last night i was going to bed as usual. i was lying there and couldn’t get to sleep, but finally when it comes, a vivid image of a grayscale stairwell appears and i have a strong feeling that it will be a scary dream. I forcably wake myself up and bring myself back from my subconcious. I’m lying there for a few seconds, and my room begins to have an erie, almost evil feeling. I’m lying flat on my back in my bed and I become completely paralized a second later. I try to move my left arm and fail. I cannot move. all i can do is think. I remember reading an article that describes exactly what i was going through, so apperantly other people have it as well. about 10 or 15 seconds later, I’m brought from my paralasis over the duration of a few seconds and i can, again, move. It didn’t frighten me when it was happening, but afterwards i was shaken and could not get back to bed all that night. my question is: if any of you know what this is called and maybe a website i can get more info from, it would help a lot.
i didnt want to put it in the nightterror/nightmare topic because i knew for a fact i was not dreaming. it was very real.
I’ve also had one of those experiences (although not scary).
It’s a state in which your mind wakes up, but your body doesn’t, so you’re paralized. I have no idea what causes this… The only thing you can do is somehow to force yoursef to wake up. I woke myself up by forcing myself to open my eyes and to gain control over my body.
It’s a unique experience, it only happened to me once in my life, about a year ago. It’s not something to be worried about, it has nothing to do with evil stuff and things It’s just a ‘glitch’ of the mind.
It’s called sleep paralysis. Nothing at all to be scared about, and pretty common in people. It is related to nightmares, though, so the stairwell almost definitely triggered it. I think I might have had this once before, but I’m not too sure…
EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis
Hmm… Scary clown… Scary Kids Scaring Kids… I love you Google AdSense. My friends described something like yours. They had a dream where they had a dream, so when they woke up in one dream (the dream in the dream) they couldn’t move (becuase they were still dreaming). I personally never had it before, but it seems that it is quite common.
That has happened to me before. In fact so much bullshit was involved in the dream I had that I woke up angry–or so I thought. What really happened was that I had a dream of idiots harassing me, then I lifted my head up, but was still asleep. All I saw was darkness–eyes were closed–then next thing I know I actually wake up. The ironic thing was that it was as if my lungs stopped breathing because when I “woke up,” I was breathing heavily.
EDIT: Also, it happens sometimes when I’m about to sleep–after I’m really tired or so–where I’m not asleep, but I can actually think. I usually wake up with a weird jolt. I had one yesterday like that. I was still awake, but I was dreaming I was riding my bike and then I fell–jolting me in real life.
One night I forced myself awake to escape a rather reoccuring terrifying dream. I opened my eyes and I couldn’t move. I could just look at my arm and try to mentally command it to move. It didn’t move. Tried my fingers and legs. No response. I remained that way for a short while and finally managed to move, really slowly. Then I went back to sleep knowing I was ok.
Reading the wikipedia article I noticed how it mentions how when your in a dream and unable to move it’s almost the same thing. Commanding your body and no movement. I remember I few days ago and I tried ‘running’ somewhere only to move really slow or not at all. From there I ‘forced’ myself to dream movement. Still didn’t get really far. XD
If you know that you are dreaming, you can manipulate the world around you to some extent… I do it all the time. Sometimes you just ‘know’ that you are asleep, even if there isn’t anything bizarre going on.
THe same exact thing happened to me. Sometimes when I’m dreaming (although still some what awake) I feel as if I’m ot breathing. In this “dream” state, it’s almost as if my throat closes up… Strange, but it doesn’t happen as much as it used to (it hasn’t happened for a long time actually).
lol, yes the leg kicking. I do that frequently. I remember when I was sleeping, it was a school day. In my dream I think I was running or jumping, and I do the movement outside my dream. It’s like some kind of sudden reaction, the joltitself usually gets me up.
hah… on a related note, i often think my best in bed, so if i’m thinking about me falling or something, i’ll forget that i’m in bed and make a big reaction w/o even realizing it…
It’s just a ‘glitch’ of the mind.
