okay i know this is ridiculous but last night i had the WORST nightmare about being attacked by a 'ghost' and i'd swear it was real...

[AitchTwoOh]

it was one of those ones when you are being punched and touched and your hair pulled and you are shouting but make no sound. i can still feel its hands on the back of my neck now... how stupid is that, it was just a dream... but it was SO frightening that i had to wake dh up and ask him to hold onto me and put his hands on my neck and back so that it couldn't come back and get me.

and then... when i was calming down and dh had gone back to sleep i saw a burst of light move across the wall, as someone had shone a torch at it and then moved it towards the window and then it was gone. or even like a car going past with its headlights on and shining on a wall, except you couldn't get a car up our back lane and the light came from the other direction so must have come from the inside of the flat, which isn't possible at 4 o'clock in the morning.

anyway, i was really frightened so could everyone just come and tell me that it was just a bad dream and the light was my imagination, please? thanks very much.

[LieselVonTrapp]

Are you pregnant?

[MayMay]

I´ve had this a few times over the years and never realised it was SP! so thanks for explanation.

In my case it hasn´t just been a bad dream but an evil one.. usually there are evil spirits in the room and I´m trying to exorcise them but the words don´t come out and I can´t scream. Quite frightening!

[venusinfurs]

Wow, I never knew so many people experienced this. Quite relieved to know how common it is! I've never come across anyone in RL who knows what I'm talking about, so this is a revelation.

[Surfermum]

I get this loads. I wake up and think someone/thing is in the room. I've rushed into dd's room too as I'm convinced we've left her downstairs or something happened to her.

DH is well used to it now, he just calmly tells me to wake up and reassures me and I come to, am usually a bit confused, and then clamber back into bed and go to sleep again. It's terrifying at the time.

Now I think about it, it does happen more when I'm really tired.

[expatinscotland]

Just read OP but not rest of it.

This sounds like a night terror.

[AitchTwoOh]

i should say that this wasn't 'just' a night terror though, as i've never before felt it so physically, that's what freaked me out so much.

[AitchTwoOh]

i am on meds for high BP, but DD has been sick for the past while and it's knocked her sleeping out so i think it'll have been tiredness.

as a matter of interest my mum used to suffer terribly badly with night terrors until she was in her late teens and i had them a few times when i was younger. my dd is only 11 months but if she gets too hot in the night she wakes up screaming and it takes her ages to wake up out of it. i know that technically she's too young for night terrors but that's what it looks like to me.

[southeastastra]

sp is quite common, some people describe it as having an old hag sitting on your chest. my neice gets them too, they sound really weird

[shebnem]

are you on any type of medication? some medications' side effects can cause such dreams i guess...

[LadyMacbeth]

Aitch I get sleep paralysis, it usually happens when I'm exhausted. My mum does and so did her mum so perhaps it's genetically linked.

It is terrifying. I have to get up and walk about after it happens as otherwise I'll slip in and out of it!

I've had sleep paralysis since I was tiny, dreams which I think are real - can see my room etc then I realise that something's different, like a light's on. I then have to wake myself up completely by moving my head with a jerk. It's an exhausting test of strength! I shout but no sound comes out and have a horrible fearful feeling. I once thought this incubus-like creature with snake like skin was trying to force his wicked way on me and I really struggled to push it off me (think I told it to "fcuk off" as well!)

I remember getting SP when I was about 3/4 too Babadoo - there were these fairies on my wall that used to come alive and seemed really evil. I also remember watching our plastic dinosaurs marching up and down the floor!

When I was in my late teens I used to have out of body experiences too - but that's another subject (and a really crazy one at that!)

[wombat2]

Sometimes I've had to get up in the night to see to children and find that my legs are completely dead, ending up with me collapsing on the floor! Wonder if this is the same thing...

[Babadoo]

Actually, my most early nightmare memory was when I was a young child and I used to sleep with the light on. I couldn't sleep and I was laying on my back staring at the yellow woodchip wallpaper, when suddenly all the animals from my Noah's Ark picture on the wall started climbing out and coming towards me, laughing in a really evil way. I remember trying to scream and nothing would come out and not being able to move. Then they all vanished and that was that, I was awake. I must have been about 3 or 4 years old, as my parents redecorated my room when I was about that age. I slept with the light on until I was 17 years old!!!!!!

[Babadoo]

I've had this sort of thing quite a few times before, most often when it's early in the morning and I can't sleep but am very tired and am laying on my back, and all of a sudden I'm in this nightmare. But then I discovered that if I told myself it wasn't real, that I was in control, that it's just a dream, all the bad stuff suddenly dissapears and it becomes the best dream ever! Most of the time I'd go flying, which is a really nice feeling! I hardly ever have these dreams now, mostly because I refuse to sleep on my back! I agree its sleep paralysis. Hope you've been sleeping better now.

[venusinfurs]

Forensic dream team - I like that!
So glad you slept well, Aitch.

[AitchTwoOh]

slept VERY well last night, thanks to my forensic dream team. thanks once again.

[venusinfurs]

It was NOT supernatural. Put the thought right out of your head about that Aitch. I don't think it's very helpful of anyone to even vaguely suggest otherwise, frankly. I'm not being argumentative (honest) but she has an explanation and it is the right one.
I've had it once when I could see my hand in suspended animation trying to get to my lamp. Then I woke and my hand shot forward. It's so so scary, but it is very definitely a phenomenon of sleeping and the brain.

[AitchTwoOh]

funnily enough, having experienced it i would say that if i was someone who was into aliens and the like (as opposed to just hankering after han solo) then i could definitely have turned that into an 'alien abduction' and been completely convinced of it. very interesting (and fkn terrifying), again, thanks to all who posted.

[sansouci]

Sounds v. scary! Rational explanation or not, both are horrible. I've also had a dream where I've been trying to shout & not be able to get above a whisper or trying ot pick something up and have my arms drop to my sides like rubber. With especially vivid dreams, you tend to remember them all day, especially if you happen to lie down and of course, going to bed in the evening is terrifying.

On the other hand, if it was supernatural (unlikely), try saying a prayer or thinking of being surrounded by light before you go to sleep.

Good luck!

[morningpaper]

yes true liquidclocks (about exhaustion)

the time I could see DH trying to wake me was after I had done a 36-hour shift fixing broken servers in a cold dark computer storage room!

[liquidclocks]

Aitch - this has happened to me on a few occasions too - utterly terrifying the first time - I thought there were 3 people standing around the bed with sharp metal instruments! But after speaking to people about it like you have here it was easier to deal with the next time it happens. For me I've actually found that it happens more when I'm completely exhausted so as long as I'm getting regular good sleep it doesn't happen. Hope that's of help, if only to know that you're definitely not alone.

[AitchTwoOh]

thanks all... was dreading going to sleep tonight, i'd have been mning till the laptop dropped off my knees...

[Socci]

Message withdrawn

[morningpaper]

yeh that happens to me - trying so hard to make a noise and nothing coming out

so annoying

[AitchTwoOh]

i suppose i so think it was a dream and the light was my stupid eyesight combined with a fertile imagination, as much as anything else it's the explanation i prefer.

i WAS trying to wake dh up, MP, that was the horrific thing. i could hear this terrible gurgling coming from my throat... bbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

hopefully if it happens again i'll be more aware. and hopefully if it happens again DH won't be quite so sound asleep.

[morningpaper]

(the main thing is knowing what it is - i.e. that it is something happening in your brain, and not something "real")