dream"

You and me both. I'll race you to it Thucydides. I tried it last night, but I could not remember the dream when I woke up. I tried to remember the emotion and all my brain could conjure was the word "plain." I'll have to try again tonight, and "yep," I'm awake because I didn't fall through that wall.

Ah, yes. Sleep paralysis. I get it pretty often actually, like once every two weeks. I will wake up during a lucid dream and not be able to move any of my muscles for about 15-30 seconds, except for my eyes. Although I've pretty much gotten used to it my body still panics every time.

I don't recall ever having sleep paralysis or lucid dreams.

But with this discussion in my mind last night, I had a dream in which I was trying to have lucid dreams and instead had what I thought in my dream was sleep paralysis except I could move a little bit more than just my eyes. It was a very vivid dream though and highly entertaining.

I often have very vivid dreams and can remember them after I wake up for long enough to think about them afterward but eventually lose the details. I could certainly write down my dreams if I had a journal next to my bed. I think I'll give it a go because this lucid dreaming stuff sounds very interesting.

Haha I would have thought, Alderian, that such a dream would have triggered lucidity... but I guess not.

Anyway, I remember waking up, remembering my dream, and thinking "damn it why didn't I take control?"

I always seem only to be able to *recall* the dream and never to think about it while I do it. I always seem to be unconscious during my dreams.

But I believe. Next time I will realize I am dreaming. No matter what.

My sister's boyfriend says he gets lucidity all the time. He really enjoys flying, lol.

I managed to have several lucid dreams last night, or, at least, I had greater dream recall than usual last night, after giving it a try.

Have there been any human cases of death by sleep deprivation? A lot of lower mammals straight up die if they're deprived, but while humans suffer pretty extreme cognitive and physical decline, I don't think they physically die from sleep deprivation. The world record stands at 11 days.

Did you get any of the hallucinations that supposedly accompany sleep deprivation? After just 44 hours, lights were very strange and I had trouble seeing detail in things, or focussing. Not a hallucination though, probably just the accomodation muscles in my eyes being absolutely exhausted. It was like I was permanently spaced out. I could see things best if they were like 2 metres away from me.

I haven't really read too much on lucid dreaming because I've never had to train to do it, but why is dream recall important? As far as I know, it's simply the realization that something happened that could only happen in a dream, and therefore you're in a dream that you can control. Is that what you mean by you've been reality checking yourself? That seems like it would work if you built up a habit of checking whether or not you were dreaming.

I recommend the following movie, which I think is pretty relevant to our discussion, and is an excellent film in its own right. Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abre_los_ojos

It was later remade into Vanilla Sky, starring Tom Cruise, for English audiences, but the original film with English subtitles is superior. It's one of the few films that might defy any consistent genre classifications as it's constantly changing. It starts off as a lighthearted romantic movie but soon after devolves, until by the end of the movie, you're wondering how it got into sci-fi! Don't read any spoilers! I'm sorry if you've already seen Vanilla Sky.

Oh, Dream recall is so that your lucid dreams aren't 'wasted' according to a site I went to, regarding the phenomena. If you don't remember a dream, then isn't any kind of awareness of it just that?

Yeah, you can lose lucid dreams just like any regular dream.

I know that I have a lot of very similar dreams. For example, I never dream of flying. Instead I merely dream that I can jump really high. It starts out where I can jump high like a basketball player but later on I'm jumping hundreds of feet in the air as I bound down the road. But it always seems SO real. Not realistic, but real. Like, of course I can jump that high, I've always been able to do it. And then I wake up and wonder why I didn't realize I was dreaming.

Maybe by recording my dreams I can drill into my brain the idea that these events are dreams so that when they happen in a dream I'll then become aware that no, I haven't always been able to do it except of course in dreams so this must be a dream.

My dreams might not be right for this. I never ever see my own body when I dream. It's as if I'm a camera. Also I usually do not see mundane details like clocks etc. Everything is very stripped down. I see things in general images which are kind of narrated by my mind. Like I see a place, I know what happened there, I move to another place. Kind of thing. Not always, there is dialogue, but even then... there just aren't a lot details. Even then nothing insane happens like flying etc. Just ridiculous locales usually or statements that don't make sense. From last night:

"You can't handle the rocking of the ship because you're a white boy. Too bad you're not black."

As in... white people have worse balance than blacks, or so says my subconscious it would seem.

So yeah. I dunno. It will work... but I bet when it does its not like other people's lucid dreams.

I have had Sleep Paralysis (can't move can't breathe) maybe 6-10 times. Scared the crap out of me. I found that if I wiggled my toes I could breathe again. I think my brain was having difficulty taking conscious control of breathing. If I focused on some other part of the body, sub-conscious control would take over.

Never had Lucid dreams. I believe I found the physiological cause for my episodes. The episodes would happen when I slept on a couch and my neck was in an awkward position. It wasn't until 15 years later in the age of the search engine that I found confirmation of this

I mention all this in hopes it will help anyone else going through the same.

hmm, keeping a dream journal would be interesting. I might join those of you that are already doing so. I can only remember a few dreams from my past, one which is very creepy because I feel like I've had it many times. But I don't know if I was dreaming that I had the same dream 4-5 times before, or if I really had the same dream... It involves a witch cursing someone (me?) and a giant birthday cake, and takes place in my childhood home's backyard. lol, anyone here know how to interpret dreams? :D

I'd say every few months I get a wave of them ever other night; no hallucination but somehow it's like my heart stopped, and I need to shake myself back to being awake or it's game over (which is pretty damn stupid, bloody unconscious mind)

Not sure what it is, but I'm not getting it these days. :-) Encouraging to know others get it though (if encouraging is the right word)