Overcoming Sleep Paralysis Reload

     Bring able to tell when a nightmare would begin was an ace up my sleeve, or so I thought. When I sensed my nightmare beginning I would call out in my sleep for someone to wake me. Being that I slept in a bedroom with four others, I was never short of someone waking me. However, at age eight we moved to a bigger home, each of us had our separate room with thickend walls. I cried out for someone to wake me but to no avail. Now that I was a little older I was able to get over my childhood nightmares and begin controlling my dreams. I could manipulate my dreams to whatever I saw fit. I would frequently dream of Costa Rica, a favorite vacationing spot of ours during school summer recess.

 Soon I wasn't able to control my dreams. All the work I had done to control my dreams went out the door. As soon as I knew I was starting to dream it would get dark and an evil presence would surround me. My mind began to back track as I would enjoy my dream, remember the song from Madonna "like a Prayer" where the one verse says  "its like a dream no end and no beginning:" how true that was, If I were dreaming I was on the beach in Costa Rica instead of enjoying it I would begin to think, how did I get here? I don't remember getting on a plane. Just then the darkness would come and the nightmare would begin  I had to learn to wake myself, and so I did. I was able to consciously here myself screaming and would wake up, but to my shock I would wake up unable to move. I had jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. I had made it so I could escape a non-real realm of fantasy to a paralysed l realm of reality. I escaped lucid dreaming and began a life of horror.

Funny side to Sleep Paralysis

Oh my goodness, I cannot begin to tell you how exciting it is to tell you my sleep paralysis episodes  through these blogs. I feel a weight lifted off of me. I'm going to tell you of an episode I had once where I got so fed up with having these sleep paralysis episodes, this was before I learned to wake myself from them, that I organized a plan to wake myself from sleep.

 When paralyzed most sufferers are able to move their big toe or their pinky on the hand. I went to bed one night and set up my boombox radio next to me. I put in a cassette tape and pressed the pause button. I then cranked up the radio and went to bed positioning my hand near the buttons. 

During one of my sleep paralysis episodes I was able to slowly move my pinky towards the radio. I was in a state of panic but I was still focused on my objective of learning to wake myself from these sleep paralysis episodes. Slowly my finger crept toward the pause button. Just then as I was able to depress the button with my pinky I was blown out of bed by the sound of the boombox. Its funny now looking back on it how everyone ran to ny room to see what was going on so early in the morning.

The Abduction in Sleep Paralysis

Sleep paralysis is one of the causes of people thinking they've been abducted by aliens. Funny thing is I understand exactly were their coming from.  I remember one quiet spring night when I was about fourteen years old. I had gone to bed and drifted away for the night. Suddenly around 2 a.m. my room lit up from a light source coming from outside. Now I can't be sure what the light was, it could've been a car stationed across the street pointing its lights toward my window. Maybe it was a mother ship (highly unlikely) beaming me up to travel the cosmos. At any rate I was woken by the lights but in sleep paralysis I couldn't move.

 My heightened senses made me aware of several presences in the room. You could see tiny,skinny
 humanoid figures moving around my bed. I could see there eyes huge and shiny just like the ufo pictures you see today on tv. I can remember trying to move and not being able to. I felt their hands holding my head and feet still. They didn't talk they just slightly nodded at each other. I remember levitating from the bed toward the window and toward the light source. I was able to break free from my paralysis and woke in my bed. Now today I know I just suffered a sleep paralysis episode, but back then you couldn't tell me squat. I truly believe I was abducted by aliens, and was taken to space, then put back in my bed to think I just had a dream. Scary stuff man...scary.

Sleep Paralysis, a touch of Satan

I recall once during my vacation to Costa Rica I visited often during the summer months, an episode of sleep paralysis. It started off as a normal dream I was shopping at a local convenience store for some canned food products. After looking over the shelf into the next few aisles I noticed a devil doing his shopping also. I guess at this point it occurred to me that I was dreaming, and immediately it became a nightmare. I could feel the dream becoming cold and dark.
 Now being a devout Christian I took it upon myself to confront this demon. I grabbed a can of food and hurled it at the devils head. After clonking him on the head he looked up at me, stepped back and flew in my direction grabbing my right elbow. I woke from the nightmare unable to move, I looked down toward my elbow to release my paralysis. That's when I noticed a hole in my bed with my elbow in it being pulled in. I was able to yank my elbow out of the hole. Needless to say I didn't sleep the rest of the night. Scared...damn right.

Sleep Paralysis vs Sleep Walking

Remember sleep paralysis is when you can't move, mayo clinic defines sleep walking as getting up and walking around while asleep. Most common in children between the ages of 4 and 8, sleepwalking often is a random event that doesn't signal any serious problems or require treatment.
However, sleepwalking can occur at any age and may involve unusual, even dangerous behaviors, such as climbing out a window or urinating in closets or trash cans.
Sleepwalking is classified as a parasomnia — an undesirable behavior or experience during sleep. Sleepwalking is a parasomnia of arousal, meaning it occurs during deep, dreamless (non-rapid eye movement, or NREM) sleep. Someone who is sleepwalking may:

• Sit up in bed and open his or her eyes
• Have a glazed, glassy-eyed expression
• Roam around the house, perhaps opening and closing doors or turning lights on and off
• Do routine activities, such as getting dressed or making a snack — even driving a car
• Speak or move in a clumsy manner
• Scream, especially if also experiencing night terrors, another parasomnia in which you are likely to sit up, scream, talk, thrash and kick
• Be difficult to wake up during an episode

Sleepwalking usually occurs during deep sleep, early in the night — often one to two hours after falling asleep. Sleepwalking is unlikely to occur during naps. The sleepwalker won't remember the episode in the morning.
Sleepwalking episodes can occur rarely or often, including multiple times a night for a few consecutive nights.
Sleepwalking is common in children, who typically outgrow the behavior by their teens, as the amount of deep sleep they get decreases.

Sleep Paralysis and Night Terrors

  Unlike sleep paralysis where a person is awake but cannot move, sleep terrors are episodes of fear, flailing and screaming while asleep. Also known as night terrors, sleep terrors often are paired with sleepwalking.
Although sleep terrors are more common in children, they can affect adults. A sleep terror episode usually lasts from seconds to a few minutes.
Sleep terrors are relatively rare, affecting only a small percentage of children — often between ages 4 and 12 — and a smaller percentage of adults. However frightening, sleep terrors aren't usually a cause for concern. Most children outgrow sleep terrors by adolescence.

Sleep terrors differ from nightmares. The dreamer of a nightmare wakes up from the dream and remembers details, but a person who has a sleep terror episode remains asleep. Children usually don't remember anything about their sleep terrors in the morning. Adults may recall a dream fragment they had during the sleep terrors.
Like sleepwalking and nightmares, sleep terrors are a parasomnia — an undesired occurrence during sleep. Sleep terrors usually occur during the first third of the sleep period.
During a sleep terror episode, a person might:

• Sit up in bed
• Scream or shout
• Kick and thrash
• Sweat, breathe heavily and have a racing pulse
• Be hard to awaken
• Be inconsolable
• Get out of bed and run around the house
• Engage in violent behavior (more common in adults)
• Stare wide-eyed

Out of body Sleep Paralysis

I'm gonna tell you about an experience I had when I was about fourteen. I had not yet controlled the paralyzing chemical that keeps you from moving as you dream. I was sleeping on a couch in our living room, my sister was across from me watching television. I could hear the sound of the tv set. I opened my eyes and noticed the ceiling was about three feet in front of me.  At first it hadn't sunk in because as a child I was used to waking up on the top bunk bed and seeing the ceiling. Then I realized I was in our new home with the ten foot ceilings. Now trust me when I tell you I don't believe in out of body experiences. So anyway I was in complete paralysis awake but unable to move. My senses were in a panic I felt spirits flying around me. They began to circle me which in turn started to rotate my body. After a few passes I was lying face down but still against the ceiling.

What I saw next will stay with me forever, because it never happened to me again. I could see my sister watching tv on the couch. I could here the tv program on and the flicker of the light bouncing off of my sister. I tried to call out to her but she couldn't hear me. I as I yelled out I heard a voice  below me. I turned my attention away from my sister to what was directly below me. I could see myself laying on the couch staring up at myself yelling out to be woken up. I could see the fear in my eyes and closed my own eyes. When I opened them again I was staring up at the ceiling again , only this time it was eight feet above me. I turned to my sister and asked why she didn't wake me. She declined ever hearing my pleads for help.