# Sleep paralysis/shadow dreams/excessively gorey, terrifying nightmares?



## Narrator (Oct 11, 2009)

Who else has experienced them?

What were they like? What happened in the dream(s)? Were they more vivid than usual/in a time when you had more vivid dreams than usual? Were there particular themes: colour/symbols etc?

Were they the result of particular times/stresses/trauma in your life?


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## Nearsification (Jan 3, 2010)

Uhg... memories the scariest thing in the world. I swear I could not move and aliens were above my bed just watching me..

What were they like? Fucking scary
What happened in the dream(s)? Only happened once and I could not move and aliens were above my bed watching me..

Were they more vivid than usual/in a time when you had more vivid dreams than usual? Way more vivid then a normal dream. I still think it could of been real aliens...

Were they the result of particular times/stresses/trauma in your life? I became an over paranoid alien freak.

The aliens were watching be with there big scary eyes.....


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## mutton (Jan 21, 2010)

Sleep paralysis is nasty. I've had reoccuring bouts of it over the years. Normally they are triggerd by stress, but with narcolepsy in the family episodes are triggered very easily. While most people only experience it once or twice in their lives I have the pleasure of having multiple episodes a year. (Yay, me)

What were they like? One of the main things that happens in sleep paralysis is that you become 100% certain you will die if you fall back asleep, which leads to a complete panic in which you try in vain to move anything that will make you start working again. With a lot of effort, you can train yourself not to do this, but it does go against normal reaction- especially if you are seeing something scary at the time. Hallucinations are so wonderful. You can stare out into your room, but you have a dream playing over top of what you are seeing- and you can't do anything. Then of course there is the wonderful sensation of something large and heavy sitting on your chest preventing you from breathing. While I've only felt it and have not seen anything, from what I understand demons and aliens are common to see when this happens nowadays, while witches were common in days gone by.

In my family we've taught ourselves to wiggle our toes in hopes that someone will notice and shake us awake. So you'll look over to someone napping, and their eyes are half open and their toes are moving frantically...it's a little creepy.


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## Miraji (Mar 12, 2010)

well I have chronic Insomnia, so i dont dream much but when i do most of my dreams are hints to what will happen in my life, most of my dreams comes true (terrifying) 

but i remember 2 dreams that i will never forget: they were soo dramatic and scary.. i woke up crying, cant breath easily and shaking as if its real..it took me some minutes to realise it was a dream 

moreover, i have several dreams that i only remember some vivid parts of them or i cant tell was it a dream of just some imaginary things


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## Quin Sabe (Jan 26, 2010)

My nightmares only rarely occur but they seem to always involve me having to wake myself up by screaming. The last one I succeeded but I woke up in a dream state before I actually woke up. I was being choked and was paralyzed, the only way for me to fight back was to yell, which ended up being a whimper in real life, lol 
What's interesting is my dad will do the same thing, it's crazy.

From time to time I will awake from a really good dream with a intense feeling of peace, well-being and happiness.


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## Treeton (Mar 10, 2010)

I've experienced Sleep Paralysis, though I could never find out the cause. I do have this sleeping condition where i'll scream bloody murder in my sleep/ wake up screaming, which is usually triggered by times of incredible stress and/or anxiety. Its weird, because I won't be dreaming about anything eve remotely scary, or if I do, I don't remember the dream at all.


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## Vaka (Feb 26, 2010)

I've had those shadow dreams/sleep paralysis dreams...I had the same one everyday for what felt like a year when I was in elementary!
Very scary...it seems like it would happen when I had trouble falling asleep more often...I'm not sure why, but I did have sleeping problems when I wasin elementary. IDK if it was something to do with ADHD or what. 
But I would be in sleep paralysis and get the hallucination of a shadow figure walking upto my bed...It was a malevolent character. I would feel like it would suck the life out of me somewhat, but I honestly think that had something to do with my standing fan...the noise and the air because I always had it on high. I figured out that i had to try, and try to sit up and if I did, it would go away. I would have other types of hallucinations like seeing shadows all aorund the room or feeling peope touch me

THinking about it, this may have had something to do with my anxiety. I have had social anxiety for most of my life, but the type of anxiety I had when I was a kid was different...I always thought bad things were gonna happen and I think that made me have nightmares


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## marked174 (Feb 24, 2010)

NearsToys said:


> Uhg... memories the scariest thing in the world. I swear I could not move and aliens were above my bed just watching me..
> 
> What were they like? Fucking scary
> What happened in the dream(s)? Only happened once and I could not move and aliens were above my bed watching me..
> ...


 Dude, you got fing abducted. Check for implants.


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## Vaka (Feb 26, 2010)

marked174 said:


> Dude, you got fing abducted. Check for implants.


I agree...but this reminds me of my idea that alot of people who get abducted by aliens were just experiencing this sleep paralysis because some descriptions of it seems like that. Not that I'm not into extra terrestrial...I am! I just believe in exxing out every other possibility...but an implant of some material made up of unidentifiable elements would be pretty hardcore!

Were you kidding? If so, then I hope you don't think I'm crazy because i wasn't xD


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## Collossus (Dec 14, 2009)

I had sleep paralysis, but never experienced scary moments in it. On contrary, I even felt euforical, like somebody would come and hug me.
It all depends on what you believe about it. 
I even had an experience in sleep paralysis, when I would get out of my physical body, but still feeling it, like 2 entities to control at once. It was fuzzy but not scary at all.


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## Vaka (Feb 26, 2010)

Collossus said:


> I had sleep paralysis, but never experienced scary moments in it. On contrary, I even felt euforical, like somebody would come and hug me.
> It all depends on what you believe about it.


That's odd considering most people are afraid during sleep paralysis...there's a reason why, but I'm tired and don't feel like going in depth hehe

Actually forget that...I used to have other kinds of hallucinations when Iwas in elementary also...some were not good, but they weren't bad either, just neutral


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## Collossus (Dec 14, 2009)

queenofleaves said:


> That's odd considering most people are afraid during sleep paralysis...there's a reason why, but I'm tired and don't feel like going in depth hehe


They are afraid because they believe that they have to be afraid, that's why.
So your physical body is shut down. So what, this really means it is something wrong? Not at all, it is a normal part of the sleep cycle. Use it wise to give yourself new 'real' experiences, without any kind of drug.


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## FiNe SiTe (Dec 11, 2009)

I use to get Night-terras. The're worse than nightmares.
I used to dream/imagine my teddy bears would come alive to kill me. If I ever saw a scary commercial or movie i would have night-terras. 
I still to this day can't watch horror films because I get freaked out.


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## Narrator (Oct 11, 2009)

mutton said:


> While I've only felt it and have not seen anything, from what I understand demons and aliens are common to see when this happens nowadays, while witches were common in days gone by.
> 
> In my family we've taught ourselves to wiggle our toes in hopes that someone will notice and shake us awake. So you'll look over to someone napping, and their eyes are half open and their toes are moving frantically...it's a little creepy.


That's pretty interesting, I eventually managed teach myself to work up the...power to shake my head, only by a tiny amount, but it's sort've worked.

I also don't find it's deamons or aliens in those where there are creatures - rather my shadow, and in another a creature I thought was my mum, but was definately not. She felt sort've like a hag/witch/alien, though didn't look at all like a typical picture of an alien, though I couldn't see her face very well at all behind all her hair.



Collossus said:


> They are afraid because they believe that they have to be afraid, that's why.
> So your physical body is shut down. So what, this really means it is something wrong? Not at all, it is a normal part of the sleep cycle. Use it wise to give yourself new 'real' experiences, without any kind of drug.


 
The first I had was a shadow dream combining with sleep paralysis, the second was with a creature I thought was my mum but then turned on the freaky vibes. _It wasn't so much my body being shut down I found scary_, _more the creatures_ that were there with me utterly vulnerable, and the aura of utter...darkness...and wrongness. That of unknown, indescribable badness and perversity.

Also in dreams where I didn't come into contact with my shadow as a being - more that it inhabited the environment, I would experience the sensations of being inside a scream - it was sort've silent, but utterly deafening, like my world was shaking _so_, so violently. Has anyone else experience a feeling like that? It's almost impossible to describe...like other elements of shadow dreams. Like in your dream you hear sounds, but because they're in your head they're silent at the same time...like the _whole _of my inner world was being...blasted with this wave of _horrible _noise and sensation/feeling...Completely _overwhelming _me...Like a feeling made noise.


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## Mollynotdadog (Mar 14, 2010)

My girlfriend has had them and told me about them. She actually enjoys them.


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## Narrator (Oct 11, 2009)

Mollynotdadog said:


> My girlfriend has had them and told me about them. She actually enjoys them.


Depending on the dream, they could swing towards lucid dreaming, I don't know much about it, but perhaps it's fun as an altered state of consciousness. Does she experience contact with/dream about creatures/spirits/aliens?


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## Mollynotdadog (Mar 14, 2010)

Liminality said:


> Depending on the dream, they could swing towards lucid dreaming, I don't know much about it, but perhaps it's fun as an altered state of consciousness. Does she experience contact with/dream about creatures/spirits/aliens?


She told me she was scared one time, she said one time she could smell, hear and see a lit up figure in the corner. He had little lit up figures bowing down to him and he sliced their heads of one by one and they fell into a fiery pit while he sat there emotionless. 
Other than that she enjoy the hallucinations though they're not lucid, she has no control (which she enjoys more). But then again she's an NT so what do you expect :tongue:.


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## Vaka (Feb 26, 2010)

Collossus said:


> They are afraid because they believe that they have to be afraid, that's why.
> So your physical body is shut down. So what, this really means it is something wrong? Not at all, it is a normal part of the sleep cycle. Use it wise to give yourself new 'real' experiences, without any kind of drug.


What I heard was that the part of the brain that makes you afraid or controls your fear is overactive when you're in sleep mode


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## marked174 (Feb 24, 2010)

queenofleaves said:


> I agree...but this reminds me of my idea that alot of people who get abducted by aliens were just experiencing this sleep paralysis because some descriptions of it seems like that. Not that I'm not into extra terrestrial...I am! I just believe in exxing out every other possibility...but an implant of some material made up of unidentifiable elements would be pretty hardcore!
> 
> Were you kidding? If so, then I hope you don't think I'm crazy because i wasn't xD


 What? you're one of "those" people? I'm not sure we can be friends anymore.:wink:


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## Mutatio NOmenis (Jun 22, 2009)

I rarely have nightmares, although once I dreamt that I was playing Doom 3 and got stranded in hell. Then I was chased by every single thing in the series, from zombies to the maledict. I found a luminoth sword and began fighting back, but then a demon entered my mind and dueled me in there before possessing my body and forcing myself to be flat against a rock while I was disembowled by the maledict.


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## Inner Cosmos (Oct 22, 2008)

Mutatio NOmenis said:


> I rarely have nightmares, although once I dreamt that I was playing Doom 3 and got stranded in hell. Then I was chased by every single thing in the series, from zombies to the maledict. I found a luminoth sword and began fighting back, but then a demon entered my mind and dueled me in there before possessing my body and forcing myself to be flat against a rock while I was disembowled by the maledict.


I hate it when that happens.

I watched the movie "fire in the sky" and something about the aliens seemed to hit an archetype in me. I was so scared of aliens I would look outside the shower to see if they we're coming in the bathroom. I then had TERRIFYING dreams of alien like creatures present with me in some place or other. Like one time I was dreaming that I was in my actual bedroom and a 10 foot gecko with those Alien "Grey" big eyes ploped down from the ceiling next to me. I actually started choking the shit out of it then woke up scared as hell. Then I started seeing a little boy in my dream whose face was blurred out. It terrified me just like the gecko. I ultimately kept trying to face the feelings even though it was making me paranoid the more I tried. Gradually after repeated experiences I realized that the aliens and the boy were aspects of ME!? The "greys" were simultaneously my cold non- empathetic side while also being a sense of self mastery and high intelligence. The boy was my alienated inner child. Basically I was confronting my Shadow. Once I realized this and that they were lost parts of myself the paranoia instantly vanished forever like magic and I feel I understand this whole alien epidemic we've been going through the past half century. The fear is sooo bad because it lives behind all you defense mechanisms like a covert agent or something. Your helpless and your body knows it somehow, it responses with maximum terror until you feel enough of it to start putting things together.


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## Neon Knight (Aug 11, 2010)

Nightmares are a part of my life, gory, terrifying and ones where I'm being chased/persecuted are a constant.

When I believed in the supernatural, as a teen I had sleep paralysis 4 times that were experienced exactly the same. The first time I woke up I saw this ghostly monster thing in the upper corner of my room and it was in the middle of the night so it was dark and this thing was speaking in a language I couldn't understand and laughing. I had woken up on my back (I never slept on my back) and my hands underneath my pillow and I couldn't move no matter how I struggled, when I finally "got free" I reached for my night light (Yeah that will be sure to make the scary monster go away!) and turned it on and it was over. The next time it was in the other corner, closer to me with everything else exactly same thing. The 3rd night it was right in front of my face, everything else same thing. The 4th time I had it happen within a dream and the thing pulled me under the bed I was in (I think a hospital bed in the dream) and when I woke up I was half way off my own bed like I had been pulled out. I'm so glad I don't believe in that stuff any more lol.

More recently, I was taking a medication that gave me sleep hallucinations where it felt like something was whispering in my ear and tickling the small of my back. This happened several times throughout the night where I believed I woke up but I'm still not even sure if I woke up or not, but it was a real struggle to wake up and stay awake and when I did wake, I did not want to go back to sleep no matter what. It took a while for me to figure out it was a medication causing it and to this day I refuse to take it when I know I'm going to sleep any time soon.

All of these feel very real when happening and I often wake up exhausted as if I really was running, struggling or fighting, etc.


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## pinktees (Feb 18, 2010)

I used to involuntarily lucid dream a lot in high school, with these dreams came my first bout with sleep paralysis, a giant red skull engulfed by red smoke hovering over me. Purely malevolent. I instantly 'knew' it wanted to suck the life from me. Its only happened once again since, in college. 

What got me was how detailed and massive the hallucination was, the trail of red smoke covered the entire ceiling of my bedroom, the skull massive and bearing down on me. My room seemed to glow red, I thought I was loosing my mind. The pressure on my chest was the nail in the coffin for me, I didn't sleep peacefully for a week after.

I've read that lucid dreaming makes it more likely to experience sleep paralysis which sucks because lucid dreaming is AWESOME.

Its to this day the most terrifying experience of my life.


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## Neon Knight (Aug 11, 2010)

Interestingly similar. I've had the skull thing too but I was under the influence of something at the time but I know the feeling at least lol. This thing was the size of a house and it came at me about to swallow me whole. What is it with skulls? That's especially weird for me because I used to and still draw them and love wearing anything with them on it, etc. I even wanted my own human one if I could have had one I'd have been utterly fascinated just having it like it has some kind of mystical powers or something but I wasn't wanting it for those reasons, kind of hard to explain really.

The medication one was particularly hard to take because I needed it at the time and it was going to take a while to come off it which I was luckily able to do. I have no idea what a pleasant lucid dream is or what it'd be like :sad:


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## iDane (Mar 25, 2010)

I have delt with Sleep paralysis most of my life. It used to terrify me as a young child, I remember being convinced that I was being abducted by aliens on more than one occasion. I would outright refuse to sleep at times.

It's hard to explain without sounding... odd, but i've really come to enjoy the episodes. I find the whole experince intensely euphoric and strangely... *ahem*... pleasurable at times.


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## Shine (Jul 16, 2010)

I started having problems with it last year. Is it at all connected to stress or depression? I find that it happens more often when I'm feeling depressed. There was a period of time where I was experiencing it almost every night.


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## gbboone (Jun 8, 2010)

My OCD makes sleep a problem. I stay awake about an hour each night doing rituals before I collapse. If I fall asleep before I feel I do it right nothing happens, though. It usually has to do with pedophiles abducting me. When I was little, it had to do with a "scary" cartoon character.


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## Neon Knight (Aug 11, 2010)

Shine said:


> I started having problems with it last year. Is it at all connected to stress or depression? I find that it happens more often when I'm feeling depressed. There was a period of time where I was experiencing it almost every night.


Probably. Or at least could be because I know I was very stressed and quite depressed during my school ones.


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