Thread: What is sleep paralysis?

I have read about SP in a lot of threads. But what is it, and how dose it relate to Lucid Dreaming?

Sleep paralysis is a state that your body goes into every night, after you fall asleep - it's what prevents you from sleepwalking, and essentially acting out your dreams. When falling asleep, you go unconscious, then enter SP, then a dream. When you wake up, the SP ends right before you wake.

There's a lucid dream induction technique called WILD (wake initiated lucid dream) that involves you remaining conscious during the process of falling asleep - this means you're aware during the entire time, so you can experience sleep paralysis and the actual dream forming around you.

SP can often involve creepy or unnerving hallucinations, such as a quick heartbeat, vibrations, feelings of a presence in the room, whispering, bangs/crashes, tactile sensations... None of it's real though, so if you're feeling curious or brave, I'd definitely recommend at least experiencing SP once because it's really cool (even if you are scared of it at first). I've induced it for WILDs quite a few times and it's pretty awesome, because the hallucinations feel very real.