Sleep Paralysis

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Maybe you can help me or may be I can help you.

Anyhow, last night I worked late and when I come home I can not go right to sleep. I went to sleep around 1:30AM.

This morning my wife woke me up at about 8:45AM. She put my 14 month old daughter in our room and closed the door, so she could get ready for work. I came in and out of sleep for about thirty minutes with my daughter running around the room, sticking her pacifier in my mouth and jumping on me. Finally my wife came back in and took her with her.

I went back to sleep only to wake up at about 9:45; however, I could not open my eyes or move my body. I felt someone get into bed next to me, but I knew that my wife was gone. I was still in a dream, but I was also aware of the world around me. I could feel my jaw flapping in reality. In my dream my mind turned the sensation of someone getting into the bed next to me into my wife. I tried to get up, but I still could not move. I tried screaming for help, but hand no control of my mouth and nothing would come out. My wife was telling me things that did not make any sense. Then, she started to yell at me for not getting up. In the dream part, I knew that my wife was not really there, so I got angry at the representation of my wife. I grabbed her by the throat and threw her down the stairs. She began slowly gliding down through the air, so I jumped onto her as she was falling and rode her like a surfboard to the bottom.

As her head hit the floor, I reappeared in my bed. My jaw had stopped flapping and I tried yelling for help, again. Now, I could make a little grunt. I knew that I was coming out of it, so I kept yelling until it finally came out. It barely was audible, but once I can articulate words I know that I'm beginning to get control of my limbs again. I got to my feet and stumbled out of the door, running my shoulder in to the doorpost. I went downstairs sliding my shoulder along the wall and took a shower. I had a headache and no shortterm memory for hours.

Whoever is reading this let me know what you think. I am not sure if this is sleep paralysis or a seizure or both. Let me know what you think.

There are times that I'm dreaming and than I'm laying in my bed, but I don't seem to be in my apartment. I seem to be somewhere else. I finally wake up and I'm afraid to go back to sleep for the rest of the night.

The first part definitely sounds like sleep paralysis, but the rest is unusual.

I have sleep paralysis a couple times a year. It can be absolutely frightening.

I had sleep paralysis a number of times when I was a little girl. It was absolutely horrifying...couldn't move, yell...just as you described. I don't ever remember any dreams along with it though, but heard that you can see things like you're in a dream when you have it.

I think if it had been a seizure, you would not have remembered all that you mentioned.

Well, I'm always unusual. I think that it may have been a seizure that was brought on by the fear created by the sleep paralysis, hence the flapping jaw, headache and confusion, but I don't know. It's not really that important, but I'm trying to do better at keeping tract of my bigger seizures. I have a lot of minor partial seizures durring the day. They are so minor that for thirty one years I didn't realize that they were seizures. I only recently found out that I am on the spectrum around Asperger's and all the missing pieces of my life are starting to fall into place. I have these episodes ten to twenty times during the day where my head shifts to the side, my hand/hands flick up at the wrist and my neck stiffens up. It usually only lasts upto five seconds and I feel okay afterwards(okay not 100%), but things then return to normal. I thought that they were tics awhile ago, but tics are localized and don't leave you feeling different.

I've actually never been awake during sleep paralysis. The only thing that even comes close to that is when I have dreams that I'm falling. When I dream that I hit the ground, I come out of sleep paralysis immediately and my whole body jolts uncomfortably in an attempt to brace for the impact. That's usually what wakes me up, and that's how I can remember the dream.

Sounds like sleep paralysis plus false awakening. Happens to me all the time. You dream you you are awake, but still dreaming. Your brain does weird thing to you, and when you finally awake you have sleep paralysis. Look up old hag syndrome (I believe it's called, not sure) That too could explain much like the sensing someone in bed with you.

When I was a bit younger, sleep paralysis was common for me. It was uncomfortable (sometimes painful) and terrifying, sure, but interesting. I sort of wish these things would still happen to me, despite the discomfort. I found that the easiest way to get out of the state was to concentrate on trying to move a finger or a toe. It would seem at first that it isn't working, but slowly I'd manage to get it to move and when it would I'd wake up.

Some episodes;
- I went to lie on my bed just to relax. At some point then I looked at a digital clock and the numbers had morphed into human faces. Then it felt like the bed had started rocking violently, it was very uncomfortable, and the bed was making a very loud clanking sound as well.
- I woke up. I saw some weird tuft on the upper field of my vision from the corner of my eye. Somehow I first thought it was my hand and I wondered how it was possible for my arm to be in such a position for my hand to be there. Then I realized it was a pillow (so there's a pillow floating in the air?) and moved my arm in a weird, fast, floaty way to grab the pillow and threw it across the room. I looked down at myself and saw that I had not really moved my arm at all.
- I woke up. There were numbers floating in the air and changing very rapidly into other numbers. There was a pain in my jaw and I felt like my head was going to explode. There was a high-pitched scream-like sound that kept getting louder and higher, the pain in my jaw also got worse all the time. It was awful.

Well there were a million others. Most common things happening in them were trembling violently like in some seizure and a loud high-pitched beep/scream/other sound increasing in volume.
If sleep paralysis happened to me I could not just go to sleep after I woke from it because it would happen again when falling asleep. I tried to work around this by going for a short walk around the apartment before going back to sleep. This usually worked.

I've had sleep paralysis before. The first time was about 20 years old. I had the strange feeling of a presence in the room with me and I was concerned it wanted to sexually assault me. A couple of other times I had the feeling of a presence that was malevolent, but I wasn't aware of the specifics of the entity's intentions. I managed to break out of it in tome though. I learned it was your body's way of keeping you from acting out your dreams and injuring yourself. I've had it about five times in my life. Strangely enough, once I understood it, I stopped fearing a presence when it did occur, and I eventually stopped experiencing it all together. I haven't had it for a couple of years. That's my experience with sleep paralysis.

Hi TheBrain

That sounds very like my experience with sleep paralysis over the years. It can be terrifying and you have my sympathy. Before I go into any detail, I must tell you that I've not had an episode in several few years. I've been able to relate it to eating cheese, fairly close to bedtime. My parents used to make cheese on toast as an evening snack and sleep paralysis was a regular occurrence, right through my teeenage years. Since I got married and moved out, it has gone (we never have cheese on toast as a late snack). The only time I've had sleep paralysis, since I moved out, was when we arrived at a hotel late on and dinner was finished, so the staff had left a cheese and bread platter in our room. This proved it for me once and for all. Of course, their might be a different trigger for you.

When it happens, I feel awake, yet unable to move and I'm still dreaming. We are all supposed to be parlaysed when dreaming, but we shouldn't wake up - that's what's going wrong when sleep paralysis occurs. Quite often the dream becomes a nightmare, which is all the more real because I feel very aware. One time, my quilt lifted and I had an invisible 'ghost' come into bed with me. Thankfully it seemed friendly and just went to sleep. I had a few where the devil (wearing my dad's dressing gown) was sitting by my wardrobe. The worst one was the night before a uni exam and I was pulled through the mattress, whilst 'someone' screamed directly into my ear. I remember trying to scream for my parents, but I couldn't make a sound. I had been quite good at the subject and should have done well, but my memory was inaccessible and I flunked an exam, for the first time in my life.

As for the jaw flapping. I still get this sometimes, but rarely. My teeth chatter, which is a horrible feeling as it's as if they're going to clamp together and one will get chipped and I have no control over it.

I hope it doesn't happen again to you and you get an answer.

Good luck.

I got that a lot as a child. And sometimes I sleep with my eyes open...so I would wake up and see everything around me and not be able to move. One night, my grandparents were in my room doing stuff. Painting the walls yellow (which i hate...) and my grandmother commented "she sleeps with her eyes open. look." and they both stare at me. Meanwhile I am freaking out and trying to move because I want to leave. The paint stinks. I don't know how long I was stuck there before I finally forced an arm to twitch. I am always afraid to go back to sleep after that happens. There was one occasion when I was about four...I woke up with my eyes open and the sun shining directly in them...and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move anything...not even my chest just to inhale and exhale. I started to feel dizzy and, thankfully, made this violent jerky movement that snapped me out of it. Threw myself out of the bed. Didn't sleep for days after the incident.