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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

...to ask about your experiences of sleep paralysis?

73 replies

ThistleAmore · 21/09/2018 11:35

Just read a fascinating article which claims that around 75% of adults will experience SP at some point in their lives - I had no idea the numbers were so large!

I had a few nasty bouts when I was in my late teens and early 20s (along with chronic insomnia, depression and anxiety - yeah, that was a fun time!), but they tailed off as I grew older and I don't think I've had an episode for about two or three years.

What are your experiences?

OP posts:

cricketmum84 · 21/09/2018 19:58

Yes I've had this for about 15 years now. Always worse when I'm more tired than usual. When I was younger I would have terrifying hallucinations with it of something dragging me out of bed by my feet. Nowadays it starts with the buzzing noise and I get a feeling of utter dread knowing it's about to start. It feels like someone is laying on top of me holding me down and I'm desperately trying to make a noise so my husband hears me. Usually my husband hears me moaning and just a touch from him will bring me back round. It's awful.

BippityBoppity87 · 21/09/2018 19:59

@roundtable I get the bed shaking thing too, I thought it was just me! Haven't had it in a while though, but it's a very strange experience. I was convinced it was an evil presence too (although I'm not religious)

KurriKurri · 21/09/2018 20:31

I get this - I hate it, It always feels as if something terrifying is happening and I des[erately want to scream but no sound will come out. I wake up gasping and heart beating really fast. Horrible.
It's always when I am going through a bout of insomnia, stress or depression.
I also get auditory hallucinations - presume they are linked - usually sounds like a very menacing voice shouting right into my ear. Often just one word, but it is really frightening for a few seconds until I realise what is happening.

Magenta123 · 21/09/2018 20:32

When I first experienced this in 1990 there was no Internet. I went to the library and found only one book with just a sentence on SP. I really believed I was being abducted by aliens or it was supernatural and didn't tell anyone.. There was no information. but reading the other reports here, CRICKETSMUM84 .. Exactly the same about being touched by husbsnd brought me out of it,and he does when it happens( he hears me making noises) as thankfully he believes me, and BOOPSY pushing through the window to glide and fly around the night sky!!! I do this!! So real!! I see our houses..the telephone wires..the street lights,the cool air. The whole neighbourhood.

Monr0e · 21/09/2018 20:39

I've had these since I was a child. I can go months without them but my most recent was last night.

My experiences are very similar to Tunnocks34. There is usually the feeling of something sitting or lying across the top of me. Once a faceless woman, once a witch like creature. There's been many over the years. Always with a huge sense of evil, knowing the want to cause me harm. I've had times when I've put my hands up to push them away and they've bitten my fingers or pushed my face down.
They are completely terrifying. The only way I can break it is to concentrate everything on shaking my head and sometimes moaning.

I get them when I'm over tired, too hot and only when I'm lay on my back.

My DM gets them too and my DS has night terrors and I've read they can be hereditary.

AwaywiththePharaohs · 21/09/2018 22:15

I get it occasionally, never at night, just the occasional daytime nap in bed.
I've had a deep sleep and know I've got to wake up but my body can't move, sometimes i feel that I walk into the kitchen and make a drink but that I'm still actually asleep so can't move my limbs properly.
Then I do wake up.

I put it down to exhaustion.

FaFoutis · 21/09/2018 22:17

I have had it since I was a teenager but I have never met anyone else in real life who has.

Feelings · 21/09/2018 22:36

Can I ask if anybody has had voices upon waking, sort of asleep but awake?

I've tried to google this in this past and I knew it wasn't proper sleep paralysis, it's sort of a lucid state.

Though the scary part is even when I actually fully awaken the noise is still there and then after a few moments it disappears.

I've only had two episodes of this, first one scares me the most, was a crying baby that turned into an awful relentless laughing, I actually got up mid sleep to go check on my DD thinking it was her except she wasn't even there she was at her grandparents. I went back to sleep to actually stop the noise because it was intense.

Second time I had moved house and mid sleep could hear the doorbell going, and it kept repeating over and over, I checked the door nobody was there and then it stopped.

I'm sure I remember reading something about this, it always during sleep though it's not actually paralysis. Just throwing this out there to see if there's any one like me

overagain · 21/09/2018 22:38

Fewer and fewer episodes as I've got older, but loads in my teens, usually accompanied by very vivid dreams in full colour and lucid dreaming. Quite scary at times though.

peachgreen · 21/09/2018 22:41

I've only had it twice. Once I was suffocating in a dream and then woke up and couldn't move or breathe. The second time I felt like I was being dragged to hell and couldn't fight against it. I begged God to give me a second chance. It was so strange.

lifeofdreams · 21/09/2018 22:48

I’ve had it for years. Was worse in my early 20s. I just feel like I’m made of lead and im terrified that I’m going to suffocate.

FaFoutis · 21/09/2018 22:52

The worst thing is when I wake up paralysed with the duvet over my mouth and nose. Hideous. It makes me wonder how many unexplained deaths might be related to sleep paralysis. The first few times I had it I felt like I could die from terror.
I was once paralysed for 30 minutes, I could see the clock. I kept pulling myself down into sleep and coming back up again (which often works to break the paralysis), but each time I was still paralysed.

ShackUp · 21/09/2018 23:00

I get it when I sleep in the daytime or have a lie-in - which is NEVER now I have two early birds...

My dad claims his improved with age and he never gets it now.

lexi727 · 21/09/2018 23:02

I get it a few times a week. I wake and I feel like something terrible is happening in the room, sometimes I see things around me sometimes I just get this bizarre feeling of impending doom. I always try and shout out to wake DH so he can protect me but no matter how hard I try I cannot say anything. Even when I think I'm screaming nothing comes out. Usually the only way I can get out of it is by trying really hard to wiggle my fingers, and once I've managed to wiggle my fingers the rest of my body will start to move too so I can get out of it!

Crinkle77 · 23/09/2018 12:45

boopsy I have also had an out of body experience. I felt like I was floating up off the bed the back down again. I really thought I was dying but only it that are the once.

user838383 · 23/09/2018 13:28

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Ozil10 · 23/09/2018 13:31

I have them every other day pretty much, they're disrupting my sleep so much I've been referred by my doctor to a sleep clinic.

It starts with noise, loud ringing and then like I'm awake in my bed but something is there trying to pull my covers away from me. I always yawn continuously and it breaks the dream, I try not to panic when I'm in them as I know I'm dreaming and will wake. It still doesn't stop it being terrifying at the time!

RLOU30 · 23/09/2018 13:35

I have it lots, even more since I have a young baby with broken sleep. Sometimes I have it three or four times in a night so I just give up and get up. Try moving your little toe or twitching your nose. One time I had it a hallucination of my dead nan was in my room stroking my hand and I couldn’t move at all. I hate it

BippityBoppity87 · 23/09/2018 13:39

Feelings I get that from time to time. Once I heard a male voice, which was quite frightening. I haven't had this in a while, but I went through a phase where I would wake up to music blaring in my head, almost like an alarm clock. It was always a random song too, not something I had listened to the day before.

BippityBoppity87 · 23/09/2018 13:44

I've also heard the doorbell ringing or loud knocking (always in threes for some bizarre reason) From what I googled, I think it might be exploding head syndrome?

Seabiscuit1 · 23/09/2018 13:53

I have had this a few times. It is horrendous! Most recently I had fallen asleep with my baby on my chest (not recommended I know). I had a sense of someone in the room and the ‘person’ was trying to pull my baby off of me. Horribly horribly scary but I managed to wake myself up.
I find concentrating on wiggling my fingers is the best way to break out of it.

MadisonMontgomery · 23/09/2018 14:09

I get it - I don’t see anything, or get any sensation of evil etc, but I can feel my bed shaking, or sometimes I can feel someone tucking me in. Very very weird as I am wide awake and it feels absolutely real. I also sleepwalk, and I wonder if it is connected?

HelenaDove · 17/08/2019 01:55

I know this is an old thread but ive had a couple of these incidences this week.

First was the feeling of someone forcibly holding my legs open and trying to give me oral sex tThat was last Sunday/Monday.

Tuesday/Wednesday was someone shoving my shoulder blade forward as if trying to push me out of bed ,then grabbing my left boob then shoving me again.

Ive never had this before Im 46. I only know its called sleep paralysis because i googled a few words.

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