to ask whether anyone suffers from sleep-induced temporary paralysis and related hallucinations?

[holmesgirl]

I believe they're fairly common and attached to stress/anxiety. Mine have been ongoing (sporadically) for over ten years now. They are so vivid and the hallucinations really are terrifying.

If you've had them or similar night terrors what are your experiences like?

Mine are pretty text book. I hear loud footsteps stomping round my bed, then feel a massive pressure on my chest and try to scream or force myself awake but I'm totally paralysed (I can feel my eyelashes flickering though...). Or worse, I have the hallucinations - usually a malevolent witch-type old lady coming towards me from the bottom of my bed. Hideous... :/

The first time it happened to me I was 21yo. My parents had just moved house (I was still at home) and I was convinced their new house was haunted - until I described what had happened to my mum - and a colleague - and they'd both had similar experiences in the past...

Tell me your story :)

I frequently wake up in the middle of the night and I am unable to remember where I am. I am in my own bedroom in the house where I have lived for years with DP so it shouldn't happen but sometimes it takes a couple of minutes of blind panic to remember where I am and who he is.

No alcohol or drugs involved just a total blank upon awakening.

I don't get it nearly as badly as some people on this thread, but I have had it.

It's usually when I'm taking a nap but haven't set an alarm, but have said, "I must get up before Xo'clock". This is often in conjunction with jet lag, but not always.

I then, because I haven't set the alarm, spend what feels like the whole time of the nap dreaming it's time to get up, start getting up and going about my business and then realise I'm still asleep and still lying down. So I get up, start going about my business, realise I'm still asleep and still lying down, so I get up. But I never do get up and know I'm lying down and I can't get up.

This goes on in a horrible circle until finally something does properly wake me up, like a noise from outside or DH waking me up. It's pretty awful, even without additional nightmares attached to it.

Are you being unreasonable about what?

I haven't read all your replies, but I used to have this regularly. For years I truly thought I was haunted (me, rather than my house, as it happened wherever I was).

When I was younger I would wake up with a heavy feeling of something pressing on me but couldn't move or get any words out, and a couple of times there was also a 'thing' floating directly over me, which seemed to be sucking my breath out of me - horrible .

My most common one though is waking up and seeing a tall figure either my side of the bed staring at me, or at the end of the bed. I try to scream and get up but it takes ages to manage it, by which time the figure has disappeared - at which point I manage to start shouting 'help' but there's nothing there anymore . I also used to regularly see bubbles floating around my head (I thought they were orbs and big black butterflies hovering over me. Sometimes it's been quite funny - I've shouted at DH to 'catch the pony in the corner' before and to 'tell those gnomes to shut up and stop poking me' .

A year or so ago sleep paralysis and night terrors were discussed on Embarrasing Illnesses - and they described exactly what happens to me. Up until the point where I saw that programme, I really thought it was something spooky happening to me. I can't remember where now, but either on that programme or by Googling, I saw some tips to help prevent it happening. A main one was not eating a big meal late at night and not going to bed dehydrated - and for some reason, not allowing yourself to fall asleep on your back - always turn on your side. Since I've tried to follow that, it's hardly happened. Actually the one time it has recently, I had fallen asleep on my back.

Yes, all the time. Worse when I'm stressed, but at least once a week even when I'm perfectly calm and serene.

Before I had children (or cats) I saw a lot of spiders and scorpions; these days it's generally something terrible happening to either the children or the cats. Oh, and once I thought my DH had turned the bedclothes see-through and installed a camera in one corner so he could spy on me while I slept.

Usually I sit up, scream the place down, realise it's not real, lie down, wait for the adrenaline rush to dissipate and go back to sleep. DH used to wake up in a panic right along with me (just in case there really was a gigantic spider letting itself down from the ceiling on a huge rope of silk to steal DS or DD), but these days he mostly sleeps through it.

The other thing I do (which I usually have no memory of) is wake him up and make him talk to me about problems I have invented for the occasion. If he tries to palm me off with "Shut up and go back to sleep" I get cross, and demand that he take me seriously.

When he leaves his underpants on the floor and I'm thinking about making him go and live in the shed instead, I remind myself that he has to put up with some quite annoying things too really.