i felt like i was being strangled in my bed

Same Thing happend to me for about 5 days straight in a row...i was starting to worry wat was going on, but it all just stopped, the next time i had one though it was different and about 2 years later..instead of a black shadow trying to harm me, it was a fairy flying above me and i still couldnt move and still felt fear...odd experiences, till this day havent experienced something more frightful...some part of me wants to tell you , its all in your head and its not a paranormal situation..and the other part is willing to tell you, that what you experienced was somthing not of this world.
Best of luck to you.
.:Kiliker:.

I didn't read the replys so hopefully im not adding a repost but here it is, my take...
The "Old Hag" Syndrome
paranormal.about.com...

You wake up unable to move, barely able to breathe... you feel an oppressive weight on your chest... and you sense some evil presence in the room... The old hag strikes!

It is Sleep Paralysis, coming awake during REM sleep. It is pretty wild, ive experianced a lot of this. At this stage you are really close to having a full blown OBE if you choose too.

Once you experiance sleep paralysis, just calm down and let it go, you will have great control over REM sleep at this point and is easy to get out.

I think there is something at work other than sleep paralysis. I too have had experiences like these. They came out of the blue and frightened me so badly I wouldn't sleep for days at a time.

The first time it happened I had woken up from a pretty nasty nightmare and was fully conscious. I was laying in my bed looking at the ceiling and I started hearing a noise, it sounded like coins dropping on my carpet. It started in the corner of my room and gradually got closer. Then something that felt like a heavy warm blanket came over me from my left side and moved to all the way over me from the neck down. It felt kind of like being tucked into bed real tight. I could move my head and mouth but when I tried to scream NOTHING came out. Then I felt something crawl onto my bed. Like when your dog or cat jumps into bed with you at night and you feel them walking around a bit. It made its way over my body. I felt each step it made. Like a small person slowly crawling its way to my head (the image of golem from lord of the rings always enters my mind, the way he walks). Then I felt it touching my face. Like it was poking at me and reading my face like a blind person reads brail (sp?) After that it started choking me. I was trying with all my mental capacity to force my vocal cords to just SCREAM so my roommates could come help me. Eventually this thing seemed to jump off me and the heavy blanket like thing slid off me and suddenly my scream came out. Ive NEVER been so scared in my life.

No one believed me. This happened a few more times all in the same month. It stopped when I moved out of the house. I don't remember the other times as much as I remember the first. Its still crystal clear in my mind and I still get edgy to this day when I go to sleep.

i suffered from this too and believed that i was OBE. anyway i was 18 and during the night had a strange dream where i felt i was on a swing and swinging high in the air. I could really feel the wind in my hair. I woke up and found i couldnt move and my teeth were aching like mad , the pain was pretty sore. in the corner of my eye i could see something moving didnt know what is was (prolly a shadow) i managed to move my head slighty with much pain. i saw my clock it said 1.15 am. i continued to have the swinging sensation (back and forth) and i was trying to talk or shout out but couldnt. eventually i managed to move my little finger on my hand and was released and could move again. my instinct was to look at the clock , i felt i had only been in the grip of this thing for a few mintues , the clock read 3.15am.

after this event i had other experiences usually around 5 am and i felt like i was having an OBE and was at some times able to control how i could move in the astral plain. after that summer it never happened again. but always i had pain ful teeth. very strange but i guess its different for everyone.

Great thread and some really thoughtful and thought-provoking responses.

Resistancia, MrWupy, Newage and other brilliant posts from people whose names I'm sorry I can't recall.

Was also in agreement with the poster who advised that we should not attempt to read-into or translate the OP's experience, based simply on 'explanations' posed by scientists.

Of all the experiences above, mine was most like Restancia's.


The posts in this thread are the best I've read anywhere regarding the Hag experience. Usually, people are advised unequivocally that despite the terror and seeming reality of their experience, all they actually experienced was Sleep Paralysis. This is usually followed up by a link to SP and that's supposed to be the end of it. If they protest that no, their experience was actually different, they're told repeatedly that this is the nature of SP, i.e. it seems real, but it's not, it's ' just ' SP.

Many remain unconvinced but they learn to keep their reservations to themselves rather than have the SP explanation pushed on them again.

One of the reasons this thread is so great is that people have been brave enough to question the standard SP explanation and this has encouraged others to do so too. It's a great leap forward.

I mean, how does the standard SP theory explain away the fact that Restancia's husband was *also* affected/paralysed/scared ? The SP explanation is demolished by that situation. Actually, what happened to Restancia and her husband has more in common with an alien-visitation.

Then there are the posts noting that some of these experiences have occurred to others in the same location. The standard SP theory doesn't even begin to address those situations.

Restancia said that even though the room was dark, the 'thing' she saw was darker still. That exactly describes my experience. Others have posted almost identical experiences to mine, such as seeing the 'thing' coming up from beyond or behind the bed then making its way up the bed.

I don't know how scientists can claim all these experiences are SP. I wasn't paralysed at all. I wasn't asleep either. I know what I saw and what happened.

SP no doubt exists and people suffer from it, but SP is totally inadequate to explain many of these experiences and there's no reason to accept an explanation that doesn't fit the circumstances just because the alternative lies beyond ordinary science.

I didn't have the strangling experience, thank goodness. It was terrifying enough as it was. It's surprising people don't die of shock or heart attack from these experiences.

thanks for the post guys much appreciated and thanks for your comments even if it was just sp it still gave me a shock and im not easily scared but i still dont get the pain in my neck afterwards

cognoscente,

I very much agree with what you had to say, when we look at situations like this we have to take into account many aspects about the human mind and physiology, we might very well be hallucinating the entire situation, but to build on the concept of hallucinations I believe it was in africa and south america, there was a study done where the aboriginies used particular plants for ritualistic purposes... in both situations the plants caused hallucinations... and in both seperate situations the plants resulted in near exact similarity... unfortunatley I dont remember the book I was reading it out of... but the article ventured further speaking about how they managed to focus on the chemical in both plants that had caused the experiences... this chemical was now a synthesized version of the plants naturally produced version... they used it in a controlled experiment and it caused the same experience as with the plants... now what could we be talking about here? that there really are entities existing on other alternate dimensional plains right before us and we simply just dont see them? or is it a hormonal situation with the body and the mind is simply creating these half human half animal hallucinations? I cant say for sure because im not a scientist...

Now it seems everyone is sharing their experiences and I found "cognoscente" comment interesting on this topic as well... when I was much younger basically as far back as I can remember my parents and I had lived in a much older house... it was probably 60 years old... we were renting and it was supposed to be a temporary situation although we ended up living in the home for I believe about 12 years... anyways for as far back as I can remember I had shared a room with my younger sister... it would often be early on in the night when she would call my name and ask me if it was me who was making the noise in the room... I would naturally say yes to calm her fears unfortunatley this lead to my utter terror... we would be able to hear footsteps in the room... hands tapping on the walls... and whispers... we would eventually fall asleep after some time and then the nightmare would start... to sum it down it was a dark figure... so black it seemed to suck the light out of everything around it... and it strangled me to the point where I couldnt even ask for help... this continued to occur for many years and it wasnt till after we had moved out of the home that the experiences had stopped... and yes I said it was a dream although upon the ending of the dream I would awake only to hear footsteps leaving the room again... so maybe I was hallucinating for a good 8 years of my life as a child... maybe it was an allergic reaction... but from my perspective it was no enviromental interference... and it certainly was not sleep paralysis... its always easier for a dr to label a condition when he has never had to experience it... perhaps if our medical staff had experienced it their reaction towards it would be very different...

[edit on 12-1-2007 by newage2012]

mr cryptoman,

Maybe the sleep paralysis and strangling was a one-time thing. Let us know if it continues.

PlausibleDeniability, funny you should say tucked into bed tight. I remember when I was younger, where the sheets, I thought, were really tight on one side of the bed, like it was being pulled on, stuck or something.

I recently had these strange experiences where there was some kind of strange noise when I woke up, and it would go away. It's like a musical exit sound, you might here on a game. I don't know how to explain it but it was on the high pitch side of the spectrum.

Then there were the times I woke up and saw what I thought was a spider dangling above my head. Quite large. One time I jumped out of bed, and looked up and it was gone. Perhaps it was an illusion to hide what was actually there, a distraction maybe?

Our current home isn't without past strange occurrences either.

Troy

[edit on 12-1-2007 by cybertroy]

Originally posted by cybertroy
PlausibleDeniability, funny you should say tucked into bed tight. I remember when I was younger, where the sheets, I thought, were really tight on one side of the bed, like it was being pulled on, stuck or something.

Then there were the times I woke up and saw what I thought was a spider dangling above my head. Quite large. One time I jumped out of bed, and looked up and it was gone. Perhaps it was an illusion to hide what was actually there, a distraction maybe?

Our current home isn't without past strange occurrences either.

Troy

[edit on 12-1-2007 by cybertroy]

Interesting coincidence with the spider deal. I have awoken MULTIPLE times to a huge spider dangling above my head, scaring the you know what out of me. My automatic response was to take a swing at them and they would always disappear. This has happened to my cousin as well, but her and her husband BOTH saw it. She told me her husband woke up first, saw it and shook her awake. She saw it, screamed and rolled off the bed. When they took a second glance the spider was gone, no where to be seen. They said it was huge and had red eyes. They looked EVERYWHERE for it before they tried to go back to sleep and never found a thing.

Your the third person Ive heard with a similar experience. Interesting...

It has been my expierence that when the "intruder" shows, (in my case a grey, or a tall black negative figure) during sleep paralysis and brings the accompanying terror it is usually during a period of my life when I am in a extreme stress* I have learned to use these situations much the same as the tarot, to try and analize the severity and source of my stress and try to correct it* Perhaps messages from the quantum worlds that our dependent upon our minds for existance that we need to "chill out"

Originally posted by PlausibleDeniability

Originally posted by cybertroy
PlausibleDeniability, funny you should say tucked into bed tight. I remember when I was younger, where the sheets, I thought, were really tight on one side of the bed, like it was being pulled on, stuck or something.

Then there were the times I woke up and saw what I thought was a spider dangling above my head. Quite large. One time I jumped out of bed, and looked up and it was gone. Perhaps it was an illusion to hide what was actually there, a distraction maybe?

Our current home isn't without past strange occurrences either.

Troy

[edit on 12-1-2007 by cybertroy]

Interesting coincidence with the spider deal. I have awoken MULTIPLE times to a huge spider dangling above my head, scaring the you know what out of me. My automatic response was to take a swing at them and they would always disappear. This has happened to my cousin as well, but her and her husband BOTH saw it. She told me her husband woke up first, saw it and shook her awake. She saw it, screamed and rolled off the bed. When they took a second glance the spider was gone, no where to be seen. They said it was huge and had red eyes. They looked EVERYWHERE for it before they tried to go back to sleep and never found a thing.

Your the third person Ive heard with a similar experience. Interesting...

Wow,I also had that happen last month with the waking up to a Giant spider on the wall yellow in color right exactly beside my face as if it were feeling the air from my breath,it was so close!I am amazed that it happens alot out there.In my case I was dreaming about my father trying to warn me about something in my window above me.as I woke up the spider seemed to know I awoke and that I was ready to swat it,It took off like the fastest creature I ever saw, up and out the window,totally vanished in like 1 second,damn weird.also I need to mention that I have always had sleep trouble like I feel like I'm out of breath and wake up choking many nights including just this morning but I think it happens from drinking caffein before bed time,bad for the blood pressure.


[edit on 13-1-2007 by mistr_b2]

[edit on 13-1-2007 by mistr_b2]

No, SP is NOT the magic bullet answer to each scenario, however i do not think we should give into fancy and feel more powerful when this very real symptom occurs. I think some people like the notion that something otherwordly is happening to THEM, and this gives the perfect excuse for it. Like i said i agree each case is different, but i think it would be a very bad idea not to promote the very real symptom that occurs in all human beings ... you wake up, yet your brain is still stuck in REM sleep. It not only is agreed upon by psychologists but it actually does make perfectly good sense. And seeing shadow people is nothing more than your dream playing itself out in reality , then dissapearing like a magical ghost as the other portion of your brain begins to kick in and reality comes back into view. I can say this because i have had this happen to me and i know how damn scary it is, but once i knew what was happening and why it was happening, rather than fighting it, i controlled the process. Like someone else posted you are in a very interesting state of mind at this point, your alseep yet awake... you imagine the possibilities this creates... Every wanted to fly without wings...or hell with wings?... its all up to YOU at this point. Enjoy

BTW the spider thing sounds scary as hell, and if multiple people are experiencing it one possible explination could be an inherient fear of spiders, and waking up and feeling unable to control your own body might trigger this even deeper fear subconsiously, remember at this stage you are dealing primarily with the SUBconsious mind, not your consious state.

[edit on 13-1-2007 by hiii_98]

Well recently i had a dream and it's weird because my best friend was choking me no noise no nothing but him choking me and me trying stop it but i couldnt move at all and the dream felt realistic so real then when i woke up i felt my neck in it felt like something was in it i kant explain idk but is this to related to what every 1 esle is going thre idk becuzx they say they wake up and see grey.. But mine was just a dream so im wondering wtf was that....

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[edit on 13-1-2007 by sanctum]

my ebonics is alittle rusty, can someone translate the above comment to a "white and nerdy" dialect?

[edit on 13-1-2007 by hiii_98]

[Removed offensive comment]

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[edit on 13-1-2007 by sanctum]

OK folks, the talk of spiders are freaking me out.

As a very small child I used to have nightmares about spiders in the room, I could almost see them crawling down the wall. I couldn't get to sleep I was so terrified they would come again.

This is the first time I have ever talked about this in my life. I was damn near an infant when this was happening.

When I was older my mother told me a story of how I would come into the living room crying about the spiders in my bedroom. They would check and there were no spiders in my bedroom and they would make me go to bed.

Seriously freaky.

She also told me a story about the time I was crying and wouldn't go to bed because a great big ant was on my bed. They went in to show me a great big ant wasn't in my room and found a scorpion on my pillow.

you folks are starting to creap me out....

I'm open minded about these thing, particularly this sleep paralysis business because i suffer it as well. In all honesty i wouldn't be surprised if there is something more involved than just vivid dreams and the mind.

However, until we have proof of that all we can do is leave it as sleep paralysis.

It is hard for people to understand if they have never experienced it. The first time it happened to me consisted of 'waking up' to see 2 grays standing next to my bed and being unable to move, even my head. I just had to stare at them. They didn't move or anything. I then sat straight up in bed and screamed, really awake, and there was nothing there. My parents came rushing in and i got the whole 'bad dream, go back to bed' thing, but no way in hell was i going to.

I spent the entire night under a doona in the corner of the room with a torch and can of deodorant to use as a flame thrower if 'they' came back.

The same experience happened to me probably about 20 times a year for the past 3 years, and it was only after getting up the courage to tell my story to someone that i found out what was happening.

I genuinely believed i was being abducted...

Having a resource like this here is a good way to reassure those that do have the same thing, yet have no explanation. They, like myself, will be looking for the answers, and that search may lead them here. Hopefully, if it does they will find this topic and learn about SP.

[edit on 13-1-2007 by fooffstarr]

Yeah, the spider thing was aweful. What on earth could it be? Like I said, is it a distraction, so you don't see what's actually there? These similar stories are interesting. I had some swelling around my eye one time. I don't know if it was related. The only thing there I could see was a slight mark, bite or something. Was something messing with my eye? My room isn't without real spiders, but I don't know that a spider that can disappear as quickly as these spider things I see when I have opened my eyes sometimes.

I also remember a shadow that seemed to quickly slip up and away out of my room, and it made a sound as it exited. It's like it didn't want me to see it, like it was getting the heck out of there. Plus the sounds not that long ago of something messing with my keys on my dresser. It's like they were being picked up and being dropped.

I know of spiritual occurences, but are these other types of beings? Aliens or something, trying to trick our senses?

I do remember more earlier in life, having the sensation of floating. And I also remember the sensation of not being able to move on occations in what I thought of as bad dreams. I just recalled that, I haven't thought about that in a while. I hated having those "dreams," if they were dreams? The feeling of not being able to move my body was terrible. I also remember a dream, I guess, of being near a window, curtains, with people around me, unusual people. I was up in the air on the curtain rod or something? But I can't seem to make out faces? This was another unusual dream, I guess. I only had that one once. That is like a dream that had a lasting impression, and had a mystery to it.

Fun stuff.

Troy

I have had a very similar event about 10 years ago. I was asleep on my stomach and i felt a huge pressure on my back pushing my head forward into the pillow, I couldnt scream, couldnt move, then i heard a whispering in my ear, i couldnt understand what was being said it was just a faint whispering.
Reading these posts i am glad to know it was SP. This is actually the first time I have heard of it, for years I have always wondered and it scared the hell out of me. It was a very old house i was living in at the time and always since then thought it was some sort of paranormal activity?
Anyway, just wanted to share my story. This thread was a great read! cheers.