# Sleep and Dreams > General Dream Discussion > Nightmares and Recurring Dreams >  >  Sleep paralysis survival: My story

## Tiger Mimi

This is a real story that happend to me when I was a kid. I wrote this in order to help other people who are suffering from sleep paralysis.



Everybody remember the first time they went to a movie theatre. Especialy when you're young and easyily impressed. Just to look around and see all those chairs and the birg white screen is verry impressive for a lil' child. I was 5 years old when I first when to the cinema, it was in 1981. That year has marqued cinema history and my life. This was the year when Steven Spielberg produced one of the greatest masterpiece of American movies. A movie that you can't forget, E. T. the extraterestrial. I remember as if it was yesterday. My mother and grand-mother where with me. I was really impressed by everything I saw that day... really impressed. Already my child instinct told me that this is going to be a unique moment. I've never seen soo many peoples and I think that I've never saw in my entire life such a hughe waiting line, and I've been through Star Wars episode 1, 2, 3, premiere. At last, we where sitting in the theatre, I was completely absorbed, completely. I was there, in the movie, I could feel E.T.'s fear at the begining and I could even smell the reeses pieces. This movie was made for kids but you have to admit that this movie was particularly scary. I wanted to see that creature though, even if I was already scared to death. When Eliot started searching in the field with his flashlight, the tension was verry high. When Eliot was geeting closer to the creature, E.T. jumped in front of him with a the scariest scream of all the movie monsters. This was the moment when my life changed forever. The entire audience jumped out of their seats. I still loved the movie and it was from that moment that I started to fall in love with the 7th art. But I wasn't aware at all that this experience has marqued verry deeply. 

So I went to bed, fell asleep and then, a few hours later I woke up. First thing I notice, I am completely paralysed. And even stranger, I am not alone in my bedroom. I could felt a presence but I couldn't see it. There was some sort of a negative energy coming from my closet, then, the door open. I started to panic when I realised that I couldn't breathe and the only thing I could move where my eyes. Then, a pair of hands with horrible long fingers, one with a red light on it, came out from the darkness of the closet followed by a terrifying head with hughe eyes that could feel my fear. The look of that thing was soo piercing. That creature had no feelings, I could feel it through my skin, and was especialy created to make me suffer. Then it came closer to the bed putting his hands around my waste, it was horrible, I've never felt so vulnerable. I was having a panic attack and then I started to feel an excrutiating pain on each side of my body. I used all my strenght to scream but nothing came out. The only thing I could to, was to wait until it finished. This is probably what a rape feels like. After a moment, the creature disapeared, but not the pain. I was trying to move to rub myself to ease the pain but I still coudn't move. After a moment, everything came slowly back to normal. My entire body was covered with sweat. I wanted to call my parents but I was to scared that the creature might hear me. So I stayed in my bed looking at the darkness of my closet untill I fell asleep.

I'm an illustrator, so this is exactly what the creature looked like: 



In the morning, I told my story to my parents. For them, this was only a single nightmare. But everything seemed so real and vivid, the pain was real so it must be real. During several weeks I couldn't sleep at all. The only thing my parents were able to do is to keep telling me thas this was in my head and that I should close the close before I go to bed. So I did, but closet monsters are much more intelligent than we think they are (Monster Inc). So I've learned to live with it. I even convinced myself that this was normal. After a couple of years I slowly realised that this was really a nightmare although the pain and the paralysis was still there. The lack of sleeping was destroying my life. I talked to no one and I was extremely introverted, I even had a test to be sure that I wasnt daft. I had no self confidence. This nightmare was controlling me. The only way to express myself was through drawing. It probably saved my life. I didn't had any friends at school and I've never been able to socialised. But luckily, I've managed to have some friends in my neighbourhood. My problems where all at school where people simply coudn't accept me for who I was. I started to loose my trust for others, which make me even more outcasted. All of this because I couldn't sleep properly. My parents never understood what was happening to me so they sent me to a psychiatrist. But for me, I wasn't the one who needed help, it was those who where having pleasure of hurting me who deserved to be treated, but school doesn't work this way. In spite that I was suffering from reject, drawing had kept me mentally mostly healthy. And I could feel that there was a strenght that was growing inside of me. 

When I was 12 years old, I had a solid talent in drawing. And I decided that it was time to learn oil painting. This was a tru revelation for me because I didn't think I was able to do that, then I started to have some self confidence. It was then that I've decided to take things in charge. I had to do something to stop this nightmare that was still ruining my sleep. Throught the years, the frequency had slowly decreased, but enought is enought. For ten years that monsters was still hurting me for no reasons and it was time to make it go. I started to understand my dreams when I've learned to fly (Superman teached me LOL!). Then I've decided to take control of my dream starting with this one. One night I went to bed and then I started to repeat in my mind ''if you ever come back, I wont be paralysed and I will burst your eyes and cut off your head you hear me!!!''. Believe it or not, the monster never came back, I was free. From that moment my life started to get better. I was learning faster at school and I was much more healthy. It didn't solved all my problems but it was better than nothing. I'm still not out of the wood today but I've made hughe progress. I'm still a loner but now I have friends. The fact that I win over my own fear helped me forged my own personnality. Today I refuse to live in fear and my freedom is now my priority. I don't have a 100% control of my dreams but i'm still working on it. Now I analyse my dream and i'm trying to understand them. I've learned that if you control what's in your head, you're in control of your life. 

Only a few years ago, I found the name of this mental problem. I would never imagine that this had a name. This trouble caused many story about alien abduction and ghost attack. It's a trauma called sleep paralysis, found it on tv. Then I realised that I wasn't alone. This problem is caused by a serious trauma. When you fall asleep, the brain send a signal to the muscle to block them so that you can't ''live your dream''. Sleep paralyisis is the oposite of sleepwalking, the brain doesn't unlock the muscle one you're awake and can cause vivid hallucination. Which make the experience extremely scary. I woke up so fast that I wasn't aware that I was waking up and my body didn't had the reflex to switch on the muscles. I was paralysed just like in my dream. That's why I though everything was real. After a few years I could felt the period of transition between sleep and the awakening but I the pain and the paralysis was still there. Everything was cause by panic. Generally, people who had suffered the same thing have the same breathing problem during the nightmare. People dream about little demons on their chest or an old woman trying to choke them. In my case, the pain was also on my waiste and it was unbareble.

So this is it, this was my story and it feel soo good to be able to write about it. Never underestimate to world of dream. I hope that my little story will help some others to talk about it. Peoples loves to talk about their dreams. It unite us in some level and it's as vital as breathing. The dreams are there to make us remember who we truly are. And nightmares are there to trigger our survival instinct. Without dreams, life has no colors, it's chaos. Today when I alk about this experience, it always make me smile to think about the time when I was tickle to death by E.T. the extraterestrial.

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## Man of Steel

I just want to say, _awesome_ illustration!

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## kingofclutch

That would be very scary to have that creature come towards you and touch you and not be able to move. Nice drawing too.

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## KitsumiChan

Wtf?

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## quattykitty

omg i read that whole thing.. i loved it. become a writer (work on your grammar and spelling though) and your illustration was amazing... can i see smoe of your other work?

great life story, submit it to liek chiecken soup for the soul ;]

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## Colex

For first, sorry for my English, I'm David, from Croatia.


I've had similar problems, before 1.5 years I've had a big trauma (really big, horrible sensation, i just don't like to talk about that), and since that my life got extremely worse, I didn't go out for months from my house, I've missed a lot of school days (high school, now i'm 17), it was (and it still is, but less) a big depression. Every time someone try to attack me, or simulate an attack (for joke), i become very firm and prepared for the attack, even if is a joke. 
I've started to have a couple of gray hairs (16-17 years!! for GOD sake)... My cognitive capabilities dropped extremely (I was an excellent student, loved math, physics, 3.grade of gymnasium - don't know how you call it), I've missed also months of Saturdays...etc. 

Here we talk about the sleeping, so:
A couple of times when i was going to sleep, (especially when i was wearing jeans and didn't have a blanket on me) I was paralyzed, totally or 99%, the squealing in my ears was EXTREMELY LOUD, even painful I'd say. My heart worked at an extremely big rate, i couldn't say a word (I've try ed to scream), but nothing... it was SCARY, I mean, PROPERLY SCARY, awful.
In that moments I was trying with all my forces to wake up, to shake me a little bit, and in a 20-30 seconds I was waking up a little bit (the waking up thing was very unpleased to me, like waking up someone with force who slept 50% of his sleeping time... you know the feeling. ) And, after a couple of minutes of watching TV, drinking of water, i could sleep normally (actually not completely normally, I'll explain later*).

I must mention that I was _____ of everything that was going.

When i finally was sleeping, a couple of times in a month i could control my dreams, go every where, and, often, when someone wanted to punch me, i moved my body vigorously, and that waked me up. 

*EVERY TIME when i try to sleep (from when I was 11-12 to now), i can't sleep without 2-3 hours of thinking about the day, AND (really important) without this:
Simulating situations where i talk with people, replicate to them, even verbally fight with them, and, every time in this "sessions of simulated life" i become somehow a hero, a star, more wisdom than others... etc.


Tonight (it's 1:37AM here) i will try the paralyzing-thing again (i think i know the way, can't explain it, but, i somehow NOW, not feel, now. If you understand me). It's gonna be scary, and dreadful some how, but maybe it will take me somewhere.  ::D:  


And yes, my life is a little bit better than before, but the trauma "wounds" are still here. I'll try to be optimistic, but... don't know.  ::embarrassed::

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## kaffaljidhma

> *EVERY TIME when i try to sleep (from when I was 11-12 to now), i can't sleep without 2-3 hours of thinking about the day, AND (really important) without this:
> Simulating situations where i talk with people, replicate to them, even verbally fight with them, and, every time in this "sessions of simulated life" i become somehow a hero, a star, more wisdom than others... etc.



this happens to me exactly every night
it prevents me from sleeping for sometimes up to 5 hours or so
have you ever found a way to stop it? or to get around it?

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## Dreamworld

I hate night terrors. I usually get them if a dream isn't that happy. But I could feel that presence, the probability factor comes in. Robbers in your attic, something in your closet, etc. Creaks, and air become agonizing. And you are so paralyzed that you don't even close your mouth for an hour, and your mouth gets completely dry and crusty. Its a pretty terrible experience. So terrible you can't even turn on your light.

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## Colex

> this happens to me exactly every night
> it prevents me from sleeping for sometimes up to 5 hours or so
> have you ever found a way to stop it? or to get around it?



Yes, by filling my day with events and work, in this way i forgot "that something thats prevents me to sleep" and go to bed. I'd succeed only a few (5-6) times in a two year period. It is very hard to not go to sleep until 4-5 AM.

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## iancruz123

when i was a kid around 4 or 5 i had the same thing happen to me, it looked like e.t. but he didnt have the glowing finger. it came into my room and got closer and closer to me. when it reached my bed it started pulling off my covers and i passed out. i have suffered ever sence and still see things like him weekly. im glad i meet some one who had the same thing happen to them.  It was no dream. because i could move. i live a good life, i never withdrew form people, because i knew if i was always with some one it wouldent come back. but now that im married it still comes back and i know im not crazy cause my wife can feel it too. I always thought it was sleep paralysis but i can move when i see these things.  your picture scared the crap out of me.

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