Sleep paralysis and free falling

zsandmann. Before or during your experience, do you feel/sense some sort of presence in the room that makes you feel terrified? Thats what I feel when it happens to me. I get this strange sort of noise in my head and it feels like something has a hold of me under my arm pits. Its freaking wierd. When the falling sensation starts, its fast. Anyone could have a heartattack as it takes you by surprise. I have never thought of it as being medical related, as it just feels like "something" trying to control the astral body to me. Any one else had a similar experience or does it just happen to a few of us lucky ones then? LOL.... Its not drug related either, cause I aint into those things.

[edit on 2-7-2004 by ElectroGirL]

I sometimes have a buzzing in my ears, but not so much a presense. It just feels like Ive been hanging by an invisible thread attached about at my belly button, and then its cut. My company shrink says it might be seperation anxiety from my mother. I recently moved across the country from my family. Some sort of placebo umbilical cord thing I think. Im not really into the matters of the mind.

reply to post by zsandmann


its true. its common in my country for something to happen this way. its 'jin' or 'demon' that isnt harmful but basically 'press' your body down to make you suffocate.

I have been experiencing sleep paralysis since I was a teenager, and it can be quite terrifying. It always happens as I am trying to fall asleep, and in my case I always feel as if I am being suffocated. I try to scream, yell at myself to wake up (in my head, I am not yelling out loud), and I feel like my eyes are open- whether or not they are I do not know. As at least one other person has said, it happens to me mostly when I try to fall asleep laying on my back- not nearly as often as when I try to sleep on my side. I also suspect it happens more often when I stressed out. There is a famous picture of the old hag syndrome in which a demon is sitting on a sleeping woman's chest.

www.lucidcrossroads.co.uk...

I thought for a while I had sleep apnea, but a couple of my boyfriends said that my breathing did not change or stop just prior to my waking up gasping- which leads me to believe that it is just my subconscious.

Have you considered setting up a camera to tape you falling asleep?

I don't think it has anything to do with a chemical sent to the muscles. I think it is because the brain wakes up in stages and in some people there is a longer delay between stages.

It makes sense (pun not intended ) for the brain controlling the senses to "wake up" first. So you become aware of your surroundings before you can physically do anything. The part of the brain controlling the senses wake up first and you can hear, smell and see, but not move. Then the parts of the brain controlling the muscles wake up. Normally the delay is nano-seconds, but with the people who suffer from sleep "paralysis" the delay becomes seconds.

That is my opinion. I'm no expert.

It happened to me a lot as a child. It scared me cos I thought I was being held down by a ghost

[edit on 15-5-2008 by Lannock]

reply to post by zsandmann


this is exactly what happens to me atleast once a week and it frightens me.Have i got anythig to be worried about?