My sleep paralysis is different

[Firsttimeinforeve]

To anything I have read about.

I don't have hallucinations I just wake up unable to move and struggling to breath properly.

Every inch of my body feels different like restless legs and I feel like I'm being dragged to sleep but not in a tired way but in a drugged way.

I can force myself out of it if I move a finger or toe and keep forcing myself to move before that dragging feeling forces me back to sleep. I then sit up, shake it off and try to back to sleep normally.

I can move my eyes, snort loudly and sometimes, very weakly call out.

The moment someone says my name I can fully move. So just now I had it and I'm staring at my husband trying to snort to get him to wake up and say my name so I can sit up.

I had this yesterday too but it was all night long in cycles as he slept on the sofa so I couldn't fully snap out of it.

In everything I've read it says it isn't dangerous and that you can't wake yourself out of it. I have experienced both.

Once I fell asleep during the day time with my face facing the sofa. My children were playing around the sitting room and watching TV. I woke up with the sofa blocking my nose and mouth and I couldn't breath. I was trying to make noise and move as much as I could but no one noticed and called me or shook me. I could feel myself passing out. I managed to get out of it by sheer force but I feel like I could've suffocated on the sofa. Now I never sleep with my face being covered.

I'm scared that one day I will die in my sleep and people will think I quietly slipped away when in fact it was a battle.

I can still feel the feelings in my legs so I know if I go to sleep now it will happen again and I don't feel safe.

I can go months without it, I'm sure even a year but I could than have weeks of it every night.

Does anyone have it similar to me, with no hallucinations?

Have you seen a GP about this?

Yes @Firsttimeinforeve exactly the same for me.

You don’t need to see a GP, it’s unpleasant, but it’s sleep paralysis and they can’t do anything. I avoid sleeping in the daytime or having a lie-in, this seems to help.

Yes. I don’t have hallucinations, but I just find myself stuck and my breathing feels ‘heavy’ and I feel drugged and like I’m fighting to wake up but being pulled back into sleep. I have been trapped like this for up to 30 minutes (which I only knew because I heard a text arrive to my phone but by the time I was able to fully wake up, the text had been there for 30 minutes).
It happens more if I nap in the daytime.

Out of curiosity, are you a very vivid dreamer? Do you remember every dream and feel like you dream all night, waking up exhausted?

Op, that sounds terrifying. Mine is very different and probably typical, sensing a presence in the room, feeling a weight on top of me, seeing a shadowy outline. I'll never get used to it. It's all very malevolent.

I try to avoid naps now and its definitely helped

Yes this is exactly how it is for me, i thought from the name ‘sleep paralysis’ that was normal, to be paralysed by sleep.

Have you had your thyroid levels checked? A bit random I know, but for me and a women I used to work with our sleep paralysis both started when our thyroid started not working correctly and it's always one of the indicators for us that our thyroxine levels need adjusting when our sleep paralysis comes back

I’m very similar op, my brain is awake but not my body.
It doesn’t feel like a normal drifting off to sleep, difficult to explain, but as though I’m slipping away and I have to fight it or I’ll never wake up. Sounds dramatic but it still scares me.
I can usually make a small sound and DP knows that if he touches my arm and speaks to me, it brings me round.