SP and Scary Episodes

[kingofhypocrites]

We always hear stories about scary episodes in sleep paralysis. Why are they always scary if they are hallucinations? Does anyone ever encounter something funny or pleasant in sleep paralysis? Why always messages like "your gonna die". Why does everyone hallucinate the same thing? I've only been in SP once but wasn't to do a lucid. Now I'm trying to induce it intentionally. I tell myself there is nothing to worry about, but I wonder about some of these stories.

[Robot_Butler]

I've never fully understood this, either. I have a few theries, and have heard a few theories. What gets me is that I always feel afraid during SP, even if nothing frightening is happening. It seems to be an integral part of the state. Maybe whatever chemicals are causing the physical paralysis cause the fear. For example, maybe adrenaline is released, or something similar? Anybody know?

[Oothoon]

I wouldn't say SP is always frightening. That's not to say an evil entity has never made me an appearance. I just look at it as a lost opportunity; I should have remained calm and continued the experience. You do have to remain calm, and focus during the transition. Last month I was very aware of my body lying in bed as I was attempting a WILD. I thought that as long as this sense of lying in bed was so strong, I would not go into SP. My body lifted up and rotated once like a log. It wasn't until I rotated a second time that I realized, I was entering a LD. No fear involved. Sometimes someone will come into my bedroom and lie down next to me. Sometimes I can hear a conversation just outside the bedroom door. I will usually have similar type of experiences that I can identify as SP without fear, and know a LD is very near.

[jarrhead]

Going to sleep inducing "sleep paralysis" and sleep paralysis itself are two entirely different think. When you're going to sleep that's just hallucinations, and I don't know a single case of where it is actually paralysis. That said, sleep paralysis I do believe realeases adrenaline instictively. When I was younger this would happen sometimes. I read about it on the internet and then made my hallucinations turn to final fantasy characters. I haven't had sleep paralysis in about seven years. Yes, you can have happy things, but always adrenaline. Adrenaline is when you are excited or scared. Usually people associate it with fear. You have to learn to associate adrenaline with excitement and whatever makes you excited. When I was 7 I always wanted to meat Rikku and Yuna (hehe....)

[Naiya]

I think SP usually involved scary imagery cimply because when it happens, a lot of the time we don't know what it is (how many of us knew what SP was before we ever had our first episode?). Humans have a deep fear of the unknown. Waking up unable to move in itself is pretty damn scary, and of course once we feel fear and begin thinking scary thoughts, we manifest scary hallucinations.

[coopercrue]

. Sometimes someone will come into my bedroom and lie down next to me. Holly crap! I'm never going to attempt a wild again! Well I might, but entering sp is usually scary for me.

[sora12]

I wouldn't say SP is always frightening. That's not to say an evil entity has never made me an appearance. I just look at it as a lost opportunity; I should have remained calm and continued the experience. You do have to remain calm, and focus during the transition. Last month I was very aware of my body lying in bed as I was attempting a WILD. I thought that as long as this sense of lying in bed was so strong, I would not go into SP. My body lifted up and rotated once like a log. It wasn't until I rotated a second time that I realized, I was entering a LD. No fear involved. Sometimes someone will come into my bedroom and lie down next to me. Sometimes I can hear a conversation just outside the bedroom door. I will usually have similar type of experiences that I can identify as SP without fear, and know a LD is very near. Wow, I would have had a heart attack if someone laid next to me during SP. o-o You seem good at staying calm, I wish I was that way. I still have a little fear sometimes while entering SP and I always have the feeling that someone is in my closet or something like that. lol

[jarrhead]

Sora, it gets to a point where you realize it's all make-believe. I have realized that just recently. I knew it was but could never make it out when I was 7. I never got SP since then. But during HH I am no longer afraid. I welcome freaky things to happen to me and just watch and have fun. That said, this is the reason I am also no longer afraid of the dark. Now I actually prefer the dark! haha.

[MissAbiotic]

Oh god, I hate sleep paralysis. Mine are always horrible, and always the same thing. It's a person who looks just like myself (a sort of doppleganger) walking towards my body on the bed, with the intent of strangling it while I can't move. But I always wake up just before she can get close enough. I have a theory, and that is that sleep paralysis is more likely to occur (as does sleep walking, talking, ect.) when the sleeper is under stress. Usually stressful situations don't produce pleasant thoughts, and we dream about what we dwell on. I'm sure there's more to it, though.

[snumbers]

I think that Sp is just your mind letting out all of the fear and fright in a safe way. It make you feel fear to clear your mind. Some peaple say that dreaming is just your mind cearing out the un-needed thoughts so i think Sp is clearing the fear ? This is all just theory and it is hard to prove.

[Naiya]

Just want to let you all know--when it comes to the hallucinations in SP, you CAN actually control them in the same way you can control a dream. It takes practice and doesn't work 100% of the time but it is possible to change the SP hallucinations into something more pleasant. One thing that helps me is to think of a nice memory or feeling and project that good feeling out and change the hallucination into something pleasant. So for example, creepy whispering voices become soft classical music.

[jarrhead]

Just want to let you all know--when it comes to the hallucinations in SP, you CAN actually control them in the same way you can control a dream. It takes practice and doesn't work 100% of the time but it is possible to change the SP hallucinations into something more pleasant. One thing that helps me is to think of a nice memory or feeling and project that good feeling out and change the hallucination into something pleasant. So for example, creepy whispering voices become soft classical music. Or gream reapers take off their robes and become the final fantasy X-2 chicks (minus payne)

[destinationmoon]

If you think about it, sleep paralysis is a defense mechanism so that we don't act out our dreams, but it is also risky in the sense that if your mind wakes up before your body or your body goes to sleep before your mind and you are left paralysed then you are left defenseless if something were to happen. It stands to reason that a natural instint of being rendered helpless would be to panic and be afraid. So it kind of goes against the norm to stay awake whilst our bodies go to sleep, and maybe some buried survival instinct kicks in in response to percieved danger and this is why we get the rush or adrenalin and fear. This is simply my own personal theory, and has no scientific basis behind it whatsoever

[louie54]

I think SP usually involved scary imagery cimply because when it happens, a lot of the time we don't know what it is (how many of us knew what SP was before we ever had our first episode?). Humans have a deep fear of the unknown. Waking up unable to move in itself is pretty damn scary, and of course once we feel fear and begin thinking scary thoughts, we manifest scary hallucinations. Basically what I was going to say but it still doesn't explain the hallucinations I get while fully knowing what it is. I get the suffocating hallucination about 1/3 of time I hit sleep paralysis yet I remind myself that it's not real. Maybe it's something deeper. I could just be anticipating it, therefore making it happen. I wouldn't say we all have the same ones, unless we have heard stories about it from others (alien abductions), however by not knowing what's going on, you can expect the worse and make it happen. If you think about it, sleep paralysis is a defense mechanism so that we don't act out our dreams You're actually thinking REM atonia. Just thought I point that out.

[destinationmoon]

You're actually thinking REM atonia. Just thought I point that out. Oh I thought sleep paralysis was just when your mind entered consciousness when you were experiencing REM atonia. I kind of thought they were basically the same thing

[Naiya]

Basically what I was going to say but it still doesn't explain the hallucinations I get while fully knowing what it is. I get the suffocating hallucination about 1/3 of time I hit sleep paralysis yet I remind myself that it's not real. Maybe it's something deeper. I could just be anticipating it, therefore making it happen. I wouldn't say we all have the same ones, unless we have heard stories about it from others (alien abductions), however by not knowing what's going on, you can expect the worse and make it happen. Ah, okay--well that part of the equation is a lot more complicated. There are too many possible factors for me to make any sweeping generalizations but I'll take a stab at it by saying that one part of it might be that we might have some instinctual fear that stems from being unable to move.

[Darkmatters]

Ok, time to post this one more time: So as this explains it, the scary is because of the Amygdala - center of terror and rage which activates during SP.

[AURON]

We always hear stories about scary episodes in sleep paralysis. Why are they always scary if they are hallucinations? A lot of people experience this phenomenon prior to any knowledge of what's going on, and when they ask other people about it, they get silly answers like "the old hag", or "the devil is riding your back". Just imagine waking up, but not being able to move, and you have no idea what SP is. You try to go back to sleep, The bottom line is this: the less you're informed, the worse it will be to you, because it doesn't happen to people all the time where they could just normally have conversations about it like it's a reoccurring nightmare. Does anyone ever encounter something funny or pleasant in sleep paralysis? Why does everyone hallucinate the same thing? I've heard sexual moans, and even saw a girl on top of me getting really sexual. When hallucinations accompany the experience (which doesn't always happen), people normally bring up the bad things because they're frightened and want to know whats going on with them. It's also a HUGE reason why people think hallucinations, vibrations, sounds=SP. I've only been in SP once but wasn't to do a lucid. Now I'm trying to induce it intentionally. Just remember, you don't need SP to become lucid, and even if you reach it, you may not always enter the dream. It's better to just focus on entering the dream fully lucid, than trying to get to SP.

[destinationmoon]

Being scared of sleep paralysis is what lead me to this site. Now that I am informed, I still get hallucinations, but I am not scared of them. I think there is a difference. Hallucinations obviously come hand in hand with sleep paralysis, but I think it is your perceptions that cause you to either be scared of what you are seeing or to simply ride it out. I still get 'scary' hallucinations, but they don't escalate into the terrifying experience they usually would if I weren't keeping myself calm. And most of the time now I just hear conversations outside my room, or people talking to me inside my room or touching me. When I did not know what this was of course I was scared by hearing random people inside my room - but now of course it isn't actually scary.

[JeffGerlitz]

Yeah SP is scary for me as well. The majority of the time it's unnerving I for the most part always get SP when I'm laying on my side. This is usually the position I am when I fall alseep. Its a creepy feeling. I get the sensation there is "somebody evil" about 2 inches from my face. Laying next to me. Breathing on me. With it's eyes WIDE open staring at me while I sleep. It's truely a scary feeling. I can feel his/her/its breath on me. I tell myself "it's just friggin SP jeff relax" but I usually end up having to open my eyes to end it because it just gets too intense. On occasion I see the outline of the evil creature and the whites of its eyes. But it usually goes away fairly fast. It's a shame cause I get so close to doing a WILD then I have to break it off. But it's not worth pissing my pants ya know! HAHA Occasionally I get the falling/vibration sensations associated with SP...those are fun!!!!

[louie54]

Ah, okay--well that part of the equation is a lot more complicated. There are too many possible factors for me to make any sweeping generalizations but I'll take a stab at it by saying that one part of it might be that we might have some instinctual fear that stems from being unable to move. Hehe it's ok. It's more of something that I find a hard time understanding about my sleep paralysis hallucinations. My apologies if you think I expected more from your post. Oh I thought sleep paralysis was just when your mind entered consciousness when you were experiencing REM atonia. I kind of thought they were basically the same thing Well according to Shift's Sleep Paralysis Tutorial, sleep paralysis happens outside REM sleep. This paralysis of your body, abnormally and outside of REM sleep, is called Sleep Paralysis.

[Puffin]

Apparently the amygdala goes off during SP, and this is the part of the brain responsible for fear. This fear makes you think there's something in the room with you, therefore scary things materialize. I heard that somewhere. I've had positive SP experiences before (seeing a white kitten crawl on me and nuzzle against my cheek, for example), but they're mostly either creepy, unnerving or scary. I've never seen anything scary, except a whispy, dark smoke-like hand. Other than that, I've only felt the hallucinations.

[jarrhead]

Holly crap! I'm never going to attempt a wild again! Well I might, but entering sp is usually scary for me. This is totally wrong. SP is NOT what you get when you WILD, that's just hallucinations. No rage & fear is activated.. I've never had one that wasn't fun. And your eyes should be closed to keep you focused anyways. Imagery comes with your eyes shut.

[LRT]

I think I might be the only one who has consistently enjoyable SP! I like roller coasters and thrill rides a great deal, and one of my favorite things to do when I'm falling asleep (even if I'm not trying to LD) is to imagine myself on some incredible ride. I almost always begin to feel sensations in my stomach like on a real ride, and sometimes I even hear the screams of other riders or feel wind in my face as I "go down the first drop"! If you like coasters, try it sometime. It's worth it.

[jarrhead]

I think I might be the only one who has consistently enjoyable SP! I like roller coasters and thrill rides a great deal, and one of my favorite things to do when I'm falling asleep (even if I'm not trying to LD) is to imagine myself on some incredible ride. I almost always begin to feel sensations in my stomach like on a real ride, and sometimes I even hear the screams of other riders or feel wind in my face as I "go down the first drop"! If you like coasters, try it sometime. It's worth it. Again, as just explained in the above post, this is not SP. this is just HH. SP occurs upon waking. HH is always enjoyable.