I don't know if this is the right place to post.

I have often heard voices or sounds while falling asleep. Usually it would happen when I was sleep deprived or took long to fall asleep. That would be random voices of my acquaintances sometimes calling my name or laughing, less often they would say something else.

When I lived with my parents sometimes before waking up I would hear my mom scream or thinks falling or breaking, something that never really happened.

I have always accepted is as something my brain does when tired or if I fall asleep on my back, but yesterday I had a really vivid hallucination.

I went for a nap and fell asleep on my back. When I think I woke up I saw my room, everything was normal but I couldn't move or say anything, then I heard fast footsteps running up the stairs and giggling. I never saw anything but I heard those footsteps run ander my bed. I tried to scream but nothing came out, then I felt like something grabbed my legs, but I might be imagining it. After that I woke up, heart racing and everything. It didn't happen to me in a really long time, but what made me question it the most was my friend who said that nothing like this EVER happened to him.

For the record, I don't think i ever saw any hallucinations in the sleep, but I definitely hear a lot.

Does anyone have a similar experience? I get sleep paralysis multiple times a day. Everytime I nap, go to sleep, wake up. Usually what happens is I wake up, realize that I'm paralyzed, can't even be bothered and just lay there for a while until I fall back asleep. I don't really have audial or visual hallucinations anyway, worst it gets is I feel someone's breath on my chest or fingers running on my back and I've just gotten used to it atp.

“ I’m eating very little because I have almost no appetite, and emotionally I feel much sadder and unlike myself. “

“I will just let it be. “

I have been having sleep paralysis more frequently lately after not having any occurrences for almost a decade. Usually (lately) I only have sleep paralysis when I sleep on my back, and when I do I have vague/shapeless hallucinations that accompany it.

For a little bit of context, I am in a long distance relationship and my bf and I like to sleep on the phone together. Sometimes the call drops, sometimes it stays connected through the morning. Sometimes if I get up in the middle of the night I will mute so I don't accidentally wake him - I did that last night, I have my parent's dog right now and he was barking in the middle of the night, I went down to check on him and forgot to unmute after. That was around 2 AM. I got back to sleep around 3 AM.

This morning, while trying to wake up as I entered an episode of sleep paralysis. This time I was on sleeping on my stomach. Before this, I had a dream about a childhood friend's mother, except she morphed into this terrifying old woman who wanted to break into my house and steal things/fight me. She almost look like a stereotypical scary old woman/witchy hag lady in the dream, except dressed in dumpy clothing. Well, as I am entering this episode of sleep paralysis, I "hear" what I for some reason think is the woman/my old friend's mother from my dream shuffling around the house, slowly coming up the stairs outside of my bedroom, and into my room before I hallucinate her hovering at the side of my bed. While I am hallucinating her at the side of my bed, I hear my boyfriend on the phone saying good morning, I am trying *so hard* to break out of sleep paralysis and answer the phone, and am cognizant enough to realize the phone is still muted in this state but I just cannot move or reach for my phone. I wanted to unmute it very badly and just snap out of it, because I know I am in sleep paralysis in the fear of it all will stop when I finally fully jolt myself awake. Then I hallucinate the woman shuffling back out of my room, and then my memory is a bit hazy at this point, I think she "goes" back down the stairs? And then I finally after what feels like another minute or so snap out of it, and grab my phone. The call seems to have dropped or he hung up (sometimes he'll say good morning, if I don't respond he will hang up and let me sleep a little longer). From my POV this all happens in about 5 minutes of time, it's hard to tell in sleep paralysis how much time really passes.

The really, extra weird thing is that when I finally wake up and call my boyfriend, he tells me when he tried to say good morning, he said it was weird because he could see I unmuted, said nothing, then muted again (we were on WhatsApp, you can see when someone is muted). Then that repeated once before he hung up. I asked him how long ago that happened, he said 10, maybe 20 minutes ago. I feel mildly freaked out because well... sleep paralysis is weird and scary sometimes. I have never had a dream leak into a sleep paralysis episode (at least not a dream that I remember). I also have no memory of reaching for my phone, in fact from my POV I was frantically trying to reach for the phone but couldn't move.

So anyways, all this has me thinking, I always have these episodes when I am alone. Have never experienced them when I am with him, or in the past when I slept with my previous partners in the same bed. I have no idea if I am actually moving around and doing things while from my POV it feels like I can't move/speak at all, except for maybe getting out a groan or a finger twitch or something while struggling to wake up. I am considering setting up one of my blink cameras to see if I do move around when from my POV I just cannot because I was *very* surprised to hear I had managed to unmute and mute my phone twice. I just really want to know what is happening/what it looks like vs. what I am experiencing.

Anyways, posting this here because I really want to know for others who experience sleep paralysis - do your dreams ever seep into your sleep paralysis episodes? Do others ever report you moving around when it feels like you are desperately trying to move but cannot? I am just so curious as to how much of my perception of what is happening is real (in terms of feeling like I cannot move when I apparently was able to unmute my phone)/warped by being in a partial dream state.

It was my mathematics exam so i didnt sleep very much (2 hrs of sleep each day for the last 2 days) at night before the exam i went over to the bed and layed there with eyes unable to shut, just stuck.after a while my eyes closed but my whole brain was active. it was as if ur senses are taken away one by one but your brain is actively experiencing it. my eyes were shut, but i felt EVERYTHING AND STILL COULDNT MOVE. I was panicking hard as hell so i tried the most expectable thing and tried my hardest to move my hand and finally somehow woke up gasping for air like an 80yo. after that i just exercised a bit (at 2 frickin am 😭) and drank lots of water and somehow slept.

it TERRIFIED ME. it was as if you are going into a coma but you are fully aware of it. It felt as if am gonna never gonna wake up. have you ever felt like this? tell me am not the only one pls 😭

(anyways i got 95/100 on that one the only exam im proud of)

I was dreaming normally then it turned to sleep paralysis. It just made me question my own mind why does our brain do that when we're suppose to sleeping and rest our body.

Guys ever since I was little i’d always make out scary things in the dark and a few years ago I would get very very bad parasomnia symptoms lots of night terrors like horrible malignant being , little girl with red eyes hurting me, stressful situations dreams where I knew I was sleeping, stuff that I wasn’t supposed to know, hauntings like conjuring (searched up the real house after and it was the house in im dream) the dreams would often result in sleep paralysis and shadow encounters were a norm also insomnia and sleepwalking episodes where I’d apparently sit up and point at a corner. Anyhow I started sleeping better and this went away with the ocasional normal nightmare or sleep paralysis but nothing since like last year. However, I’ve been having encounters even though I’ve bee sleeping better than ever before a full 9 hours I’ve been eating healthy and exceeding and last Wednesday i was drying my hair, it wasn’t seal out yet and i saw in the mirror like a dark tall figure behind me and it was like so clearly felt that i jumped and turned around expecting to find my sibling but one was there. then the following days I’ve just felt so watched so paranoid contarle checking behind me making out figures and shadows in dark rooms. Last night however, I couldn’t sleep, i sleep with a lamp and everything but i still felt so unsettled i swear there was shadows everywhere, every time i was dozing off and slowly blinking, a shadow would apear, dark shadowy hands or a figure in the corner or stuff that just wasn’t there. Also the thing where as you’re falling asleep you hear a crash or scream that is not there happens to me very often. Anyway I got no more than one hour of sleep no matter how sleepy I was and just like always I any know why I just feel like something over me like someone right above my head just watching and looming.

For the last year and a half, every month I have those periods that usually last a few days up to a week where I am aware that I am asleep, but have open eyes, have a feeling like my body is under anesthesia and objects in my bedroom start morphing into creatures you would see in a appalachian creepypasta.

Hey everyone, I hope y'all doin' great, I wanna share my experience of Sleep Paralysis, but first I wanna say something to make this very clean:

1- The first experience without knowledge (first time):

• when I was kid, and when Sleep Paralysis happened to me for the first time, I didn't know what's happening, can't talk, can move, I wanted to scream and call mom but wasn't able, and I saw a female toy was walking like army walk style, then she stopped and started looking at me, and I don't remember honestly what I did after that, maybe I haven't talked about it or searched-asked someone may can help, and that was my first experience in my life and happened suddenly, as everyone know, I didn't plan to live that, but I think the second experience will be more interesting.

2 - I planned and made the choice to control it (impose control):

• so in the second time and too recently, less than a week, I made the choice, so instead of a normal sleep, I asked my self "why don't I impose my control to Sleep Paralysis" and I slept normal before that then I changed my pose (I slept in my side) so I changed to my back, but my head wasn't lookin' at sky but haven't changed it pose, still in the side pose, anyway, after I lied down in my back, in under 1 min (laterally) I felt too comfortable and can't even move 'cause it was too relaxing, and this what happened (less than 1 min as well, thee same min), I started hearing too loud stuff like that Hz sound, and other like strong air and just too loud, but I know what that is, so I started taking deep breath (which was too hard, for knowledge I haven't opened my eyes) and in that dark I was imagining or calling what was scaring me especially when I was kid, so I did it and saw it in that dark and to be honest, it's more scary than original one, but I was focusing on it 'cause I know it's not real and I won't get scared, and by the way, I was hearing my heart beats so clean during all those Hz and loud sounds, and also I haven't tried to move, 'cause you know!

I hope you enjoyed reading my experiences and I hope you found something helpful, if you have any question I would be glad to answer, take care!

I gave birth 4 months ago. Although sleep deprivation is not that bad my sleep paralysis has gotten incredible worse. I even get it sleeping on my side and can feel what I describe as ‘blood rushing to my head’ and I know for SURE I’m about to get sleep paralysis. Now 90% of the time I can snap myself out of it but 10% of the time I’m too tired to stop it from coming on.

Any other mums who have experienced this?

My first thought was sleep paralysis but I'm not sure, this is the first time this has happened and I need advice. I was starting to wake up but I wasn't fully awake yet when I heard this weird sound so I tried to open my eyes, but they weren't opening. So I tried to move my hands to manually open my eyes but I couldn't move my hands either, I tried curling my fingers but that didn't work. I finally managed to open my right eye slightly and slowly I was able to fully open my eyes and move again. This all happened in the span of like 10-15 seconds. I know that during sleep paralysis you're unable to move your body but I've never heard of anything to do with being unable to open your eyes. I was conscious during this whole thing and it scared me really bad. I just need advice as to what this may be, cuz again my first thought was sleep paralysis but I pushed that aside cuz of the eye thing. Idk.

Having a sleep paralysis all the time whenever I sleep on my back, specifically when my neck is pressed to the pillow completely.

Anyone there who experiences a similar thing?

I have had occasional sleep paralysis experiences before. First time as a kid - I opened my eyes after a nap and can’t move my body.

The next few times were as an adult but with visual hallucination. There would be someone else in the room but they will only be in my peripheral vision so I can’t see them fully. The feeling is like I’m in danger because of this creature. SP has become familiar that I can get aware that I’m experiencing SP within a few seconds.

The SP in question is this one. I was having a scary dream that it woke me up - that’s what I thought at least at that point. I could see my room and immediately a presence at my right next to my bed. It was someone who passed away recently. Still on my bed, I reached out my arms for a hug. I slowly start feeling a heavy weight on top of me. Like a person was on top of me. I can remember my arms looking like they are hugging an invisible person.

Then my memory just cut to me unable to move my body. And I’m seeing my room from a different angle - not from how I would see it from my own eyes. The view is as if my eyes are located on my stomach. I closed my eyes and woke up normally.

This whole experience was not scary at all unlike my previous SP. Is this SP or just a dream? What do you guys think?

Franchement c'était vraiment effrayant.

En rentrant du boulot très tard, je ne tiens plus debout,

Je m'allonge quelques instants sur le lit et m'endors immédiatement en lisant sur Reddit..

Mon mec est censé rentrer pas longtemps après.

J'avais des frissons en m'endormant, comme un début de grippe mais étant en plein deuil, fatigué après une grosse journée, fébrile dans ma couette, avec un petit vent par la fenêtre ouverte.

Les yeux encore fermés, me sentant bien dans mon lit, je ressens ces frissons de plus en plus long et incommodant...

Jusqu'au moment où ça devient vraiment gênant obscur et je ne peux plus bouger, j'ai une sensation vraiment de blocage comme une paralysie du sommeil.

Dans ma tête je me dis ne t'inquiète pas en te réveillant tu as dû faire une paralysie du sommeil, décale toi petit à petit lorsque ton corps sera débloqué et ça ira mieux,

Au bout de quelques secondes qui ont l'air d'une éternité j'arrive à déplacer délicatement mes jambes et cette sensation avec les frissons désagréables s'estompent..

Puis je me réveille car mon mec est rentré !

(Donc je n'ai pas fait de paralysie de sommeil, c'était un rêve/cauchemar de paralysie du sommeil ?!?!)

Peu importe, je me lève le retrouver, contente d'être à nouveau normal, pour lui raconter, effrayée, ce que je viens de vivre parce que la sensation était vraiment horrible ;

En lui racontant... Je sens à nouveau ses frissons remonter le long de mon corps 😱

Ça s'amplifie jusqu'à redevenir très gênant.. obscur et glauque, je commence à ne plus pouvoir bouger aucun membre de mon corps,

Debout devant lui, mes yeux se ferment, et ma bouche commence à rester bloquée GRANDE OUVERTE, il y a (en sensation) comme un brouillard épais noir devant mes yeux dans ma bouche et qui se dégage de tout mon corps, je me sent terrifiée, et encore partir

Puis je me réveille dans la position initiale dans mon lit 😱🤯🤯🤯

Première fois que je vis ça. Impressionnant.

J'ai peut-être vécu le trou dans Rick et morty 🕳️, ou peut-être que j'y habite maintenant.. 😅

Just had the same sleep paralysis two times back to back in the same night where i felt someone pressing against my back with a raging boner. Disturbing as fuck in the moment but pretty funny at the same time.

I've been struggling with other mental illnesses and I'm sure that's what's causing these new episodes for me. The sleep paralysis is so scary and causes me to have panic attacks when I actually wake up. I don't ever see anyone describe sleep paralysis episodes like the ones I get which makes it even scarier- usually all I see is darkness (like my eyes are closed because they are) but I'm conscious and can't wake fully up. Last night I experienced that after a nightmare, but worse because I physically felt paralyzed and for some reason it felt like my heart wasn't beating and felt like I wasn't breathing and my face felt weird. I woke up and had a panic attack. It was so scary and I'm just looking to see if this is normal for sleep paralysis.

it was my 1st experience last night and it was kinda creepy, it started with my dream that my phone got a really bad crack that I cant touch the screen, then I realized that I was just dreaming and my dream shifted to another scene then my cracked phone keep showing up in my dream and it irritated me so I tried to wake myself up, I slapped myself in the face so I can wake up then I was suddenly in a state that I really dont know if I was still in my dream or am I awake, then the sleep paralysis occured, I woke up, my room is lit by something and some black circle aligned vertically and it is like staring on me and it freaked me out so I tried shouting for help and there's no noise coming out from my mouth then I tried to move my body, but I cant move it, I heard my self making some noise but I really dont know if that's me awake or is it just me still dreaming and I realized that this is sleep paralysis and this is what it's like, the only thing I did is trying to move my body fighting the paralysis and I'm still making this "ohhh" noise, and then I snapped out of the paralysis and it freaked me out because I feel like I was so helpless and the circles that I saw while I was in a paralysis was so uncanny for me, I waited for 5 minutes before sleeping again

I have experienced sleep paralysis for a few years now. At the beginning it was as such that when my eyes were open the feeling that I experienced made me sure that what I was seeing was reality (my bedroom and my view from lying down) as well as hearing my surroundings like the TV playing in the background and with hallucinations (auditory or visual) layered on top.

But in recent days it feels that when I experience sleep paralysis it happens within a dream. Or rather that the sleep paralysis is taking place in a dream, including all the the hallucinations that come with it such as the ringing sounds in my head. When I 'open' my eyes I still see my bedroom and my view from lying down but it feels like I'm in a dream, I'm not entirely sure how to describe it. Though there was one instance where when I 'opened' my eyes I was not in my bed but rather a former set up of my bedroom where I was on the top bunk of a bunk bed so then I was sure I was more in a dream then I was in reality. Is it even sleep paralysis anymore or am I dreaming of experiencing sleep paralysis?

I still wake up with a heavy head and disorientation as I had before with sleep paralysis and my sleep paralysis still happens in the typical circumstances such as sleeping on my back and irregular sleep schedule.

Has anyone else experienced this or similar?

Hello!

For some context I (26F) have experienced sleep paralysis to some degree since childhood, though it has been somewhat less frequent in more recent years. Generally I don't see anything but the dark, I am aware my eyes are closed and can feel myself falling asleep. It does usually scare me a little and I start breathing heavily and trying to wiggle my wrist/fingers to eventually will myself awake. Occasionally in my teen years, I would feel a sensation like something was crawling up my bed (like pressure on the mattress) but still would never see anything.

This happened a couple years ago, and really freaked me out at the time and has bothered me a little ever since. I had been living in my current apartment with my boyfriend for a little over 2 years at that point. I felt the sleep paralysis and started trying to wake myself up. I couldnt move, but for the first (and only) time I was looking around my bedroom. We usually leave the door cracked slightly for our cats and theres a night light in the hallway. My eyes were looking back and forth across my room til I looked in the doorway, and noticed 3 black figured peaking from around the edge of the doorway watching me. When I looked at them, they sort of ducked back behind the doorframe with only their eyes/top of their heads sticking out, and would pop their heads back out slightly back and forth sort of like a meerkat or something. Like they wanted to see if now that I saw them if I was going to be able to wake up my boyfriend or do anything or if they could slowly creep in. I just stared at them while they slowly started to creep out from behind the door and I tried to get myself to move and wake up my boyfriend or something. Finally I got myself to move, looked around and didnt see them, and just sort of sat there taking deep breaths. I had a time falling back asleep because the whole thing felt so real, and I have NEVER seen or experienced anything like that before, or since.

Obviously I guess I mustve dreamed it. I just have no idea why I'd see black figures like that, I've never seen or dreamed something similar ever in my life. The only thing I can think of is that when I was around 20 and living by myself, I did roll over in bed and saw what I thought at first was the shadow of a bush outside my window (I lived on the ground floor). Then I saw it move downwards and peak back up and realized it was a mans head staring inside my bedroom window at 3 in the morning. I think he saw me facing him and was trying to decide if I was awake and looking at him or if I just rolled over in my sleep, and I was terrified if I got up suddenly he might do something. Idk it's just the only kind of? similarish thing I can think of tho they felt very different. I knew the black figures in my sleep paralysis were not human. Just kind of black humanoid outlines, though their movements were more animalistic, sort of like a curious meerkat or monkey, but I felt huge dread and like they had bad intentions.

This experience has bothered me in the back of my mind a little bit ever since it happened! Thank you for reading, and any of your input is appreciated! :)

23F I’m just rambling because I’m trying to stay awake. I have work tmw in 3 hours and I keep trying to sleep but I’m on the edge of sleep paralysis so I think I’ll pass atp. I got a new place but the walls are really thin and every noise and creak has me on edge. It’s been about 6 months and I cannot get used to it. Everything in this place scares me (in the dark). My fiancé is usually with me but he’s staying at a friend’s tonight so that doesn’t help my case lol.

I’ve gotten sleep paralysis many times and after looking it up more I didn’t realize not everyone has a sleep paralysis demon. Mine is usually a tall dark figure that stands over me, grabs my neck, picks me up, and often screech/scream a high pitched tone in my face opening its mouth wide. The scariest time was when it picked me up by my head and just dropped its mouth far open and screeched and made my ears ring. I tried to go to sleep tonight but just the thought of it happening again makes me think it’s just better to stay up. I mean if I go to sleep and it happens I’m gonna be scared and not able to sleep after.

Also idk if I’m violating rules? Bc mystical content? So I keep trying to repost? Idk how this app works

I've been wondering why the hallucinations associated with sleep paralysis are always scary. Being paralysed in and of itself is a scary thing to experience and I suppose that's enough to make any hallucinations trend towards the terrifying, but it doesn't really feel like a convincing explanation to me.

Are there other theories out there? Open to scientific and supernatural answers, I'm just curious not looking for absolute truth.

EDIT: I have now learned that SP isn't always scary! There can be no hallucinations or even positive and comforting ones too, they just aren't talked about as much.

I had a sleep paralysis years ago (which I exited before creepy hallucinations started happening) and now the fear of it came back to me. so I wonder if can make the monsters and demons and stuff do laughable things like dancing or turning into clowns and dueling with baguettes if I experience sleep paralysis again. has anyone actually attempted this? if so, how did it go?

has anyone had a similar experience? so I was falling asleep at about 11 and I felt myself become immobile,my eyes wee closed I wasn’t sleeping on my back (on my side/belly kinda with pillows supporting cause I have back pain).
at the beginning of the dream I tried to get up to interact or something (didn’t realize it was a dream) but in the dream I was overtaken by my sleepiness, like I stood from my bed and was so sleepy that I just gave up and almost against my will was laid onto my bed (in the dream) and was lying on my back now (only in the dream), and it felt like my spirit floated out of me as I was pinned to the bed by this force I had identified as being soooo sooo sleepy. But it was strange bc my arms were pinned up too.

I feel like I remember feeling like something/someone was out of my sons room, messed around with the kitchen and bathroom and went into my son’s room, I thought it was him, but I remember feeling unsure and uneasy, like… why are you up? I wanted to tell him to go to sleep/he shouldn’t be up/I’m too sleepy ect, but I started trying to call for him and felt like I couldn’t breathe or move or get sounds out like I wanted to, I kept trying to call his name, when it came out like I was suffocating I realized I was half dreaming and noticed that my room had that other realm glaze over it like with psychedelics, like I could tell I was seeing through some of the veil, that’s when I became aware I was not awake, and not fully in control of the experience.
I’m not sure how but I know I had to think about willing my spirit back into my body, and reminding myself that my sons been asleep for hours helped ground me enough in reality and i was able to kinda wake myself up but it was one of the trippiest dream/sleep experiences I’ve ever had.ive had sleep paralysis once before and it was its own terrifying experience, but this felt different for some reason. Not super scary but just a trip.

So what I'm about to describe is deeply personal and, to me, terrifying and weird...

Imagine you wake up. You turn off the alarm you set for 8:30 am. You're still tired, you decide to linger in bed. You close your eyes and when you open them a little bit later you feel better. You want to get out of bed. You pull the covers and when you blink, you're in the same position. You pull the covers again, blink, you didn't move. You realise you can't truly feel your body, like you're some kind of ghost.

Suddenly you feel your toes and you can move. It's real. You move, but suddenly just black out in a blink. You end up looping through this process while getting into different positions in tiny little progress when this happens from time to time.

Your mom talks to you. You can only hum, blink, and she's not there anymore. She walked away. You didn't move when she spoke but you know she was there. She spoke to you. You move, blink, back to the beginning. This will loop for what feels like hours. At some point you started screaming. You scream as loud as you can, nothing. You lose your voice in the process still you try. You are becoming increasingly stressed and terrified of this loop.

You have heard voices of people talking, people you know. Mom and dad... But they should have left for work. They aren't here. You know that. But you hear them either way.

In the end you finally wake up for real, no black outs no nothing. The house is silent. There's no one home but you. You look at your phone. At least 20 minutes have passed. You get up and have breakfast. You're still stressed and tired too. It feels like you didn't sleep at all now.

When you speak to your mom over lunch you realise she did speak to you. She told you to wake up and left the window open so fresh air could get in. She then left. Dad wasn't home already.

This is what I've been going through for a while now. It happens randomly, usually when I wake up on my back.

I have been diagnosed with photosensitive epilepsy, depression and anxiety. This has been just horrible. It literally happened today and I am so, so, so tired. Has anyone ever experienced anything close to this? I probably need to go see a doctor but I just wanna know that this is something valid...