Do you suffer from sleep paralysis?

[SeptemberSon]

Was having a conversation with a colleague about this earlier today.

I've suffered from SP since my early teens. Usually happens when I sleep too much (like when I have a lie in). I get a really high pitched noise like a ray gun in my head, feel a really ominous sinister presence in the room then realise I can breathe but cannot move any part of my body. It terrifies me every time even though I know it passes in a few seconds. My colleague has something similar but she gets a loud clicking, same sinister presence and same paralysis. What are everyone else's experiences with sleep paralysis??

I used to and sometimes do now. I got it when overly tired. I have had the feeling of someone in bed with me. I eventually learnt to stop fighting it and to try and relax back to sleep. Doesn't work all the time though.

Very often when I was teenager but very infrequently now.
Similar experience to you - I can hear something coming up the stairs and into my room, a presence like a big dark mass, sometimes I can feel its weight on top of me. I feel like I'm trying to fight it off but unable to move
Terrifying

No noise, but so completely sure that if I could turn the light on, there would be an old, witch like woman on the other side of the room that wanted to harm me. I'd reach for the lamp and discover I couldn't move at all.
This hasn't happened in years but the fear still feels very real.
It's a terrifying phenomenon.

Only had it the once when I was a late teen but I had the full-blown - demon sat on my chest while I couldn't move or scream - thing. Once was enough.

I used to have it all the time but it was always burglars in the house and I couldn’t move.
I relaxed about it by reading a lot about it.
Sometimes I could see the clock and watch the time and it went on for 30 minutes or more but perhaps I was dreaming the clock.

This is the same for me. Barely happens now but had it a lot in my twenties. The fear in that moment will always stick with me, they're terrifying.

I'd like to add that I was fascinated when I discovered this wasn't just something that happened to me.

Yes, a couple of times. Can’t move, feeling a presence that is evil, shaking the bed, feeling like something is climbing up me. It is terrifying.

I also had one once, just after DS was born, where I was asleep and could feel DD crawling all over me, but my eyes were open and I could see her asleep in her toddler bed next to ours.

It doesn’t happen very often but it is terrifying when it does.
I once asked DH if he ever had it too and he pretty much thought I was crazy.

Used to get it a couple of times a month up until I was around 27 and it's tapered off the last few years.

Mine was always a dark figure, my therapist said this represented a physical form of anxiety, and I could never get away quick enough. Absolutely awful being terrified and not able to move, talk or wake DH up.

I always have to get up, go downstairs and get a drink after, helps bring me back into reality but it's horrible and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

@Wakinguptooearly

Yes it would be fascinating if it wasn't so terrifying !
Probably accounts for what people think of as ghosts.
Whilst I don't have these often now, I do have very weird dreams and have also experienced lucid dreaming.

@Jewel1968 odd that you say this. I've experienced sp once. For some reason my mind decided that the creature sat on my chest was a dear friend who died years before this happened. My mind told him that he was very we!come, but could he please get off my chest as it hurt. I then woke up properly and swiftly fell back to sleep.

I think I was lucky that my mind, quite independently, decided the phenomenon was a friend, so I wasn't even slightly frightened.

I had it occasionally as a child and teen, and then had an awful, intense period in my twenties where I had it very frequently.

I feel like a terrific force is pulling me towards it, like a huge magnet, and feel a sinister presence in the room. A couple of times I thought there was a dark, demon like figure in the corner of my room. Sometimes I have the high pitched sound and then a deafening sort of rushing sound in my ears just before I properly wake up and can move again.

Haven’t had it in years now, happily. I know rationally it’s an explainable phenomenon but it’s horrible when you’re going through it.

This has happened to me. First time I was in my 20s and I saw this alien creature sitting on my chest and trying to touch my face and again more recently when I saw a headless figure dressed in rags standing right next to the bed. It can be terrifying!

I'm get it when I am stressed. I feel someone coming up the stairs and about to enter the room. They never actually come in and I can't visualise them clearly but it has a strong evil presence.

I am frozen and unable to scream. I yelp a bit apparently according to DH. It seems to take ages to wake up but I'm not sure how long it really is.

I feel for everyone who has this, I hate it.

@Ted27 that's a really good point regarding ghosts. I wonder if this is what people are experiencing.
Rather that way round than believing all the posters on this thread have been haunted 😬

Yes! Frequently unfortunately 😔
Mostly if i nod off on the sofa or drift back off to sleep in bed when its morning ,
Im asleep but i am not.
My brain is the only part awake!!

I get a sense of restricted breathing and a presence around me with noises, I count in my head to 3 and try to " jolt" myself awake. Doesn't always work.
But its absolutely horrendous and pretty damn scary!!
I can also feel it happening sometimes. Like my body is slowly becoming a statue and there is nothing else i can do but wait till it's over.

Its hard to explain to anyone who has never experienced it.

Yes and I've had a couple of bloody terrifying incidence of it recently. I'm 'awake' something grabs me round my ankles and pulls me to the bottom of the bed. It flings me about and I have no control over my body then it seems to possess me and I can feel it rippling through my body like it's in me. It's so scary.
I've not had it happen for a good ten years until recently

I think this phenomenon could well be the reason for ghostly encounters. How often do people who say they have seen a ghost describe ‘a figure standing at the end of the bed’?

I get this when I fall asleep on sofa. So far never in bed. I am frozen and can't move or speak but have tight feeling in chest. Terrifying and sometimes it lasts ages.

I've had it on and off since adolescence. As other have said, it's usually when I'm overly tired or stressed, and always when I'm sleeping a time I normally wouldn't (like a daytime nap, or if I fall asleep before bedtime).

No visual hallucinations for me, those sound horrifying. I usually hear the children screaming like something terrible is happening to them but I can't open my eyes or move. In the last 5 or so years I've become more aware that it's SP when it happens and try to stay calm, but I'm claustrophobic as well, so that feeling of being trapped inside my own unresponsive body is just as terrifying.

Had no idea it happened to other people till I was in my 30s and just assumed I was having horrific dreams.

I’ve had it once. It was terrifying. I didn’t see the shadow person that lots of people talk about. I just knew I was awake but couldn’t move or make a sound.

I get it but there's nothing scary or sinister (like a witch or demon), I just can't move at all.
Such an awful feeling.

I've figured out it only happens when I sleep on my back so I never ever sleep on my back now and I've not had an episode in years.

Whilst sleeping during the day after working nights as a nurse.

Later when my job involved a lot of driving. If I stopped to have a rest in a motorway service station. I would doze off in the car and be aware of someone trying to get in the car, should someone even close a car door close by, I would actually wake up.

Eventually I stopped being scared of it.

Yes has happened to me since I was a teen. I still remember the first time. I thought I was dead. Usually like others if I doze in bed in the morning. I try to concentrate on moving my little finger to get me out of it.

I used to have the sensation of a dark figure in the room but now I have the sensation that
my children are in danger and I can't help them because I can't move.

The only prolonged period where it never happened was when I was on SSRIs for depression, which is interesting I think. It's awful, ruins a lie in for me.

Yes I get this regularly - I didn’t realise it was a thing! It’s always an animal of some sort that I think I see - more frequently a small animal like a rat, occasionally a lion or something similar. I wake up terrified and can’t move for what seems like ages.