A ghost had a hold of me in the air and wouldn't let me go!

[Unaware1]

First I would like to say that I have always seen black shadows my entire life.  I am 44 years old.  At some points I have been awakened by these shadows but one particular night this man was laying in my bed next to me and was right in my face and I let a out a blood curdling scream and my hubby came running down stairs in my bedroom and asked if I was OK. I have had a hard time shaking that one off.  I have always been afraid of these shadows.  Well lets get on to what happened to me two nights ago.  For 6 hours I was in the hospital with a bad attack from pancreatitis.  (I had breast cancer in 2004 which I received chemo which gave me pancreatitis)  Well I refused to be admitted in the hospital and I went home and went to sleep.  I remember in my sleep that I was upstairs in the my kitchen feeding my dog and my cat (cat lives at my place of work not with me) and something levitated me into the air and all I could think was "somebody please help me" and I couldn't speak so with all my might I kept repeating "somebody please help me" frantically I kept repeating this and I felt my body trying to speak these words and I knew I was saying something.  Well I realize my husband is trying to wake me and I respond scared out of my wit and I tell him that something had levitated me in the air and they wouldn't let me go and I couldn't speak.  So I drift back to sleep.  Well the next morning I call my husband at work and ask him what happened and he says to me kind of bewildered, "you don't remember what you said to me?" and I said what I thought I said and he, chuckled, "no that is not what you said."  My hubby said that I said "a ghost has a hold of me up in the air and he won't let me go!"  My husband told me that I was making the weirdest  noises he had ever heard me make in my entire life and that he tried to awaken me 5 times and he kept asking me if I was ok and finally on fifth time I responded to him.  I have been really freaked about this, I can't get it out of my mind, frankly I'm afraid to go to sleep.  Deep down I wonder if this was a bad spirit and I knew it and I couldn't get away from him.   Last night I had another dream but this wasn't like the first one, this time I dreamt that the ghost took me to another house and stuffed me in a corner and I awoke taking a deep breath and saying I am not in my house and I shook it off and told myself it was just a dream! I'm very scared to go to sleep tonight.  Can anyone tell me what the heck happened to me and why?  Any input would be appreciated it. Thank you.

[The Present Moment]

My guess is sleep paralysis. Your reaction is what a lot of people experience: crying for help, not being able to move, and feeling terrified. This can happen in a dream or in the border state between sleep and waking.

The good news is that you are perfectly safe, even if your subconscious doesn't believe you are.  You can use this state to astral project or lucid dream.

[SaraHere]

I'm thinking the same thing too...sleep paralysis. I always feel very scared when it happens and the sleep paralysis has been happening to me for about 10 yrs now. (Though now remembering to my past I do believe I may have experienced it when I was a child but just shook them off as bad dreams).. anyhow I  never was able to have an obe or astral project till just recently, because quite frankly up till now I've been to scared to let anything further happen .

When I first experienced it, it was during an afternoon nap. I felt vibrations and a very loud humming noise like there was an air conditioner near my head. I then saw a small dark figure running past the bed out of the corner of my eye. Then it felt like who ever was there was pulling the blanket off of me.  I can never move, talk or scream when these episodes happens, but every time I do have sleep paralysis it always feels like there is a presence near me and most times It does feel like I see some shadowy figure nearby .

all the best.
Sara

[xXTerra-StormXx]

Hi how are you.
I can give you some input, you say you've seen these shadow figures around for some time now, its most likely to be your guardian spirit, spirit who walks with you throughout life, astral teachers, that kind of spirit if you're always seeing him. They CAN seem a bit nasty sometimes but they're not entirely that way. My astral teacher and spirit guide also use to come as a black shadow in a hooded clock or a dark patch, but he's actually quite pleasant and caring in real life. but he HAS created a few nasty experiences for me but it was for my own good at the end of the day. It's got something to do with testing your fear tolerance and your ability to overcome it. and can be a bit of an inconvieniece sometimes but the lessons DO pass. and the floating in the air, have NO Fear, its just your astral body is very light and tends to want to float away into higher astral realms when it leaves the body, Your spirit that walks with you HAS to be there when you leave your body astrally for whatever reason, if it WAS him that lifted you out he was probably trying to give you a boost up to the higher realms but you may have fought it. Mine is always there if i leave my body astrally in my dreams and he USED to have a REAL sour look on his face, like he was an enemy or something and wanted to kill me, lol, at first i thought he was lifting me in the air and being spiteful until i found out it was actually MY astral body lifting itself. Sometimes look to the person behind the shadow persona in a spirit, they are really some great and beautiful people WHEN you get to know them, and they're here to serve your spiritual growth in this lifetime. don't be scared, they're actually big teddy bears on the inside.

[jub jub]

My guess is sleep paralysis. Your reaction is what a lot of people experience: crying for help, not being able to move, and feeling terrified. This can happen in a dream or in the border state between sleep and waking.

The good news is that you are perfectly safe, even if your subconscious doesn't believe you are.  You can use this state to astral project or lucid dream.

Ditto!

My wife told me of an experience where she woke up (or so she thought) and the entire bed was off the floor, shaking uncontrollably! Talk about soiling your shorts! lol

Once you know and understand sleep paralysis, it's an excellent springboard for Astral projection!

[RJA]

As others have said - sleep paralysis or "Awareness of Sleep Paralysis" (do a google search on it or ASP).  Essentially, during sleep your body becomes paralyzed so that you don't thrash around, sleepwalk, etc.  But if your brain wakes up, but your body doesn't and is still paralyzed - then in your confused state you become afraid.  Perhaps the ghosts or other figures were in a dream you were having or perhaps they are real beings that in your altered state you are aware of.

For some reason - probably fear I guess - many, many people who experience this awareness of sleep paralysis report "dark figures" scaring them, holding them down, etc.

Throughout my life I've had some similar experiences - having a scary dream and then awakening from it but being unable to move or speak and feeling as if something *evil* is oppressing me.

However, those experiences have been few and far between, and in the many times I've projected I've never encountered anything scary or evil.

Not sure how you can solve your problem however, but I suspect that in your waking life if you overcome the fear of these experiences, then eventually when they occur you will have the self control to overcome the fear while they are happening.

On a slightly different note, my wife used to have frequent dreams in which sinister characters were chasing her.  They were very fearful dreams and she had them quite frequently - at least once a month, probably - and over a long period of time - decades.  I began suggesting to her that she needed to confront the sinister characters in her dreams rather than run from them.  At first the approach seemed ridiculous to her since she had no belief that she could in any way consciously affect what occurred in her dreams.  However, eventually during one of those dreams, instead of running away she turned around and plunged a knife into her persuer's belly and then grabbing it with both hands yanked it upward.  To this day she says it was the most "real" or visceral dream she's ever had.  And from that day forward (it's probably been 10+ years now) she's NEVER had another one of those dreams.

I suspect she didn't have to attack the figure in her dream.  It probably would have worked just as well to turn around and tell it she wasn't afraid and ask it why it was chasing her.  I suspect that these recurring "bad guys" in her dreams were symbolic representations of some type of issue or hangup that she needed to overcome and confronting it in her dreams instead of running away was part of the process of overcoming the issue.  Whether the issue was a physical real-life issue, or perhaps something on a more psychological/spiritual level I don't know.

But, I would suspect that for you something similar will hold true.  If you - in your waking life - can resolve to confront these figures rather than allowing them to scare you, then I believe that eventually you will do just that during one of your experiences.  And once you've done it I believe the scary experiences will stop.

Good luck.

[Unaware1]

Hello To Everyone:

   Thanks for all your input, I really appreciate all your thoughts and comments.  I would like to tell you one more thing.  About 11 or 12 years ago I spoke with a psychic and she proceeded to tell me that I would become very sick in less then 10 years, I asked her if I would die and she said no, but I would be very very sick.  The psychic had also told me that I speak to dead people in my sleep and that I have many abilities that I was not fully aware of and she could teach me to tap into.  I never told anyone about me seeing these shadow people, I was stunned I couldn't believe that she knew about the shadow people.  So I put it deep into the back of my mind and told myself she was crazy and she didn't know what she was talking about.  I do believe now she knew what she was talking about.  As you all know from my first post I was diagnosed with Cancer in 2004, I was very sick-that was one thing that the psychic told me which came true.  The second thing that comes true is the shadow people, they are either standing beside my bed, or at the end of my bed or I see them whisking away very quickly from the corner of my eye. But I just try to shake it off.  The psychic told me that my mother who passed away many many years ago talks to me in my sleep. 

    I have also had many dreams that I can fly and I'm flying through the air.  I always thought I was some kind of a witch in my past life. In my 20's and 30's I would wake up in the middle of the night and see spider webs all over the ceiling, I have no idea what that means any input about that?  Its funny a couple of nights after I was with the ghost in the air I told myself that I need to face this ghost and the shadow people and find out what they truly want.  My husband always tells me to talk to them and find out what they want.  I have always been too afraid.  One of the comments from this post was something about facing a fear in my life and of course everyone probably knows what that fear is , which is the cancer coming back.  But I have seen these shadow people way before cancer.  So these past few nights I have been sleeping well, no ghosts, no flying, no shadow people.

   I would also like to mention my daughter who is 21 also must have my capabilities.  I shared this information with her a few years ago and now I think back when I would wake up in the A.M. and I would find my daughter not in her room but on the kitchen floor where there is light in the house at night. My daughter also told me that when she would get up in the middle of the night she would hear voices, laughter and it scared her and that her two younger brothers where in the bedroom next to hers and she heard this being break one of there toys and in the morning she checked there room and sure enough a toy had been broken and she asked her brothers if they had done it and of course they replied no.  This toy wasn't broke when they all went to bed the night before. She also stated that when she got up and went to the bathroom she would get this funny feeling and she would say to herself "Oh No" it's happening again.  She tells me that everything is moving in slow motion and she can't get it too stop. She told me she hated this feeling and she would lay back down in her bed and try to go back to sleep.  Again I have no idea what this is about.  Daughter feels that it is in the house we live in, her bedroom and mine.  I remember when no one was in her room and the door was closed we always joked about the spirit in her room we could hear her bed squeak and no one was in there.   So there you have it folks my whole spiritual world........Love to hear your thoughts......

[Unaware1]

One more thing about the daughter and sleeping in the kitchen- this was many years ago she must have been 5 or 6 years old.  Daughter states that this doesn't happen to her in her apartment now at age 21 But she does keep having this re-occuring dream about a big man breaking down her door and she can't move or talk.  Must be the sleep paralysis thing.  Well thats all for tonight. I hope you all have a great night.....take care!

[jub jub]

May I ask if you have any religious beliefs? Sometimes these play a big part of what our consciousness tries to interpret into our dreams. I believe there are some "belief" based concepts which are enforcing an influence here!

[Unaware1]

Hello Jub Jub:

    Hmmm....good question. My faith is questioned on a daily basis.  Before cancer I believed in God, I was a Christian.  I'm not one of those people that had to go to church every Sunday and make a deposit to the church.  But when I was diagnosed with cancer I thought there can't be a god because God wouldn't do this to me.  I am a really nice and caring person.  Then of course when this happend, I thought about all the bad people in the world - how they can get away with rape, molestation of a child, murder and etc., how could God let that happend?  Or better yet, some of the mean people in this world are rich and nothing ever happends to them, they will live forever with no disease and some do not have a conscience.  But some of the kind people on this earth are riddled with disease and bad things sometimes happens to them.  So that's a tough question.  During chemo I prayed to God every moment to get me through it, It was the hardest thing I have ever had to endure.  So there are some days I have a hard time with God and there are some days that I do believe in a higher being that controls our destiny (God). So I am tested everyday.  I'm sorry to be so undecided.  I want to believe there is God and that he will help all people in there time of need.  But like I said, sometimes it's questionable.  So I'm on both sides of the fence here.....Sorry I can't give you a straight answer.......

[jub jub]

I understand your attitude about "GOD" and why you feel the way you do. I was put in a situation similar to yours when my 19 year old daughter (who was 9 months pregnant BTW) was killed in a freak car accident. That one event changed the course of my life and I began down a new trail in search of some answers. I think that I have a good understanding now about what GOD is.

I have a book that I can recommend if your interested, that might help explain a few things. It's very long and very detailed but if you can get through it, might help to clarify a few things as to why we're here and what our purpose is.

And just to let you know, I don't think your beliefs had anything to do with your experience. It was just one of those "OBE things". Very technical, I know!