I've seen two hallucinations that really scared me during my own sleep paralysis.

One was me but distorted and twisted, half staggering half crawling towards me. I was in the bottom bunk in my shared room with my little sister as a kid, and I remember trying so hard to scream so that she would wake up and help me, but the only thing that came out of my mouth was a puff of air. I was eventually able to wake myself but i was having a full blown panic attack by that point. This was my earliest memory of sleep paralysis.

Today I saw a tall skinny thing made of writhing black worms or scribbles, watching me from my doorway. I tried yelling at it to get it to go away and I think being angry pulled me out faster.

A lot of what I've seen online says that people normally only sense a presence in the room or they see shadow people but mine are always so vivid. What about you?

been going through since i was a kid, it’s 4:30 am in the morning in india

had the worst sleep paralysis, some voice was saying “are you aware of who i am” do teen baar, dabaye rkha i apprantly thought ki uska haath mere paas h and i bit my own hand zor se, then in the end it said you can’t esacpe i am inside you, waiting 😭😭😭

and i saw my own face smiling, and i am shit scared

not even kidding sounds like ghisi pitti script but this is truth

Hello , i am looking for people who experience sleep paralysis like me. what kind of nightmares do you have? can you tell me your most disturbing story?

I had my first sleep paralysis experience last night and now I’m scared to sleep.

My sleep has started on a rocky path. But with resilience it ok.

Having had Sleep Paralysis for about 40 years at a frequency of about 3-5 times a week on average, I have using various methods, become essentially an expert at waking myself up from within the paralysis state over this time to the point where it’s only about 10% of the time that I still become very trapped in an episode. Even though it’s taken most of that 40 years of trial and error (to be fair a good 25 years of that was simply freaking out!) to get to this 90% success rate of calmly self waking, I still loathe the few times I can’t get out and have often wondered why there does not exist an affordable machine that could help wake people up who like me, suffer from the same awful affliction of regular sleep paralysis.

I started thinking about this from the point of view of the muscles we can always 100% control from within the state. These are largely autonomous muscles that can also be manually controlled. The number one candidate for that is the lungs and your breathing. Everyone universally can control their breathing from within SP and with practice, at least to some extent focus on it during the SP. So hey, let’s start there with a possible solution.

Chemically speaking, what compounds can we change from within a sleep paralysis simply by controlling our breathing? Carbon Dioxide right? If we deliberately hyperventilate by breathing fast, deep and hard we will rapidly lower our Co2 levels. So why can’t we use something like a Capnograph kit that will sound an audible alarm when Co2 levels get low, and customize how low the threshold is until an alarm sounds.. thus waking up the patient?

I feel like a capnograph unit like this that would work in the way it would need to might be like $2000 USD or possibly more because it might need to be customizable. But since we kind of already have the technology to do this why hasn’t someone made a more affordable or government subsidized sleep paralysis machine specifically for this purpose? I think it could greatly benefit the roughly 600 million of us on earth that struggle with this thing on a frequent basis. The ultimate goal being a machine that can do what essentially my wife already does when she hears me deliberately hyperventilating to signal her to wake me up because I’m having a bad episode of SP. Not everyone is as lucky as me to have a light sleeping partner to fill this role so why not have a machine do the job and more reliably?

Have any of you already thought about this or think it would be a good idea? I’m curious what people think or if you think it would work. If so what’s the lowest cost we could get such a unit that functions in this way down to? (Especially interested in what someone in the medical field might have to add to the discussion.)

I'm 28m from tvm. Looking for someone who has sleep paralysis to meet in person. DM or comment if anyone's there.

I have sleep paralysis for as long as I can remember. It sucks but most of the time I can deal with it.

Last night tho I felt in a sort loophole. I had sleep paralysis, woke up again and then immediately went back in sleep paralysis. I couldn't fully wake up cause I was too tired. This happened like 7/8 times in a row last night.

Does anyone of you had this experience as well and how to handle this?

I sometimes hallucinate when I stay up for around 24 hours, but this day in particular, I had stayed up for 22 hours and then slept for 2 hours. I woke up to banging on my door (I was in the Army at the time; this was about 4 months ago) and decided I would show up to 1st formation (I lied and said I was going to the doctor so I’d be able to skip it). I ended up staying up for 7 more hours before heading back to my room to sleep.
I fell asleep pretty quickly but woke up screaming for NO reason. This is the 2nd time this has happened. The first time, it was because I had a nightmare that I was in the woods and someone was running at me, about to kill me.
Anyways, I fell asleep again pretty quickly, and in my sleep, I could feel someone’s hand on my chest creeping towards my neck. All of a sudden, the hand started choking me, increasing the pressure slightly and steadily. I couldn’t open my eyes or move, and then, with their other hand, they started reaching into my mouth and down my throat, so I decided to bite the hand before waking up.
I was 110% sure I was going to see someone messing with me, but there was NO ONE. When I opened my eyes, my right hand was around my neck and my left hand was inside my mouth.
I’ve experienced sleep paralysis many times, but this is the first time I’ve ever self-harmed because of it. Has anyone had any idea what this could be? I’m assuming part of it was the lack of sleep—a huge part of it, actually.

Hi, I have always struggled with sleep my entire life. But lately I had these horrible experiences. It mostly happens when I'm trying to fall asleep and I start getting anxious for whatever reason, whenever I start feeling like that my heart starts to beat really fast and I cant move and I start seeing, hearing and feeling things. It kinda is like sleep paralysis but worse???? The worst one that has happened was where I was just waking up and I suddenly can't move and I start seeing hands appear around my head and slowly close around me, I started to hear whispers (I think) I tried to scream but then ended up choking on my saliva, I guess I was fine after that but it was really scary​.

Sorry for my bad grammar and english :(( my first language is Spanish​, sorry if it's kinda weird and hard to understand i tried my best to explain it

The very first one I believed I’ve had was when I was 9. I was sleep on my back on my top bunk, and I randomly woke up at midnight, ear ringing, could ever so slightly move my head, and the room was darker than usual. I tried as hard as I can and moved my head more up and I saw the spider baby from Toy Story, stuck to the side of my ceiling near me, just staring at me. And then a few moments layered I fell back asleep.

The second one was about a few weeks later. This time, I was laying on my stomach and I was at the edge rim of my bed. I was sleeping, then I randomly woke up with the same dark atmosphere. I waited a few seconds, and nothing happened. Then I tried looking up, still saw nothing. And then I fell back asleep.

Third time, I was sleeping in my room and watched a lot of stuff about sleep paralysis. I woke up in the middle of the night, unable to move nor speak, normal atmosphere. My mind was fully awake, so I knew I was in sleep paralysis, so I just shut my eyes, started hearing the noises, and just kept trying to push my eyes more shut. And that is it.

That’s what sleep paralysis is like.

When I first had my sleep paralysis was at the age of 8 yrs old ..

After reading quite a few of entries in this sub, I’ve noticed that there are a lot of similarities in experiences of sleep paralysis. I wonder if anyone ever did a study to try and comprehend what it really is since the experience doesn’t differ that much per individual. Please share something in the comments if you do know something. Thank you.

I slept around 5 PM today and my mom woke me up around 6:30. Before waking up, I was dreaming about watching a sunset from a high place. Nothing scary.
For the past 2 months, I’ve been under quite a bit of stress from college, committee responsibilities and some personal issues. I wouldn’t call it depression, but my mind has definitely been occupied, and I often dream about things happening in my real life.
I’ve experienced sleep paralysis once or twice before, but today was much more intense.
Suddenly, I felt like I was in my room, but everything looked darker and warmer, almost like an orange filter had been applied. Near my cupboard, I saw a rectangular shadow. It didn’t have a proper shape, but somehow it felt conscious, like it was watching me.
I immediately realized I was in sleep paralysis. I couldn’t move or speak.
Now i am an Indian and come from a Hindu family and I’m a very devoted follower of Lord Hanuman, so the first thing I did was start screaming in my head:
“JAI HANUMAN! JAI SHREE RAM!”
I repeated it 2–3 times, and slowly I felt myself waking up. For a moment I was completely awake and could move again.
But I was still extremely sleepy and stupidly stayed lying down.
After maybe 2 seconds, the paralysis happened again.
This time I immediately started chanting the same thing in my head, even more forcefully. And again, I slowly came out of it.
I finally sat up and stayed awake.
Now I don’t know what to believe. Scientifically, I know sleep paralysis can cause hallucinations and the feeling that there’s an entity in the room. It could simply have been my brain, especially considering the stress I’ve been under.
But as someone who has enormous faith in Hanuman ji, it genuinely felt like remembering him gave me the strength to break out of it.
Maybe my faith helped me psychologically.
Or maybe, according to my beliefs, Hanuman ji actually protected me.
I honestly don’t know.
Has anyone else experienced something like this during sleep paralysis, especially seeing a shadow/entity? And has praying or remembering your deity ever helped you come out of it?

I tried looking it up, but I couldn’t find anyone with similar experience. So before every sleep paralysis experience I’ve had, I always see somthing scary in my dreams for like 2 seconds. Tall figures in my basement, creepy woman smiling, falling deep into the ground. It happens fast so it doesn’t scare me ( luckily). Does anyone experiences this aswell?

I just wanted to talk about my own experiences cuz why not.
The first time i got sleep paralysis I was in that awake and not awake state and i probably couldve woken up easily from then but instead i started thinking “i hope i dont get sleep paralysis right now” and then boom i cant move.
Almost always if i end up thinking about sp just before waking then it’ll happen but it doesnt really happen often.
Ive noticed it happening the first night when i go on holiday maybe the change of environment messes with me and also whenever i sleep on my back so now im kinda scared to sleep on my back but im a side sleeper anyway.
I dont really see anything during it, the first time i could see like a rapidly changing blurry image of my thoughts which was kinda cool, but i found ive had a lot more audible hallucinations than visual which i find really interesting but it also really scares me cuz the sound will start out as something normal that could just be anything and then it’ll turn into something that you just wouldnt hear naturally in day to day life. Or someone screaming somewhere else in the house and it gets louder and more distorted. Not fun i dont like those but i find it all interesting how it happens and why it happens.

Really curious if anyone else gets the audible hallucinations too id love to hear about it if you’re wanting to share.

ever since 8th grade, i’ve been experiencing sleep paralysis—so often that i’ve gotten used to it. i’m currently in 12th grade and still get sleep paralysis every now and then. last night, i was getting assaulted in my sp but it wasn’t an entity or monster, i couldn’t see their face but i just knew it was my brother. i felt completely immobilized and i was laying on my side so the only movement i remember is of me shaking so badly… what could this mean?

i’m really really close with my brother and this is something i think could never happen or so i hope

no i’ve never been sexually assaulted before but i’ve always had this fear of having a traumatic experience and not remembering due to memory repression

I think what I am experiencing is sleep paralysis, it happens maybe 4 to 5 times a month.

It doesn't last too long, but it's scary, cause to me it feels like my whole body is shaking, which sometimes would make me wonder if I was having some sort of seizure or fit (I don't think I am).

The issue is as well that I have no idea if it's only something I'm feeling or if my body is actually shaking. And today something different happened. I was still dreaming, but in my dream I was in my room and then my brother came in, because he wanted to show me something on his phone. He sat down next to my bed and was explaining something and the shaking had already started and I couldn't move. I was scared that he would notice, because I didn't want him to panic or anything and also I thought, what if I'm actually having a seizure. It lasted for what felt like 2 minutes, but then I actually woke up and realised that all of this happened in my dream. My brother was in the bathroom and also I had my sleeping mask on, which I wasn't wearing in my dream.

Which now makes me wonder, could it be, that everytime I'm experiencing this "shaking" it's actually happening in my dream. Has someone had a similar experience? And is what I'm experiencing sleep paralysis?

I'm sorry for the weird formatting, I'm still a bit shook and I'm struggling with putting into words what I'm feeling and thinking

it doesn't happen often, but it's always the same setup

If my dream involves a videogame, it's probably going to happen

i notice one thing that's off, maybe I'm dreaming that I'm playing minecraft and I notice something that's not a block, maybe I'm playing a singleplayer game and a chat box opens up with a message from another player, it's not the out of place thing itself that triggers it, out of place things are normal in dreams, it's the act of me noticing it and realizing it's out of place while still dreaming

More and more out of place things start appearing, my senses get overwhelmed, a loud cacophony of voices, judging me, misgendering me, nobody is there but hands are touching me everywhere, I feel disoriented, whatever I'm looking at stops making sense, I walk forward but I see as if I'm moving backward, I turn right but I see as if I was spinning upsidedown

Sometimes I calm down without waking up, sometimes I wake up with my pillow on my face and calm down quickly

Sometimes I wake up laying on my back, and when that happens, the noise continues, I see eyes staring at me, if I manage to close my eyes I feel like something is forcing me to roll over, I start feeling nauseous until I open them and realize I didn't move at all, while still being stared at

I’ve had sleep paralysis about 3-5 times a week for 5 years now. 2 of those years was constant visits from that hamburger helper hand (7’2”). Typically it was just your run of the mill butt stuff with that guy, but he began bringing tasers that he’d attack my abdomen with. It’d cause the sensation of electrocution and cramping in my abs, then I’d wake up with real soreness, presumably from placebo muscle spasms. Am I alone here?

I contracted a rather nightmarish stomach virus last year that induced an episode of what I think was sleep paralysis, and the hallucination/dream I had was quite odd. The first night I tried to sleep with this virus, my perception of time was not slowed, I felt all 8ish hours of the experience. The severe stomach cramps I had been experiencing persisted the entire night, causing severe stress. I kept a dim light on in the room, and I had one continuous "dream" the entire night (eyes closed). Floating in front of me in my room was what I can only describe as two foot diameter knot, but instead of string or yarn, it was made up of individual shapes strung together like molecules in a DNA strand. Simple shapes like cubes, cones and cylinders, in muted dark colors (mostly blue and orange). The entire dream I spent trying to telekinetically untangle this mass like a ball of string. Mostly unsuccessful. But the mental strain this created was torturous. Worst experience of my life, worse than the two day bathroom experience, which was its own flavor of hell.

I've never had sleep paralysis before or since. Just thought I'd share my experience since it sounds unique.

I have had sleep paralysis probably hundreds of times however I’ve never had the typical sleep paralysis situation where I’ve seen a demon. The other night I attempted to pray my way out of sleep, paralysis in attempts to bring myself out of the situation. I prayed to Jesus or God, and this did not work. I tried this because I saw in another post. Somebody said this has helped them. It was very disappointing because I was hoping this would work. I had recently started going to church. I have found spirituality recently. I would not consider myself a religious person, but I do believe in a higher power of my own understanding. Has anybody else had success with praying their way out of sleep paralysis?

I’ve had sleep paralysis for the last 20 years or so, since 17 when a close family member died. I’ve experienced it on and off, mostly during darker or high stress times in my life.

6 months ago my bf and i bought an estate sale home. Within of the first week of living in our new home i had an episode. It was quick-ish and with many years of being terrified of them, I’ve learned to try and wiggle my toes and that usually brings me out of it. I didn’t have any auditory hallucinations, like i have most times in the past. Just aware and unable to move.

We were aware the previous owners were both deceased, but not in the home, however our very “friendly” neighbours informed us that the family member in power of the estate was living there before it sold and that he had died here. She pointed to a spot on my front lawn where the gentleman died. Really great neighbours lol.

It’s had me thinking, i have spent a lot of time travelling and staying short times in new places and haven’t experienced SP episode, but there have been a few occasions including my new house where its happened, some experiences feel connected to but some feel like they are brought on my a lot of stress during the waking hours.

What is your take? What’s your personal experience on where and when you experience sleep paralysis?

I’ve been experiencing sleep paralysis for about 5 years now and it has gotten to the point where I’m getting it sometimes 5 nights a week.
Often when I can wiggle myself out of sleep paralysis or finally wake up from an episode, if I go right back to bed, I will fall right back into that same sleep paralysis. Sometimes resulting in almost 10 episodes in one night. Which can be exhausting.

I’m curious if this happens to anyone else?