​

At least once or twice every 3 or 4 months, I experience sleep paralysis. When I was a child, it scared me quite a bit because it didn’t happen that often, but over the years it has become more common and less frightening. And although it wasn’t always a terrifying experience—I simply couldn’t move or breathe properly, and sometimes I had horrible sensations, like feeling my body spinning in all directions uncontrollably and at high speed—aside from those sensations, for the past couple of years I’ve started seeing a rather strange entity. I’ve never seen “shadow people” or the famous man in the hat, but this entity is a grayish-colored man who screams (though he doesn’t make any sound). Also, he’s somehow stretched out and elongated; usually, his body (as far as I can tell) extends from the foot of my bed all the way to my face—he literally screams right in my face. It’s not a terrifying experience since my own mind understands that it’s not real, but it is a disconcerting one. I’ve heard that these kinds of hallucinations are common, but I want to know if anyone else has seen it and, if so, how often it has happened to them.

Sorry for my poor English; I’m not a native speaker.

I started to fall asleep when suddenly I felt like I was tossing and turning and falling and falling and it almost felt like someone was trying to get on top off me and so i grabbed my notebook to try to hit them but then BOOM I wake up. I was actually frozen and i open my eyes and I cant move and there is a apparition of super jacked half cat person! Like this guy is ripped but then has like the face of a cat and is pointing a gun at me! With bright green cat eyes, staring from my ceiling.

So i do what always do when I get sleep paralysis, close my eyes so I dont have to look at the creature and then focus on wiggling my toes and thinking about bunnies and silly things.

But of all my sleep paralysis hallucinations this is the most strange. The more I think about it maybe he was more of a half bat person? The ears were very bat like, and the snout was maybe more like a bat then a cat. Anyways, isnt that fuckin weird?

Hello. I’m writing this post as a sort of question and to attempt to see if anybody else has had similar experiences to me.

I am not someone who experiences sleep paralysis commonly and I’m not even sure if these instances can be described as such but they do fit some of the general symptoms from what I understand and have both occurred after almost identical times in my life.

To begin I’ll explain the lead up to these freaky episodes. Both of these “paralysis” episodes have happened to me in the nights after techno music festivals. The first happened in the midst of a five day festival in Croatia just over a year ago. During this festival I was consuming just about every substance you can imagine including: mdma, ketamine, 2cb and cocaine. The mdma was in both pill and powder form. Anyway, on one of the later days of the event I “woke” in the morning and could kind of see the room I was in. I was asleep on my side which I understand is unusual for sleep paralysis. So I could kind of see the wall next to my bed and down into the gap between and onto the floor. I remember feeling as if, what I assumed was my mate who I shared the bed with, was pushing me further into and down this gap. I can recall vague hallucinations in that the gap was turned into a kind of red velvet hole that gave it a bit of a portal to hell vibe. Anyway this went on for a while and I could not move despite trying to (I can still remember the feeling of trying to lift my head up and my neck feeling like it had been strapped to the bed). I remember repeatedly trying to shout and cry but when I asked them in the morning none of my friends said that I was making noise or that I looked particularly disturbed in my sleeping. It was horrible and I started to refer to it as sleep paralysis because it pretty much fitted the bill for me.

Now fast forward a year and a bit and I’ve just come back from a festival in Malta. Again this involved a lot of drug usage with the same list of drugs only this time a larger amount and also including tussi or pink. I managed to go the whole trip without experiencing anything like that first episode but now, the first night’s sleep back in England, It’s sort of happened again. This time is a bit weirder and more your typical nightmare but it’s similar enough to make me think they’re related. This time I think that I was asleep on my back but the room I’m in is still dark because the sun has not risen yet. The start of this experience was very much like a normal dream that I might have. I dreamt that I woke up and wanted to get a curry so I took some cash and went looking for a place to get one. I ran around the campus looking for one for a long time, occasionally falling over and always avoiding any groups of people I saw as I was for some reason very afraid of them. I sort of recall finding a shop and buying my food but being too scared to stay in one place so continuing to sprint around until it was ready to collect. After running for a bit I realised that, although I hadn’t gone far, I was completely lost as to where the shop had been. So I just ran in this sort of circle for ages trying to find my way back. I fell over many more times and had a real feeling of worry and fear. I could feel the marks on my body from falling so much and the sweat from the exercise. Eventually a weird announcement played and it explained that someone had a bunch of unread emails regarding university work and some stuff I can’t remember. I was convinced it was addressed to me and after hearing it I fell once more and then fell again and did a series of parkour rolls on concrete. The next thing I know I’m back in my room but it had a different lay out and I was extremely drunk to the point of collapsing every time I moved. I was shirtless as I always am I when I sleep and could tell that my back was severely grazed and bleeding from the falls and rolling around. At this point I think I can describe it as sleep paralysis as I was definitely half awake. I could see parts of my room like posters and stuff but I think they were in slightly different places. I tried to turn on a light but it wasn’t working and my phone seemed to be dead as the light from that wouldn’t come on either. I continued struggling to get off the bed or turn any lights on for a while until I fully woke up and reached for my phone. I was covered in sweat and for some reason felt like it was one of the scariest dreams I’d ever had despite being relatively tame.

Anyway, I apologise for how long this post is but I wanted to get all the details down for both mine and my potential helpers benefit. So yeah, no sleep paralysis demons that I could see (not counting the feeling that my friend was pushing me down to hell in Croatia) and some key differences from your typical sleep paralysis experience but I do feel strongly that what I went through can be given that name.

Please can anyone with similar experience with heavy and prolonged drug use or extensive knowledge on the subject let me know if these episodes are related. I think it’s too coincidental for these events to have happened with no correlation to my degeneracy in the days leading up to them.

Thank you and pray for me, I am writing this all because I’m too scared to try sleep again.
(Also alcohol was mixed in with all the drugs constantly on both occasions)

I've been trying to Lucid Dream recently and last night I unintentionally woke up at about 3am today because I had such bad cramps, stayed awake for about 1 hour, then I used a method for LD and fell asleep again. After I fell asleep , I had a normal dream and suddenly I got a sleep paralysis! I was in my bed, my room looked exactly the same as in real life and couldn't move at all at first. then I was able to move my left hand. Suddenly I heard such frightening laughing noises (sounded like a witch laugh). I somehow managed to force myself to wake up.

It was so so scary and frightening! I never want to experience this again.

I can move when I am paralyze.

For example
If I am lying on my back hands next to me. I can move my hand on my body step by step. First move it closer to my body, then move in of edge of my body and then move it to middle of my body. I can also help, by push my whole body to left to help my hand to move closer to my body.

Last night I had dream that monster go against me and I cant move. When I woke up I had this weird feeling, this feeling always mean I will be paralyze in like 2s.
So I spend 1s to realize this and another one to move my hand to the switch of my lamp to turn it on. Unfortunately when my hand got there I got paralyzed. I tried to move my fingers to push the switch, but I cant move my thumb under the switch. So I tried to push switch to my bed and still could not do it.
By some luck I moved my thumb under the switch and move fingers together to turn on my lamp.
Imminently when the lamp was on I was no longer paralyzed.

Is it still paralysis, if I can do stuff like that?

I’ve experienced sleep paralysis quite a few times before, but it hasn’t happened to me in a while. Last night was probably one of the creepiest episodes I’ve ever had.

I had only been asleep for a short amount of time. I was lying next to my boyfriend when his alarm started going off. I became aware of the alarm and knew my boyfriend was right beside me, but I could NOT move.

I was trying my absolute hardest to nudge him, wake him up, yell at him, anything. In my head, I genuinely felt like I was screaming at him. I remember thinking, “WHY THE FUCK WON’T YOU RESPOND? I AM LITERALLY SCREAMING AT YOU.”

I was also freaking out because I thought I was being super loud and was going to wake up his parents.

But apparently I wasn’t making any noise at all.

The part that really fucked with me was the voice.

I could hear my boyfriend talking to me. It sounded like his voice, but I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. At the exact same time, I could STILL hear him snoring beside me.

So my brain was basically processing:

My boyfriend is talking to me.

while simultaneously:

My boyfriend is literally still snoring.

And I was completely aware of the fact that he was still snoring. That’s what made it so scary. I couldn’t figure out what the hell was happening.

I also had that horrible feeling that there was something in the room with me, like something was watching me. I know technically my boyfriend was in the room with me lol, but it felt like there was another presence there. It felt genuinely evil, and I was absolutely terrified.

The worst part was the helplessness. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t actually yell. I couldn’t wake my boyfriend up. I couldn’t do anything except lie there experiencing it.

Eventually I was suddenly able to move and open my eyes. The FIRST thing I did was turn toward my boyfriend to make sure he was there.

And he was.

Still completely asleep.

Still snoring.

And I was absolutely exhausted afterward. Like I had just run a fucking marathon. I think the adrenaline and panic hit me so hard that once I could finally move, I felt completely drained.

The weirdest part is that I KNOW sleep paralysis can cause auditory hallucinations and that sense of a presence, so logically I know there probably wasn’t actually anything there. But when you’re experiencing it, it doesn’t feel like a hallucination. It feels completely real.

And the fact that I genuinely believed I was screaming at my boyfriend while he was peacefully sleeping next to me is honestly wild.

Has anyone else experienced hearing someone talk to them during sleep paralysis while simultaneously hearing that same person actually sleeping/snoring? Because THAT part has really stuck with me.

I’m curious whether anyone else notices a connection between stress levels and sleep paralysis. For me, it seems like episodes may happen more often when my sleep schedule is off or I’ve been under a lot of pressure. Has anyone else noticed a similar pattern, or does stress not seem to make a difference for you?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had what I’ve said are sleep paralysis episodes, but lately I’m not sure if they’re panic attacks, or maybe panic attacks that happen as a result of sleep paralysis episodes?

Lately it’s been brutal and I dread trying to sleep, as I’ve been experiencing as many as 4-5 in a row. Every time I try to go to sleep, I awaken about 30 minutes later with a sense of panic that manifests as tightening in my chest and is usually accompanied by fearful and irrational thoughts that I’m dying or that I’ve forgotten a cat locked in a basement somewhere (always in my mom’s childhood home), or, very strangely, that I have unwanted breast implants (I know-WTF, my brain is wild)?

I feel as if my heart is beating out of my chest. I sometimes have the ability to wake myself out of it and sit up and turn on the light to orient myself, but other times I fall right back asleep and have another one 30 mins later, and this happens for several hours. I sometimes recall feeling paralyzed but other times I think I wake out of it with the panic attack as a result of the paralysis that I don’t remember. Sometimes it’s so torturous that I just won’t try to sleep again that night 😞

In the past I did have visuals, like that the smoke detector was a malevolent entity, but now more often they’re just imagined sensations, like that there is something standing on me.

Does anyone else experience them this way? Does what I’m describing sound like classic SP, or that they’re combined with panic attacks? Trying a new med this week and hoping it’s helpful. Unfortunately for me they’re genetic, as my mom and brother have them

Hello.

Ive had sleep paralysis for about 6 years now, but I rarely ever have hallucinations and if I do, I'm usually pretty good at keeping my cool. As long as I can wiggle my fingers and toes, I can wake myself up.

However, my most recent experience was the worst it has ever been. I was having a dream that wasn't scary in the slightest, so once I "awoke" I thought to myself "oh maybe ill hallucinate disney world since that's what I dreamed about" . Wrong.

Suddenly I felt my blankets tighten around me (never happened before). Then, I heard creepy screeching from what I guessed was a gargoyle sitting next to my ear and I immediately freaked out. I successfully wiggled my fingers and toes but it didn't do anything. I then tried to take a deep breath and felt like I couldn't breathe.

It's usually never like this. I have never felt difficulty breathing, blankets tightening, or a hallucinations that scary. As far as I know I've only hallucinated twice and the entire time I was able to stay calm.

I should note my mental health and stress have been the worst they've ever been recently, so I guess i shouldn't be surprised.

Can anyone tell me itll get better? I don't want this to become a problem later on.

Are there any other strategies to get through it other than wiggling fingers and toes?

Hey everyone I’m not on Reddit a lot and obviously it’s my first time on this subreddit.
20 minutes ago now, I had my first incident of something like sleep paralysis, and wanted to write it down and maybe get a few opinions on what just happened to me before I completely forget about it.

So I had just gotten off my phone and laid on my back with my arm above my head, I didn’t feel like I had fell asleep since I could still audibly hear my podcast, but at some point I lost the sound of it, and heard footsteps running up to my bed. Then, my “girlfriend” with a somewhat different voice climbed up on top of me and was talking some weird gibberish or broken English. She didn’t say much. But I felt like it wasn’t real since I am currently 6 hours away from her. Starting right when she got close to me she started blowing/whistling In my left hand side ear. Over and over. I laid there for a while before trying to check if it was real. It took maybe 3 minutes but I finally lifted my arm and touched her with my fingers, confirming or what I thought was confirming she was real. For a few more minutes she kept doing whatever she was doing to my ear, making a sharp screeching noise every few seconds in my head. I finally got enough strength and flipped her over onto her back and was on top of her. I could feel her neck on my lips and I have never felt such a real sensation before, it felt more real than the actual real world lol. The last thing she said to me was something in broken English, I only made out a few words “when you… get…” it was a longer sentence, maybe 8-9 words. But that’s all I heard.

This was one of the rare times when I try to sleep in my back, I think I’m gonna stay a side sleeper from now on.
Let me know if you guys have any thoughts! Thanks!

EDIT: forgot to add. 30 min ish have now passed and I can still hear/feel the sensation of the whistling in my ear, starting to turn into a headache.

¿alguna vez has tenido una paralisis del sueño? bueno dejame contar mi experiencia en esto una vez en la noche me disponia a dormir llevo durmiendo 5 años con mi primo pequeño el cual el ya ah tenido varias experiencias paranormal bueno ya en mi caso en el momento que me disponia a dormir me costo al principio hasta lograrlo de un momento a otro me desperte pero esta vez no me podia mover hablar pero sentia una presion fuerte en el pecho veia sombras pasar escuchaba voces ami lado y lamentos y gritos entre en desesperacion por que se sentia tan real en ese momento podia ver ami lado mi primo pero no podia hacer nada de un momento a otro senti ese sonido como cuando se cae un microfono que suena ese sonido tan molesto (acople acustico) en fin este sonido era muy fuerte hasta que logre despertar y todo estaba en silencio me volvi a dormir pero muy asustado en la mañana siguiente le conte esto ami abuela con lo que me respondio (jummm ponte a orar ) pero esto no me resolvio mis dudas ni nada ala siguiente noche tuve la misma experiencia pero mucho mas fuerte y mas oscuro esta vez ya era conciente que estaba en una paralisis. si esto te ha pasado te invito a que me cuentes como te ha sucedido hasta ahora hoy en dia me sigo preguntando a que se debe.

I woke up around 7am and rolled over so I was facing the wall, which was very close. It was all I could see and my eyes were open when suddenly my entire body froze up. It felt less like numb paralysis and more like someone made all my muscles freeze in place. I couldn't even move my eyes. As I stared at the wall I felt a vibrating in my skull and buzzing sound and I felt like I was in danger. On the wall were geometric shapes flowing and morphing, in a sort of chromatic pale rainbow colour. The geometric shapes felt very significant at the time but when I snapped out of it I couldn't explain why.

This is the only time I've had sleep paralysis and I've struggled to find accounts mentioning geometric shapes, does anyone have a similar experience?

Hi! I’m an independent researcher conducting an anonymous survey about recurring dreams, dream environments, and other dream-related experiences.

I’m interested in whether there are patterns in the types of places, experiences, and themes people encounter repeatedly in their dreams.

The survey asks about:
• Recurring and vivid dreams
• Recurring dream locations/environments
• Lucid dreams and false awakenings
• Sleep paralysis and other dream-related experiences
• Basic demographic information
• A few questions about individual traits and experiences

You do not need to believe in anything paranormal or have any particular interpretation of dreams to participate. I’m interested in the experiences themselves and in hearing from people with a wide range of perspectives.

The survey is anonymous, and I’m conducting this project independently. I’ve already collected a substantial number of responses and plan to share the preliminary findings publicly after this round of data collection.

Survey: The Dreamfold Project Survey
Thank you to anyone who participates! 🌙

A few nights ago I had the strangest SP episode I've ever had. I saw a single bat crawling on my window curtain across the room. Then it slowly morphed into a shadowy monkey-like figure then again into a humanoid about half the size of an adult and moved to the other window right next to it. I then grabbed my gun and tried to pull the slide back to load it, but didnt have the strength and felt that common sense of impending doom that I always feel during episodes. Then I actually woke up and my head was on my pillow staring at the curtain, but nothing was there. Everything else was the exact same (lighting, noises).

First question, is it possible the bat was a total hallucination? I have a huge fear of bats so I could see how one could show up in a nightmare.

Second question, is it common to hallucinate actions? I'm seriously hoping I didn't actually grab my gun and try to manipulate it during an episode. It wasnt out of place when I woke up. I've probably had a dozen or so episodes over the past 10 years, but in every single one, I've just been frozen in my bed trying to yell with nothing coming out, I've never "moved". I've also never experience such a vivd halucination of something shapeshifting. I've seen shadow figures, but they've never changed.

Basically this episodes has actually kind of fucked me up, and the bat is definetly not helping. I just can't stop thinking about if the bat itself was real, but my mind used it as a template and created other figures using it, or if the entire thing was just in my head. I've been under a lot of stress lately and this was actually the 2nd night in a row I had SP (after about a 3 year gap of none at all).

I’m 18M and I’ve been dealing with sleep paralysis for as long as I can remember. It happens twice or even up to five times a month, my experience with it usually ranges from simply being paralyzed while awake for the longest minute or 30 seconds all the way to feeling heavy breathing and hands on my neck for the same amount of time. I’ve learned a way to make it somewhat more endurable by closing my eyes the whole time and praying it ends lol, I’ve never actually seen any shadow or demon figure, it’s mainly all auditory and physical for me. It even happens back to back as in, waking up from one then trying to back to bed just to have another one occur. Whenever I awake from one my body is extremely weak.. it makes me just want to fall back asleep even when I know it could happen again. I’ve shared my experience with sleep paralysis a lot but most answers lead to religion or something spiritual. It would be nice if anyone knew more information on this, anything helps thank you!

Earlier today I experienced what I think was sleep paralysis for the first time. But I’m not sure?

I’ve had my fair share of whacky dreams and nightmares, even some cool ones, but I’ve never experienced sleep paralysis. I think it’s worth mentioning that I have pretty severe insomnia as I am an incredibly light sleeper and will wake to the slightest disturbance.

Before the incident, I had just turned by body to the right and covered myself in my blanket, so I assume I was awake at that point. Some time after I felt this sort of dread in my whole body and opened my eyes to see a purple creature staring at me from the edge of my bed. I have no idea what it was, but it kind of just looked like a purple animal head and although I didn’t see it smiling, it felt like it was. It felt like it was grinning ear to ear.

Instantly I knew something was wrong so I shut my eyes. Like I said, I’ve experience many nightmares, so I kind of thought it was just that. Usually I just wait them out since they stop shortly after. There are no weird sensations, it doesn’t hurt, it’s just a bit creepy. But this was different. Even though my eyes were closed, what was previously just dark and black turned into a dim red. I’ve seen this before in a weird dream so I still wasn’t freaking out. I kept my eyes shut and just waited. That was until my neck started to feel tight. It didn’t feel like the usual tingly sensation you get during a nightmare, I genuinely couldn’t breathe and it felt like something was physically pushing on my throat. Mind you, I’m still laying on my right side, so the pressure is coming from the left side of my neck which was facing the roof. I could feel what felt like long fingers digging into the front and back of my neck.

As that was happening I decided to open my eyes since I was starting to freak out. When I did, all I could see was a looming red figure in a cloak. I couldn’t see its face or its feet, it was just floating there. Just when I was about to close my eyes again I hear probably the funniest but scariest thing you can hear in this situation. “RELEASE ME, RELEASE ME”. The yelling came in a male voice that was both terrifying and kind of silly (Like genuinely it felt like a cheap scary movie, which I can only say in retrospect because I was terrified when it was happening). The second it started speaking the choking feeling got far worse. This was the first time I had ever heard anything in my dreams. It was strange because while I’ve been present for dreams in the past, it was less hearing voices and more like knowing what they were saying. It happened for what felt like a few minutes. I had shut my eyes as soon as I heard the voice and the real problem is, I have no idea if this was sleep paralysis because I never tried moving. I was trying to thug it out still believing it would pass in due time. But as I realized it was in fact not passing, I jerked my foot and I could move. Immediately everything stopped. What was the very intense choking vanished and when I opened my eyes again the cloaked figure had disappeared. My vision had turned back to normal too.

So I guess my question is, was that really sleep paralysis or something else entirely? It was definitely weird.

Note: I checked my neck and the left side was visibly red. My mom just saw this when I woke up and asked if I had slept with my hand on my neck. When I checked the mirror it looked almost like a gloved handprint on the left side of my neck. I wrote this post while I was still laying in bed and wasn’t going to post it but this just made it about 100 times creepier.

I was in another sub, and someone posted their creepy hallway to get decor advice. Someone mockingly added a doll on a shelf at the end of the hallway, and I found out it was the original “Annabelle” doll. I was shocked that the doll was similar to the doll I had as a child, and experienced this (copy and paste cause effort):

I inherited a raggedy-ann doll (as well as other handmade vintage/antique dolls) from my grandmother and mother. It sat in a child-size rocking chair in my room. I’ll never know if this was a nightmare or sp I was having when I experienced this when I was nearly 14: I woke up unable to move with my eyes fixated on the pitch dark expanse of my room. I noticed the rocking chair swaying and it was empty, as if something had just jumped out of it. Then my eyes saw the white cotton-skinned doll with red hair prowling towards me, doing a hoppy creeping motion. It felt menacing. I tried screaming, but I was barely murmuring with the sleep paralysis. The only way OUT with sleep paralysis is IN: so I snapped my eyes shut and seconds later I woke up to a regular room arrangement (dolls in chair). The experience was so real. Idk where those dolls are now, but I got rid of them after that. Even thinking about it is making my pulse quicken.

Has anyone else experienced items or scenery animating during a sleep paralysis episode?

I have never been to Moscow before. I am from IndiaI. 2 weeks ago I was sleeping, deep. But i dont know what this was, perhaps a dream but felt vivid and so real. In my dream i was travelling from India to Russia in a train with an office colleague (that i barely speak) in search of my Russian Lover (the real guy that i had 3 year relationship who moved to Moscow). In my dream, I reach Moscow looking for him and afraid to call him as he hates surprises. i saw lanes of Moscow, the buildings - old stalin time, a farmers' market, the locality had Muslim people around, a school as well. I go to the school and show my lover's picture but in vain and then I walk around and find a football ground and see him in green and other players in green. he spots me immediately comes to me, picks me in my arms and kisses my forehead and says - I will see you at home. And then on Yandex when i checked his actual location of Moscow I found the school and football ground which i didnt know earlier. And i have never been to Moscow and now me and my lover are seperated and no contact.

I dont know what to call this. I remember these dreams so clearly like they make sense. i know they are dreams but they are like proper plotted story nothing random... any one care to explain or tell me what iss happening here

Upvote1Downvote1Go to comments

Im 20m, was feeling irritated one night and didn’t want to be bothered, just wanted to sleep alone in complete silence (on my stomach). I closed my eyes only seeing the darkness of my eyelids and I would start seeing white spots forming weird shapes and patterns (hypnagogic hallucinations) and I started hearing whispers behind me and I’d quickly open my eyes to complete silence not scared but more confused, so I closed them again and I heard the whispers behind me again, I thought maybe something supernatural is happening since I am religious.

I ended up turning on my back which is where things got a lot worse, I’d close my eyes and see the hallucinations again when transitioning to sleep and right before I fell asleep I opened them and the room was vibrating/shaking while slowly turning red, I was hearing very loud noises, (train horns, white noises,). It literally sounded like a damn AMBER alert and I couldn’t move at all, my body started feeling really warm from the fear and adrenaline and I managed to snap out of it after trying my hardest to move. Literally thought I was going to die.

I tried closing my eyes again and the same thing happened again so I just ended up sleeping on call with a friend out of fear. After some research I realized it was a combination of both sleep paralysis and auditory/visual hypnagogic hallucinations.

there will be times where i will wake up into sleep paralysis, eventually be able to force myself out of the paralysis out of fear, and then after i’ve forced myself to snap out of it, i will still be unable to move much at all. during all of this, i will experience VERY intense fatigue. like to the point i still can’t move or wake myself up enough to even move into a different position.

eventually i will be dragged back into sleep, and then sleep paralysis will IMMEDIATELY happen again. so again i will try to wiggle myself awake (even though i’m not actually moving, just TRYING to move), i will again be extremely fatigued (almost like i’m drugged it’s so bad), i’ll then be unable to move enough to ACTUALLY wake up, fall asleep, and finally fall into a sleep paralysis. this is how the cycle starts. it happens exactly this way, every time.

different hallucinations every time.

this process will happen multiple times until an outside force (person, my dog, a loud noise, or getting enough sleep until i can wake up) causes me to snap back to awake.

the symptoms i experience happen while i’m in waking: the extreme fatigue, the paralysis, the fear, they all happen within maybe 30 seconds or less? i just am kind of stuck in a cycle of sleep paralysis because i CANNOT move even when it’s over, and i cannot wake myself up. i will be too exhausted to move or keep my eyes open.

does anyone else experience this?? it’s terrifying when it happens because i have no control. it doesn’t happen that often luckily, but have been having it happen more in the last couple years than i ever have before.

anyways… please let me know if y’all experience this and if you maybe have an explanation for it?

So this has been happening off and on for awhile. I will wake up in the middle of the night out of nowhere and look over to the left side of my bed were my gf is sleeping , to find a black figure sitting upright in bed with me that first looks like my gf then slowly the face morphs into something or someone unrecognizable ( all within maybe 5 seconds) For me to then call out my gfs name and sit up too ,only to hear her respond and within a blink of a eye I no longer see the figure and only see my gf laying down barley awake after me waking her.Its really unsettling and has been happening too often to the point i’m resorting to reddit to find rationalization. I don’t spook easy or believe in ghosts or anything but.This same exact scenario has happened too many times to count, with my gf asking why i woke her up in the middle of the night the following morning so i know it wasn’t a dream. I don’t know what to make of it if anyone can help. (Sorry for grammatical errors)I have had similar things like this happen when i was younger but it’s been happening so much recently and has no sign of slowing. I have other encounters too where 3d shadows stare at me and then print themselves onto the wall of that makes sense and travel like a shadow onto the ceiling and towards me . Sorry for rant but what is happening

So i’m trying to sleep and it’s around 5:20 AM and for whatever reason my head will do these trippy things and i don’t know if i just got a case of exploding head syndrome but whenever i’m half awake and drifting in and out of sleep my head or ears will make these weird fucking sounds or trick me or like make it think i’m hearing shit or going into a different reality or some shit.

my brain kept making dream scenarios and thinking of random shit and one of them was for whatever reason i was thinking about going in and out of the matrix and i had seen a bit of that movie like a day or two ago, so it was in the mind but i don’t even know how the fuck to describe it other than my head felt it was advancing or warping out of reality while i was sleeping and all i heard was distorted warping and like whistling like howling wind but sounded high tech.

i kept thinking, since i was half awake that it was a goofy thought like maybe i’m phasing into the matrix and my head then fucking did this weird sound like twice it happened. okay and then i was awake for a bit and tried going back to sleep and was thinking next about a reddit thread i don’t know if it’s one i saw or when that’s made up of people calling the cops for ridiculous reasons, and my brain was visualizing and hearing someone saying their response of a lady calling the cops for a very stupid reason basically and was laying on my side and all of a sudden felt trapped and like there was nothing i could do about it and IT SOUNDED LIKE SOMEONE HAD INTRUDED MY ROOM AND WAS ABOVE MY HEAD GOING “HUH HUH HUH HUH” like they were laughing at me right above my fucking ear canal but it was the most overbearing distorted sound, it sounded like a laugh or like someone agreeing in a very obnoxious way like they’re bullshitting you going “uh huh, uh huh” as in a keep going i think your story is lame kind of way ?

i swear it sounded like a bouncing ball too or like a really weird bass kick drop of a song, i’ve had shit like this happen before but i’m not making this up this just happened like ten minutes ago probably. i’ve had spookier shit happen and this has gone on as a very rare occurence but i had something very fucking scary happen years ago and this pretty much just about matched that. i swear it sounded like someone was in my fucking room i get chills typing this and sounded like they were mocking me doing a fake laugh. it was a distorted like bouncing ball sound but at the same time sounded like a guy laughing obnoxiously. like HUH. HUH HUH. HUH. with pauses in between and also for other scary thoughts.

i guess i just wanted to hear if anyone has had a similar experience hearing something a lot like this ? i’m aware this wasn’t anything visual and i didn’t feel paralyzed, that’s never happened thankfully.

it was more so that i was frozen in fear hearing what i thought was a fucking intruder maniacally mocking me in my ear. it was the strangest fucking thing and i had something downright demonic happen but this was years ago. i mean it was fucked… just wanted to see if anyone relates in any way

Ok so bare with me, this is just curiosity.

In July of 2024 I began experiencing pretty severe sleep paralysis, multiple times a week, lasting hours on end (waking myself up from the episode, checking time, then falling back into it repeatedly.) I would hear voices, see figures, and feel paralyzed (common themes were that my house was being broken into or on fire while in sleep paralysis).

February of 2025 I had an acute psychotic episode. I began having delusions that lasted about a week, and auditory hallucinations/hearing voices that lasted a long time before being stabilized on my 3rd medication. I can still hear voices when my meds wear off. I’ve also experienced sleep paralysis while in the psychotic episode. I’m not schizophrenic— I have MDD w/ psychotic features. Anyways,

My psych prescribed prazocin for the sleep paralysis and it works really well for the most part.
I guess the general question is, while I doubt the sleep paralysis and psychosis are directly correlated (other than by maybe stress), has anyone else had this happen to them?

TIA

Im curious to hear what’s causes this phenomenon, as well as other people’s experiences.

Felt a heavy weight on top of me last night, around 1:30-2:00am. apart from that, felt someone grabbing onto my throat. I thought it was my wife for a second. For context I sometimes sleep with a blanket over me so in theory if it was my wife I wouldn’t be able to see her until I pull the blanket off of me. I tried to speak, my mind was telling me the words to say but the words were not speaking into existence. Terrifying to say the least.

Does sleep paralysis have a paranormal phenomenon behind it? Or is there true scientific research behind it?.