IGX

I’ve never really spoken about my experiences with sleep paralysis/nightmares to anyone in detail. I’ve had them since a young age. I also remember a period around age 6 or 7 having to take tablets to sleep through the night without the terrors. From memory the tablets helped.

Since then, up until the present, I’ve intermittently had the experiences. There are certain common themes, sometimes very lucid and horrific. At times, despite my pragmatic engineering/science upbringing, (or possibly because of other unexplained happenings over the years), I would ponder their almost supernatural/paranormal quality.

Most long term girlfriends have told me at one time or another that I ‘must have had a bad dream last night’, due to my behaviour or things I said in my sleep that woke them during the night.

Anyhow.
I watched that Netflix doco ‘The Nightmare’ about sleep paralysis.

Bloody hell...!
If you haven’t seen it, and have recurring sleep paralysis/nightmares, you must watch it. I won’t ruin it for you.

If you have seen it, I say Bloody hell because the experiences mentioned by some of the people in the doco are almost identical to those I’ve had since I was a child. Some of the more subtle nuances and details they mentioned made my hair stand up, due to the parallels with my experiences.

Has anyone here seen the movie and had similar experiences?
(I also look forward to hearing from our resident anaesthesiologist who might have some technical insights on this phenomena).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nig ... ican_film)

Double post

yeah I periodically had/have this experience. My wife tends to nip it in the bud now as usually I start hard, rapid breathing, (not quite hyperventilation but proper fearful breathing) and she wakes me up. She once copped for a headlock doing this but I came round pretty quickly, and traded the headlock for the more effective rear naked choke.

I'll watch that, cheers for heads up.

odin wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2019 12:39 pm yeah I periodically had/have this experience. My wife tends to nip it in the bud now as usually I start hard, rapid breathing, (not quite hyperventilation but proper fearful breathing) and she wakes me up. She once copped for a headlock doing this but I came round pretty quickly, and traded the headlock for the more effective rear naked choke.

I'll watch that, cheers for heads up.

Thanks for the reply Odin.
What happens in your dream? In the room? Is there a pattern?
Yes watch to doco. I’ll be interested to hear if you have any similar experiences.

Sleeping on my back and too much melatonin (supplements) seems to exacerbate mine.

Classic experience for me: dark menacing presence, dread and pressure making me immobile. I can usually self talk my way out of it, like a lucid dream. Once I wake up, I am fine.

With the too much melatonin, it happened 3x one night. I gave up and spent the rest of the night awake. Threw away the rest of the bottle.

I will pass on the film, thanks.

I had it from my mid twenties until around mid forties but since then it has dropped so significantly that I can't remember the last time. I do remember the dream though, same one every time. I even knew it was coming on and couldn't stop it.

Sometimes it would be several nights in a row and then stop for awhile. I hate that panicky feeling of being stuck in a horror movie loop unable to move.

I will have to watch the doc. Thanks for the tip.

riotboo wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2019 5:00 pm Sleeping on my back and too much melatonin (supplements) seems to exacerbate mine.

Classic experience for me: dark menacing presence, dread and pressure making me immobile. I can usually self talk my way out of it, like a lucid dream. Once I wake up, I am fine.

With the too much melatonin, it happened 3x one night. I gave up and spent the rest of the night awake. Threw away the rest of the bottle.

I will pass on the film, thanks.

I have read two other cases where melatonin supps exacerbated the problem.

Interestingly, when I was a young kid, sleeping on my back was how I could avoid the problem. Around the same time as the medication (6-8yo), I worked out that the shadows couldn’t pass the end of my bed if I saw them. They would stand ther, bare their teeth and make their faces change to scare me, but would keep their distance if I kept eyes on them and they weren’t able to sneak up.

Not that long ago, my mother was talking about my little nephews’ bed time rituals. Like being tucked in and having a book read to them before they will go to sleep. She said, the only thing you ever wanted was for me to make sure you were sleeping on your back.

I'll check out the vid. I think all of my 'nightmares' involve being unable to move or speak. I apparently make pitiful whiny noises that wake my wife up and then she wakes me up. I had a similar sensation in an MRI machine, I think a combination of being strapped in (paralyzed), blind (can't wear glasses in the machine), and claustrophobic. I was awake and conscious inside the machine so I made no pitiful whiny noises... ;)

Hey Terra, what have you got going on this weekend? Are you into camping? Let's put a plan together...I think I can help you (i.e. take advantage of) this problem.

Shapecharge wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2019 2:27 pm Hey Terra, what have you got going on this weekend? Are you into camping? Let's put a plan together...I think I can help you (i.e. take advantage of) this problem.

I have this when I'm over tired and cant get into rem sleep. Melatonin makes it much worse. Last time I took melatonin, I bit my husband rather savagely when he tried to wake me up from a terrible episode. Apparently, my jaw still worked. I dont take melatonin any more.

Shapecharge wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2019 2:27 pm Hey Terra, what have you got going on this weekend? Are you into camping? Let's put a plan together...I think I can help you (i.e. take advantage of) this problem.

syaigh wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 12:49 am I have this when I'm over tired and cant get into rem sleep. Melatonin makes it much worse. Last time I took melatonin, I bit my husband rather savagely when he tried to wake me up from a terrible episode. Apparently, my jaw still worked. I dont take melatonin any more.

Sure thing Shape, but I’ll be bringing Syaigh’s melatonin.

...And a shovel.

I know very little about this stuff. Except for some experience of my own. When I was a medical student we stole a few packs of GammaOxyButyrate ampoules. At the time (about 1983) it was used to induce anaesthesia, but it was perfectly suited for recreational use. If you drank it you got high, and you also lasted forever in bed. Once I took it to get a good sleep, and that's when I had my first encounter with sleep paralysis. I found myself in this semi-asleep state, not able to move and make a sound. I didn't know what to do. No presence of anything like some say, but some sort of semi-nightmare. Eventually I managed to make a grandiose effort and jolted myself back to wakefulness. That night I had another episode.

I am not sure if this medication sort of opened up some sort of gate in my head to the experience, but over the years I had it many times. On the average two-three times a year. Usually I start groaning and my wife wakes me up. She says sometimes it takes considerable amount of time, a minute or so.

I saw the movie, but my experience does not involve aliens, evil spirits or deceased relatives. Just the feeling of not being able to move and the state of a weird dreamy state.

What it is is anybody's guess. We have fuck all idea of how consciousness works, so I doubt anbody can come up with a meaningful explanation, except for "the evidence shows increased activity in the temporo-occipital region and predominant gamma activity on the EEG" sort of useless information.

Thanks for your comments Smet. There was some literature on the RAS and sleep pathologies, hence my question.

Apart from the mechanism for occurence, the other interesting point is the universal consistency of the shadow figures. What is the mechanism for that? There must be some deep (old) cross-cultural 'programming' somewhere in the brain for that to happen. These experiences occur to very young children for whom there are no previous reference to 'horror movie concepts' of what should be scary... Why doesn't the common phenomena involve, say, images of predatory animals? That would be imprinted somewhere deep, but the distorted 'shadow human' figure predominates. With some unsettling consistencies. It's not like there is a classic movie that all 3 year olds around the world are made to watch so they have the same nightmare.