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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

I had it once and it was the most terrifying experience of my life.

I have had similar experiences a few times. One time it was extremely scary. I could not move, and I experienced someone whispering something unintelligible in my ear.

Can you guys elaborate? Do you feel like you’re some brain in a vat somewhere when this happens?

I could see but I couldn’t move any muscles. It felt like five minutes but was probably less. It happened in an afternoon nap which is something I never did.

I was screaming internally for my girlfriend to notice me. I thought I was suddenly a quadriplegic or something and was panicking. Eventually my girlfriend noticed (she later said she noticed my deep, heavy breathing) and shook me and being shaken pulled me immediately out of it.

> I could see

How do you know that you weren't simply dreaming?

REM atonia, which is the paralysis that sleep paralysis comes from/uses, paralyzes the majority of your body. However, one organ it doesn’t paralyze is your eyes, hence people experiencing it generally open their eyes as they try to escape it. However, even with your eyes open, you can experience dream-like hallucinations overlayed ontop your view of reality, hence people thinking they see other entities in their bedrooms, etc. It’s possible that it was a dream, but it’s completely possible it wasn’t, so if a person claims they were awake, then in all likelyhood they were.

Well, there's an objective test: did they see something that actually happened out in the world during the episode that could be verified later?

When it happened the Monorail episode of the Simpsons was on. And it continued to be on when I was shaken out of it because my girlfriend suggested we just watch the rest to get my mind off it.

It was also just a very vivid experience. I felt completely awake. Just unable to do a thing.

Thanks.

This is almost exactly how it is for me as well. I've experienced this 50+ times, the feeling of complete or almost complete paralysis. I make a great effort to move and can feel my heart racing and heat in my face from panic and exertion. I can see my immediate surroundings; if the sun is up I can tell it's daytime. Although my eyes are open and aware, I'm not quite fully alert. Sometimes there are hints of hallucinations like the feeling that a shadowy figure is approaching my bed, and it's scary, but most often I'm just aware that I'm paralyzed. As a child I learned that if I can force a limb to move slowly, I will usually jerk myself fully awake. About 25% of the time I can calm myself down and fall back to sleep.

This has happened often enough to me that I am sometimes now aware of it when it's happening, occasionally, and can ride it out. I've literally "invited" more terror to try to end it quicker before. As in, "yeah yeah , get it over with, bring it on". I haven't questioned the normality of this until now, amusingly.

It normally happens when I sleep on my back. I have been known to make an attempt at a scream during the event. I'm normally being attacked at speed, by people or things that don't really have boundaries. And of course I can't fight back, hence the paralysis.

For the scream, I think I have heard it, but because of the paralysis it ends up like a loud exhale with some high notes in it. I couldn't describe it as a roar. More of a pitiful gurgle.

It is sometimes made worse by my sleeping partner trying to wake me clumsily, which momentarily heightens the terror, especially if my face is being nudged or jabs to the ribs.

So not particularly fun, literally facing my demons, but also probably some of the best VR you're likely to experience.

For background, I'm a generally positive and optimistic person, rational with zero belief in the supernatural, despite being raised with it. Oh god I'm cursed... I kid, but who knows from where these intrusive dreams originate. I do practice martial arts, but this predates that. I have had an interest in light combat since childhood, despite pacifism and fear being more of a reflection of my personality. It was probably more of an 80s thing, expecting violence and quicksand at any moment.

That's about it really, totally normal to me at this point. It's probably nothing.

EDIT: For the record, it feels like the paralysis triggers the dream, not the dream triggering the paralysis. Something to do with approaching a waking state in the brain but not the body. Cue the terror and internal screams for help.

Wow, on wikipedia I read that 5 percent of people experience it regularly. Hopefully you get better at 'fighting your demons' while getting to know them better.

Some people feel some kind of person/presence close to them, that's how it happened to me. This [1] weirdly makes sense.

It felt kind of like those dreams where you can't move. Except you've woken up, I could see the correct room and position I was in. It tends to come with fear and doesn't last long.

Never happened when I slept on my side or front. I almost never sleep on my back now. Also, chronic stress could have been a trigger.

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_Fuseli_(1741–1...

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