Sleep paralysis?
On a few occasions, during the night, I will wake up. But only for a few seconds. And in these few seconds, I am unable to move or speak. During these "events", sometimes my dreams still linger into my semi-conscious state, which makes this event extremely terrifying. IMO, this feeling, I imagine, is the closest thing to death. When the few seconds are up, I can also consciously observe a rapid descent back to deep sleep.
I don't do drugs. And I'm pretty sure I'm not crazy, although one can never be too certain of that. ;-)
Any ideas of what this could be? Is it a medical condition? Anyone else experience this? Thanks!
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8 Answers
My wife has experienced this on occation. I think all the episodes were when she was away at college. She also was not doing drugs.
She never looked in to the medical diagnosis of it.
The REM stage of sleep is the closest to stage to being awake. As I understand it our brains paralyze all of us during REM stage sleep so that we don't act out our dreams. I have head of that happening to others. I would talk to you doctor.
nothing to worry about. Our brains do this during sleep to protect us. Sometimes it just takes time to undo when we wake because we are not fully awake
I have this happen from time to time. Used to try to move, yell, etc. to attempt to wake myself up, but all that movement, noise, etc. that I was attempting was of course just happening inside my head. It was a dream within a dream. It was scary until I realized that it was harmless and decided to just lie there until I really woke up.
A similar kind of dream that I have occasionally is when I think that I am trying to wake up, but I am so sleepy that I cannot open my eyes or get out of bed. I will (again) roll out of bed, try to crawl toward a door/window/TV etc. so I can wake myself up. But, of course, I am just still asleep and have not moved or awakened. Once I decide to just lie still until I wake up – I wake up. Weird – maybe. Whacko – don’t think so.
I had this regularly when using sleep aids like nirol or niquil.
Ive had this all my life. My way of coping…when I find Im haveing an epasode, i think or say to the spector, I am not afraid of you. this will usealy help me wake up.
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