Thread: Strange Abrupt Wakeups

Maybe one of you can help me out, I'll be having a dream and then the next second feel the most insane and intense vibration/movements (somehow tied into the dream) and as though I am struggling to get out of it. Then I'll see parts of my room but still not realize where I am and still feeling the intense vibrations and movements. I eventually wake up but it seems that throughout the day my head feels weird and spinning. This has happened to me just this morning as well as once or twice last month. When it happened last month I was left with a month long weird feeling in my head where I felt weird rushes, altered consciousness, and spinning feelings in my head as well as my mind speeding up really fast before I tried to sleep therefore making it almost impossible to fall asleep. (I do not know if these effects are caused by these crazy wake ups but it seems like it.)

Any input would be helpful, there isn't much places to turn to with situations like this.

Thank you.

It sounds to me like you're waking during sleep paralysis (SP). This is actually fairly common and not anything to be worried about. You'll find loads of discussion about SP on these forums.

Basically, when you are dreaming, your brain releases chemicals that paralyse your body. This is to stop you from getting up and acting out your dreams (sleep-walking is a result of this paralysis mechanism not functioning properly). However, sometimes it's possible to wake from your dream before the paralysis wears off. When this happens, you'll be able to open your eyes and look around but you're completely unable to move or wake yourself up completely. Auditory and visual hallucinations and feelings of fear are very common. The vibrations and spinning sensations you describe are commonly associated with SP, too, although I'm not sure what causes these feelings.

As for the feelings you have been experiencing after waking up, I've found that sometimes I feel exhausted and very strange for a few hours after waking from SP. I'm don't know why this happens. It could simply be mental fatigue from 'fighting' the SP. If it is affecting you badly, there are some techniques you could try to learn, for example you could learn how to instantly wake yourself from SP or alternatively, if you read up a bit on the WILD technique, there are ways of using SP episodes as gateways into a lucid dream (something I have yet to master). If I want to wake during SP, I find that moving my eyes very quickly from side to side several times almost always wakes me up instantly.

Hope this helps, SP is a very strange experience but the more you learn about it, the less scary it becomes.

I use to get this a lot when I use to smoke weed. trippy.