Sleep Paralysis

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This probably doesn't have anything to do with aspergers, but I experience sleep paralysis quite a bit. In case you don't know what it is, it's when you wake up (or dream that you wake up) and you're completely paralyzed and can't move. It used to be pretty frightening when I didn't know anything about it. Scientists say they don't know the cause of it, but it's explained that your body goes into a state of paralysis during REM sleep so that you won't sleep walk and act out your dreams. Sometimes your mind wakes before you body has a chance to come out of this paralyzed state; this is called Sleep Paralysis. I have read that aspies almost always remember their dreams, which is true of me. So then I got to thinking of this SP phenomenon and wondered if anyone here has done it, and if it is more widely experienced by people with autism/aspergers.

I know it, but do not encounter it often. I probably had only 2 or 3 cases of sleep paralysis as far as I can remember. It wasn't a problem, although I was scared during the first. But after that I informed myself about it and was calm during the follow sleep paralyses.

I never had visual/auditory hallucinations during one though. But I heard that it is a common phenomenon?

Just asking: If you have them often, has an experienced doctor checked for possible causes? An acquaintance who has them once told me if sleep paralysis happens real often, there might be - not necessarily so - an underlying sleep-related cause.

I don't know about people on the spectrum remembering their dreams more often than anybody else. I do remember a fair share of mine (one or two dreams during night) due to automatic lucid dreaming. I also could rarely remember my dreams when I was young though they were lucid as well. (Or maybe I do remember and just confuse the memories with fantasies, as I have many strange imagined 'videos' that could be dreams?)

ie - sleep paralysis - yep I get it from time to time - especially when I'm run down or really stressed out - think I've always had it. dreams when i remember them are like watching films in technicolour and recently I've been able to lucid dream again. It's said that some people dream in black and white (????)............can't quite get my head around this but I keep asking people and they say they can't remember so so far I haven't actually met anyone who can state catagorically that they do.

I've never told the doctor about my episodes of SP. I'm not sure why, I guess because after reading about it on the internet and seeing other professionals not really knowing the cause or how to treat it...I figured it was pointless. But right now there are so many things that seem to be tied in with aspergers, or at least prevalent in people that are diagnosed with aspergers that I'm starting to really research some of these more. Sleep Paralysis is my first topic, next I'm going to move into chronic fatigue because I've always had issues that way. Maybe it's tied together, maybe not. Never hurts to educate yourself though. Sorry, now I'm going off on a tangent.

I've had ASP two or three times.

The first time, I had an out of body experience and felt a presence in the room...I floated above my body and tried to find it, but couldn't see it.

Don't think I had an OBE with the other two.

Another time, I had...I'm not even sure. I woke up in the middle of the night, walked around the house for a while, but none of the lights would work or anything. Everything was dark blue-ish, just like an OBE...then I went back to bed and fell asleep...no dreams. Then I had a dream right before I woke up for real in the morning.

I don't get how that's possible...maybe I had like a half ASP, but I didn't quite wake up fully, so I wasn't even aware that I was awake? Normally one does not remember dreams they had in the middle of sleeping...I've read that you only remember a dream if you wake up during it.

I've had it happen to me a few times. Very scarry, but it hasn't happened to me in a while. I dream in color, and I tend to remember them more if something reminds me of it during the day.

Like... once, maybe. Twice. Never lasted very long, and I was still semiconscious so it was more like, "Huh, I can't move... ohkay..." I guess true sleep paralysis is waking up completely while you're still paralyzed; guess that's probably pretty freaky. What I do get all the time is "false awakenings"... I'll figure out I'm dreaming, try to wake myself because I'm sick of being asleep, then dream I woke up, only to discover I'm still dreaming. At that point I'll usually be able to wake myself up, but my record has been five (!) false awakenings in a row!

BTW, does anybody else remember forgotten dreams while going to sleep the next night?

I don't remember ever having sleep paralysis, but I have hynagogic hallucinations almost every night (hallucinations as you are falling asleep), which are often associated with sleep paralysis (luckily, not for me). Most people have hypnagogic hallucinations at some point, but usually not that frequently.

I do actually have a sleep disorder, as I spend too much time in REM sleep and almost none in slow-wave sleep. This also means I have very vivid dreams that I can sometimes confuse with real life (it's sometimes hard to remember whether something actually happened or only happened in a dream).

Does this have a specific name? I'm just amazed that there is a limit on how much a person should stay in REM sleep. When I sleep, I dream almost all the time.

I'm interested too, I feel like I dream all night long.

I get that. We're all "paralyzed" during sleep but some of us become aware during it. It can be frightening. I'm usually too tired to care.

I get it a lot. Occasionally I'll also see the outline/shadow of a man on top of me (and on one occasion it felt like I was actually being wrestled down) but not so much anymore.. I have sleep paralysis more often when I'm lucid dreaming a lot.

I get this about once a month. I described it in one of my blog entries, actually. It's not exactly a barrel of laughs when it happens - being fully awake and conscious but unable to move and only just about able to breathe is scary at the time, but Sleep Paralysis is essentially harmless. That's why it's so poorly understood, and why so little research has been done on it. If an episode of SP made you spontaneously combust, that would be an entirely different matter.

"Freaky" doesn't even begin to describe it...not only can you not move, but often times you get the feeling that there's a presence in the room with you, an evil one.

I only felt another entity the first time I had one...so the other times I had it it wasn't quite as scary, I just concentrated on wiggling my fingers and I break free.

Oh I do get sleep paralysis and it is in my case terrible, since it comes with hallucinations which involve someone watching or spiky animals or water flooding the room. I don't think I have ever been as scared in real life as I feel during these things.

Quite the opposite. My sleep is rarely restrained at all. I frequently dream of tripping over and my leg jerks in response to try and stop myself from falling, which actually happens as I lay in bed. As you can imaging, your self righting reflex is somewhat uncomfortable when laying down, and I wake up having almost catapaulted myself off the bed with my leg.