Everything You Could Ever Want To Know About SLEEP PARALYSIS

[Lionheart]

 Another "sticky" awarded to you my friend!  

This is an excellent follow up to your last thread here.

You pretty well have the entire Sleep Paralysis phenomenon nailed down now!  

[Bedeekin]

Thanks to Al Cheyne... he seems to have nailed it. He's a rather impartial scientist and researcher who isn't trying to prove or disprove it as real or not. He merely collects the data.... I think the best way to approach this subject.

[Astralzombie]

One major difference between SP with HHEs and dreams is the relatively high rate of reporting fear during the former.

Everyone needs to understand this difference. There is probably nothing we can do in the moment to prevent fear from gripping us initially but it doesn't have to last for more than a few seconds if you understand what's happening. Because SP isn't a dream per se, we are gaining our full awareness while in a dream state but our physical senses are lagging and slowly catching up. That is different from an OOBE or a dream to me.

[Xanth]

Everyone needs to understand this difference. There is probably nothing we can do in the moment to prevent fear from gripping us initially but it doesn't have to last for more than a few seconds if you understand what's happening. Because SP isn't a dream per se, we are gaining our full awareness while in a dream state but our physical senses are lagging and slowly catching up. That is different from an OOBE or a dream to me.

Actually, there is plenty one can do in order to prevent fear from gripping them.
It just needs to be taken care of BEFORE you get into the situation... and it involves becoming comfortable with, knowing and accepting yourself.

[Lionheart]

Actually, there is plenty one can do in order to prevent fear from gripping them.
It just needs to be taken care of BEFORE you get into the situation... and it involves becoming comfortable with, knowing and accepting yourself.

i agree knowing and accepting yourself is very important.

But what I have experienced lately, is that REMEMBERING all that you know at the time is crucial!

[Xanth]

Definitely.

That goes hand-in-hand with what I was saying on another thread about increasing the quality of your consciousness too. 

So many things I take for granted now all started with that concept.

[Astralzombie]

Actually, there is plenty one can do in order to prevent fear from gripping them.
It just needs to be taken care of BEFORE you get into the situation... and it involves becoming comfortable with, knowing and accepting yourself.

I understand what you are saying, but I don't believe we can ever completely conquer all of our fear. The attempt to do so strongly suggests that there is a fear of not conquering all fear. But I think grip was too strong of a word. I was just referring to that split second where "flight or fight" kicks in just before our physical senses kick back in fully.

[Xanth]

I understand what you are saying, but I don't believe we can ever completely conquer all of our fear. The attempt to do so strongly suggests that there is a fear of not conquering all fear. But I think grip was too strong of a word. I was just referring to that split second where "flight or fight" kicks in just before our physical senses kick back in fully.

Well, ultimately to completely know yourself and become accepting of yourself would be enlightenment.

But yeah... I agree, I wasn't suggesting conquering all your fears, just enough to project. 

[Bedeekin]

Here is the method I have used for years personally and to teach people with. It looks complicated but in actual fact is so simple it's scary.

(1) Go to bed much later than normal.

(2) Try to wake at least an hour earlier than usual and regardless of how tired you might be, work hard. Basically go to work as normal. If you're unemployed, do something active. Try not to drink too much coffee in the afternoon.

(3) THE NAP - At around 8pm go to a quiet room where you will not be disturbed. set an alarm so that you have around 1 - 2 hours sleep or you can rely on your own natural ability to wake without sleeping through.
Go to sleep. You should have no problem sleeping. Wake up when your alarm goes off.
IMPORTANT. When your alarm wakes you up or if you wake up naturally before this, DO NOT GO BACK TO SLEEP. I can't stress this any more. If you do, you will enter REM and dream and you will probably have to reset and try the next day.

(4) Stay awake for another 1 to 5 hours. A safe time or perfect window is 1 to 3 hours.
You should feel awake and and maybe bit strange, as in you could go to sleep any time or happily stay awake.
DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOL OR YOU WILL FAIL. You can drink tea or coffee but not too much, as you may ruin the OOBE because of needing the toilet.

(5) Go to bed.
Anyone who has been practicing breathing, relaxation or meditative techniques or any OOBE techniques for that matter then this is the time to do them. Visualization techniques are rendered irrelevant through this sleep management technique and aren't important but they won't hurt either.
Those who are completely new to the OOBE and have correctly followed the four stage sleep technique as I have instructed; get comfy in bed and just relax. Scratch itches and loosen clothing and with your eyes closed begin to say a word in your head. Don't just think of a word, form it and try to hear it. Imagine it. I sometimes think of my name "Benjamin". Not only is it percussive and therefore easy to imagine but it's the word I hear most often. If you have small children it may be useful to use the word 'mum', 'mummy', 'daddy' or whatever your children constantly call you to attract your attention. Maybe a tune that you're familiar with. Once you hear it, repeat it. Keep repeating. If under the likely event you find your mind wandering, pull it back to the task in hand.

Three things may happen when you try this mantra-like exercise, either:

(1) the very process of attempting the word forming will shift you into SP
(2) having repeated the mantra the word will eventually suddenly jump out loudly and you will shift into SP.
(3) When your find your mind wandering away and pull it back to the mantra, this pull back will shift you into SP.

I have found that if the mantra exercise is not followed and the VS is entered whilst experiencing non-conscious hypnogogic thoughts, the resulting thoughts manifest as hallucinations or an overlapping dream. The hallucinations, because of the quite raw and frightening nature of SP, can sometimes lead many to visualize figures that correlate to the sense of presence i.e. 'the old hag' or ghosts. Following the mantra will keep your mind in the know, so to speak, and result in a more 'clean' and uncluttered experience.

The Nap is actually the most important step. It is the key to experiencing Sleep Paralysis when you go to bed. Many people ask questions about step 5 and explain they were laying there and nothing was happening... if that is so then the nap stage was either missed out or it was forced.

[Lionheart]

 Thank You Bedeekin once again! 

We will keep this here in this Sticky grouping with all of the other Sleep Paralysis information.

[Lionheart]

 I posted this recently on another Forum.

This is basically another one of those SP/Terror scenarios.

But I caught this one before it fully consumed me. 

...so another night, spent watching myself go to sleep. I was still completely Consciously aware into what I think was the 3rd cycle of Dreams. This one I lost my awareness briefly in, just enough to awaken in full blown SP. Once again a terror scene showed it's ugly face, well it wasn't an ugly face. This time it was MJ waking me up with terror on her face.

I looked at this and said to myself, nope, not this time. I then rose my hand into the air, opened it and blinding white flash came out of it.

When the light subsided, I saw I was in a completely new setting, no terror and I kind of patted myself on the back for beating this.

I did have a very subdued remaining spine shiver for a moment though.

It felt good to beat it at it's best. I was right in the middle of a full blown incident and overcame it.

Having little accomplishments like this make today a great day. The feeling still lingers!

Thanks for listening!

[Bedeekin]

This one is a bit more difficult to categorise because more often than not there will be so many different layers of consciousness, including nonphysical duality .

I will therefor keep the visual aspect of SP to the actual 'in body' perception that is related to the 'intruder' and that of what can be seen looking at your surroundings using your physical eyes. Still... this is also a fine line because often when experiencing SP I can find myself being conscious of being in a different room altogether which is more synonymous with a False Awakening.

The transcribed results here are taken from an online questionnaire written by J. A. Cheyne... http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/spquest01.html  a well known SP researcher and published in his paper "The Ominous Numinous Sensed Presence and 'Other' Hallucinations" and from an old website ran by Cheyne. The information isn't written well so I have took it upon myself to edit it for a more easy to read source of information.

Visual Hallucinations

Visual imagery in SP is experienced not only less frequently than auditory experiences but often less vividly. The sense of presence seems to merge with the less definite visual images. 

*It was more like an image than a real presence.

Visual imagery seems also to take its cues from other experiences. Sometimes it is the sensed presence that begins to take form.

*Always accompanied by the presence, I've seen shapes/beings, from snake/humans type things that shout gibberish in my ears. I've seen the devil, bats etc. Most of the time it's a human shape that's completely black.

As in the case of the sensed presence the visual images are almost out of sight, just on the periphery of vision.

*[It was a s]mall ugly creature behind me, which I could only see from the corner of my eyes.

Sometimes imagery may be associated with the pressure on the chest which is of course the original cause of the Incubus/Succubus and term 'nightmare' and 'Old Hag'.

*Once I had one of this old lady, that was sitting on top my chest beating the living daylights out my head, I pulled myself to and my head was pounding.

Not surprisingly, the images may be associated with threats.

Figure is threatening. 

*Until lately, all my SP involved a visible black shaped 'presence' in my room, meaning to do me harm. 
*I feel fairly certain that if I let the apparitions get all the way up to me, they will kill me. I have fought out of this to prevent getting too close to the possibility. Each time it happens, I am scared they will kill me, especially if I let them 'take' me out of my body. 
*On one occasion I felt like a presence and saw a kind of specter. It was a misty form floating above my feet, and I felt that it was the cause of my discomfort. 
*I once woke up to what I thought was a man leaning over me in bed who had my right arm in a tight grip, holding me down on the bed. The man just had me 'pinned' by the wrist and I was frozen for what seemed like forever staring up into his face (probably lasted less than a minute). The room was dark and the face was in shadows, so I mostly saw an outline of the face. When at last I could move, I whispered 'What do you want?' and the face seemed to just disappear into the flowered pattern of my bedroom drapes. My right arm was 'asleep' and as I then moved it I had extremely painful  'pins and needles' sensation. It was a terrifying experience, but something that never repeated. 
*The second time, in the first house, I saw a beige roundish being over my bed. The energy was female and it was very, very angry. The second time was the experience above, however, I did not see the presence that was in the room, however, I had visions, that the woman who had died there had. I saw two of her children at the edge of the bed. 
*I've seen images on the bedcovers. 
*Once it was an arm reaching out of my floor as if trying to pull itself up, other times it was vague almost faces and movements in my peripheral vision. 
*The formed shape is usually an unusual geometric shape that floats around the room.  I only see this when the room is dark.  It used to scare me when I was a child. 
*Usually larger than me, always male. It never has a face. 
*There was a woman - whom I could sense but not see - behind me. I feared her. It seemed to be a scene from the past century.

Vision —Well-defined Images 

Well defined imagery during SP is rare and can be misconstrued as hallucinatory and/or a fully fledged nonphysical experience. Here the fine line is well and truly blurred. In one of the relatively rare cases of specific and concrete imagery, a Native American woman drew upon her heritage. Curiously she then adds an apparently incongruous image of medical personnel. 

*Spider woman came from the ceiling and wrapped me up and sang songs to me. I was l0 and later the deerwoman would come and stand at the foot of my bed and then lab coated people with monitors. I have never been hospitalized. The deerwoman still comes. 

For the most part, however, visual images tend to be indefinite and insubstantial. This is in strong contrast to the vividness of visual imagery in dreams, conscious nonphysical experiences. Visual hallucinations frequently appear to be somewhere between full hallucinations and pseudo-hallucinations. Reed characterizes pseudo hallucinations as lacking the substantiality of externally perceived stimuli and as appearing in inner subjective space. The visual imagery of SP often appear to be less substantial than normal perception but are clearly taken to be perceived in external space. 

Some writers appear to require that hallucinations also be believed to be true by those experiencing them (e.g., Reed, 1988). That is, they require that the person be deluded by their experiences. Comments by several respondents suggest that this is a very problematic stance. Many respondents are quite emphatic that the hallucinations are entirely compelling but are able to maintain a critical stance. Their faith in rationality and conventionality triumphs, as it were, over the evidence of their senses. One respondent provided a vivid account of alien abduction, complete with medical procedures, associated with his SP experiences.

*At one point, long bony fingers pressed across chest to induce unconsciousness hands picking up and examining mine. Fingernail clippings removed. Painful examinations syringes, devices, exposure of brain, magical 'surgery' sometimes I find that I am like a robot being repaired by human owner. Was COMPLETELY SHOCKED to watch similar scene in Star Trek First Contact. Never seen this scene before my experience but my experience is almost captured in scene with Data getting human skin grafts... WIERD!

This respondent was most emphatic that his experiences were totally compelling but that, considering himself a hard-headed and sensible person, he did not believe any of it for a minute. His experience was of abduction but this did not make it true, even for him.

This of course delves deeply into the realms of Abduction and may therefore be full nonphysical/physical experiences and is worth a separate post and indeed website.

[Astralzombie]

We all want to say that one day. Excellent.

My thing is, that I usually experience the audible hallucinations and I can go a year or more sometimes without this kind of an SP attack. The infrequency is what leaves me unprepared and totally caught off guard.

[Astralzombie]

I have found that if the mantra exercise is not followed and the VS is entered whilst experiencing non-conscious hypnogogic thoughts, the resulting thoughts manifest as hallucinations or an overlapping dream. The hallucinations, because of the quite raw and frightening nature of SP, can sometimes lead many to visualize figures that correlate to the sense of presence i.e. 'the old hag' or ghosts. Following the mantra will keep your mind in the know, so to speak, and result in a more 'clean' and uncluttered experience.

Using a mantra is well known and popular but is very underrated IMO. Like this quote says, it allows you to work through the fear that can occur from the sensations because using the mantra doesn't let the mind wander to the crazy stuff. However, like anything else, you have to allow the process to work.

[Bedeekin]

Well... this 'allowing' thing is getting used a lot.

What process must you 'allow' to work?

haha... that sounds so confrontational... but it isn't. I am actually seriously asking... what part of SP do you have to allow? 

[desert-rat]

That abduction feeling during s.p. was what the guy on obe4u was discribing . I wounder if there is not some kind of fear built that is manifesting this .

[Astralzombie]

I never see any of your responses as confrontational.

When I say allow, I mean don't analyze everything. It's one thing to work through the fear only to over think something and then ruin it with excitement.

You are referring specifically to SP but no one wants to induce SP and just experience it in a vacuum. To heck with that, we all want to phase. That means allowing it to happen.

[Bedeekin]

Maybe.

I went through a stage of realising how close Abduction cases were to SP... with the intruder and feelings of paralysis... even the auditory hallucinations can get quite electronic, but realised that the contents of the actual abduction bit crossed ages countries and cultures.. also it didn't matter who the person was or what belief system they held.. there were identical threads running through them. SP doesn't account for missing time and outdoor abduction cases.

it is interesting that the reports and depictions of faeries is very similar to the modern alien abduction scenario.

[Bedeekin]

I see.  totally agree.

I only questioned because in the 'beginning' the last thing I wanted was SP... so non-allowance didn't come into the equation. 

[desert-rat]

I dont think all abductions are s.p. Travis Walton was missing for 5 days , hear in my state of Arizona .This was a very big story when it hapned .    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Walton    I think many are tho .  A lot of that video made by the guy on http://obe4u.com/   links s.p. , the phase , and abductions .  That half awake half asleep state is a bit tricky .

[Bedeekin]

I think that some of them are... I even think some of the authentic ones are.  

But yeah... Barney & Betty Hill, Travis Walton, Whitley Strieber, Antonio Villas Boas... and other abductees who weren't always taken from their beds are ruled out.

I made the SP / abduction connection well before Raduga started commentating on it... I'm sure anyone familiar with SP did.

[Xanth]

We merged all the SLEEP PARALYSIS posts by Bedeekin into a single thread.  To save room on Stickies.  lol

The only thing is that they're strewn throughout the current four pages.  Perhaps Bedeekin can edit them all into the first post.  That's up to him though. 

[Lionheart]

Well... this 'allowing' thing is getting used a lot.

What process must you 'allow' to work?

haha... that sounds so confrontational... but it isn't. I am actually seriously asking... what part of SP do you have to allow? 

I use the word 'allow" quite a bit in the text that you feel the onset of SP or AP coming on and you simply let it manifest.

You don't fight it, fear, or stop it.

You just relax into it and let do it's thing.

But you are fully understanding what is occurring. That's the clincher! 

[Bedeekin]

We merged all the SLEEP PARALYSIS posts by Bedeekin into a single thread.  To save room on Stickies.  lol

The only thing is that they're strewn throughout the current four pages.  Perhaps Bedeekin can edit them all into the first post.  That's up to him though. 

I will. I'll get them all into one long post.

Or Maybe the original one could have been kept with the induction method and the others just left as non-stickies and linked.

[Lionheart]

I will. I'll get them all into one long post.

Or Maybe the original one could have been kept with the induction method and the others just left as non-stickies and linked.

Whatever you decide on is fine with us! 

You could break them into 2 categories, 2 stickies, that would work too.