i've had it a lot more than i can remember. basically it's like your mind is awake but your body is sleeping. usually some breathing problem ensues. usually it happens when i lie on my back with a very thin pillow, but sometimes it also happens when i'm lying on my side. it never happen when i lie on my stomach

it is quite dangerous as I usually encounter breathing problem when it happens. what i did is to stay calm and let the body breath instead of forcing to breath (since the body is still asleep althaugh you're not). if after some time when i really can't breath, my reflexes jolt me up to sit down and breath. this is how i usually wakes up from it. i've tried the moving toes and fingers but it still won't stop even after i clearly moved my fingers. i guess it's a different symptomp

right now i try to prevent from lying on my back and use the right pillow thickness so as to make my neck as straight as when i'm standing and i haven't got the problem anymore this past 2 years

There's nothing wrong with it. It's not supposed to happen often, but it does because you wake up during the REM of your sleep cycle. REM is the only stage of the sleep cycle where you dream, and you body is put into a state of paralysis so that you don't act of the dream and hurt yourself. If you happen to wake up during it, which is unlikely, you will be unable to move for a few minutes.

I don't think I ever had sleep paralysis; I did have one really scary hallucination once after waking up when I was a child that I remember to this day, but I don't remember whether or not I was still able to move.


@ Reiz0r

Have you been tested for cataplexy? The symptoms you're describing remind me of that, but it's pretty rare, and often people who have cataplexy are also necroleptic but they don't have to be.

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Nope, never had it (that I can remember). I'm surprised at the large number of people that have experienced this. Honestly I'd never even heard of it before reading manga and seeing it mentioned a few times.

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I do and it's horrible.-_-'' I'm trying to fall asleep and then when i do fall asleep, my body does but i'm wide awake. and it's pretty annoying and kinda painful, its not supposed to be painful, but for me it is. and sometimes scary. Eh well, it happens when i'm really tired or i try to fall asleep again after waking up recently. it's weird. yeah.>_>

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Wow so many people voted yes O.o. It's never happened to me, I hardly knew it happened at all. It must feel weird being paralyzed a short while.

Because of a surgery I once experienced a nerve blockade. I couldn't feel or move my arm that entire evening. It was a very weird experience.

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I have experienced it quite a few times, it happens almost every time I fall asleep on my back while staring up at the ceiling. I'm used to it now and like to see what i can get my body to do until it stops. My eyes are always closed when it happens so I can never see anything, but I like to trying to raise my arms or move my fingers, but it never works and it is such a weird feeling. I have come to like it though, something to mess around with until l have to wake up.

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" 9 years and 163 days later, 2% of my body cells are still in love with her"

I've had it, but oddly it only happens when I manage to fall asleep having a migraine.

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"Si camino no hablar..."

I've never had it, but my youngest son gets it every once in a while. From his account, it is pretty awful.

When I'm sleep paralyzed, there's two types. One is when I'm about to fall asleep, but then I'm alert again, except I can't move. When this happens, I've experienced hallucinations. I've seen things that weren't there, like fairies, or shadows from my lamp turning into a twisted hand reaching for me, and I've heard things that weren't there, sort of like a million different things being said/sung/whispered all at once (like a whacked out radio), and even when I try to focus on one phrase or word, it slips from my grasp.

The other type happens when I'm asleep and I'm startled awake by my dream, I'm guessing. These, strangely, don't have visual or auditory hallucinations most of the time. I'm just unable to move, and kind of stuck in whatever train of thought was going on in my head before waking up until it wears off.

Whichever one does happen, it ends up happening for multiple times in a row, until I finally fall asleep and wake up normally. I don't think I'd describe any of these experiences as painful. It's mostly just frightening, although when it first happened, I thought my chest was being crushed, because it was hard to breathe at first (mostly because I was panicking from being unable to run away from shadows and such). But now, I'm pretty much used to it, although it's really annoying.

I do notice it tends to happen when I'm really stressed, or if I go to bed later than normal.