[Cancun78]

I experience sleep paralysis all the time, just without the dream images. I've gotten used to it, I think I've actually taught myself to go into it just so I can gain control over it. Or try to. Lucid dreaming is a lot funner.

[disturbing18]

THANK GOD!!! this shit happened to me and i thought a fuckin ghost was holding me down. im glad im just stupid and not being haunted. thx for the post

[FuckYourAccount]

i figured there would be at least a few readers who were relieved after reading this thread - like I had said a few times before, if I hadn't known about SP before this happened, I would have sworn is was a paranomal experience.

[Flaka]

wow!

[Pcbpaintballer]

I have experienced this myself on several occasions. When I experience this I usually think something/someone is trying to harm me. I try and try to scream for help but cannot make a sound or I reach out to wake my spouse but cannot move. Like you, I can vividly remember the dream and my surroundings while semi conscience. I can hear my heart pounding while I am struggling to free myself and am always drenched with sweat when I become fully awake again. Even though I now understand what is happening to me, I still am so frightened by my the experience that I am afraid to go back to sleep for days and days. If this has never happened to you, then it is almost impossible to explain or understand. Thanks for sharing your insight.

[bellydancinb]

Very interesting post! Helps me to understand my dreams better.. I have extremely vivid dreams nearly every night and almost always remember them. The especially meaningful ones I write down. Strangely every other night or so I'll realize I'm dreaming and manipulate the dream in different ways. This is going to sound crazy, but before I go to sleep I remind myself to count my fingers in my dream to help me realize I am indeed dreaming (for some strange reason every time I count my fingers in a dream I have 6 on each hand! No shit). And once I'm dreaming somehow I remember that and count my fingers.. and once I realize I have 6 fingers it causes me to sleep-wake. I've had many instances of partially waking and being unable to move anything but my eyes and have difficulty breathing, but it's always so startling that after what feels like a few minutes I snap out of it.

[NaTaS]

yeah, neat dream.

[shoottokill]

intense stuff huh, lots of details in the post. thanks for sharing

[Sandbwoy]

Very interesting read, and reading this finally helped me realise what it was that I was experiencing a few years ago. I had several of these episodes over the space of about a month, and up until now I've never known what the hell it was, and whenever I tried to explain it to someone (other than some friends who had been having the same experiences) they couldn't offer an explanation for it either. While reading your description my heart kept beating faster, I'm excited that somebody else knows what it feels like!

I should mention that I used to take ecstacy tablets every weekend a few years ago, as I believe it was something to do with a particular batch of tablets that caused these episodes. I'm not bragging about taking drugs and I'm not exactly proud of it, but it's important that I point this out. During the weekends when we had these pills we didn't get much sleep, just stayed up all weekend drinking and having a laugh. Then a couple of nights after taking them, I would repeatedly encounter sleep paralysis while I was trying to drop off to sleep.

I was still half conscious, but was aware that I was also half dreaming, falling into a deeper state of consciousness. But before I could drop fully to sleep I found myself paralysed, like someone was pinning me down and not allowing me to move, and a great sense of fear overcame me. I kept having to shake myself to get rid of the sensation, but because I was paralysed it took a while for me to do this. Sometimes this would happen a couple of times in the same night, to the point where I was scared of falling to sleep.

After a while, when this particular batch of tablets had gone and another batch was around, all these episodes stopped completely. That's why I think it was connected to these particular tablets. And I wasn't the only one having these episodes, a few of my friends had similar experiences.

I'm so glad I've finally found out the proper term for naming these episodes, I've wanted to know this for years!

[Sandbwoy]

FuckYourAccount, check out this thread:

http://www.documentingreality.com/fo...hat-man-42338/

The way you descibed the dark figure you saw in your room, reminded me of this thread. A phenomenon known as "shadow people" that come in the night, inflicting fear upon their victims and choking them. Sounds to me like sleep paralysis?