Hypnopompic Hallucinations.
I’m doing a little experiment. For the last ten days, I’ve made a commitment to getting less sleep. Six and a half hours a night, in fact. I don’t play with the snooze button, and I go to bed at exactly the same time.
But I’ll give you the results later. I was looking up some sleep-related stuff and stumbled across a Sleep Paralysis questionnaire. I’ve had this freaky experience (and I take a perverse pride in having had my very own hallucinations without any outside influence). So I wrote down the absolute truth about this, and I’ve decided to share it here.
Sometimes when falling asleep or when waking from sleep, I experience a brief period during which I am unable to move, even though I am awake and conscious of my surroundings.
Frequency: Several times in life.
Intensity: 7/7.
Please describe your experiences in your own words:
Every few years or so, I have this experience. Always on waking, I’m paralyzed, but I can usually see perfectly — except occasionally with “added” hallucinations, either hazy clouds moving through the room or more concrete images (people or objects in the room that don’t exist). This happens in clusters, two or three times in the space of a few weeks and then stops.
The first time I remember this happening was before I was six years old. The second time, I was eighteen or nineteen.
On these occasions I have tried to speak or call out but was unable to do so.
Frequency: Occasionally
The second time it happened, I was in bed with my girlfriend. I thought something was terribly wrong, and I tried to wake her.
She was half-dozing, and woke up because I went completely stiff and gasping. She turned to see what was wrong, and her movement “woke” my body. My mind was awake during the whole thing.
When I learnt what sleep paralysis was, I stopped trying to call out, and just tried to go back to sleep.
During the experience I had the feeling of a presence in the room with me. (What is meant here is an awareness of something present, independently of actually seeing or hearing anything.)
Frequency: Occasionally.
Intensity: 6/7.
I’ve only felt a presence in the room if I was also hallucinating, which is infrequent.
During the experience I had a sensation of floating.
Frequency: Never
Intensity: Does not apply.
I normally feel trapped. I’ve never felt “out of body”.
During the experience I imagined that I saw a something: a shape, person or being of some kind.
Frequency: Occasionally
Intensity: 6/7
Please describe details, if any, about what you saw:
I usually don’t hallucinate during sleep paralysis, but when I do, it’s almost as vivid as real life.
My first memory of sleep paralysis was a clear image of a robot entering my door (as clear as I can recall, this was before I was six years old and a lot less silly at the time). My parents explained that this was a nightmare, and I thought it was just a particularly vivid nightmare until it happened again in University.
Once, there was an indistinct shadow of a person (an old woman) in the room, even though the rest of the room was perfectly clear and realistic.
A few times, the room has been filled with a hazy cloud — again, the room was clear through the cloud.
I remember once that everything in the room was in a different spot than normal, and much less clear and real.
During the experience I felt pressure on my chest or other part(s) of my body.
Frequency: Occasionally
Intensity: 2/7
Especially when panicking (before I knew what to expect), I felt like I couldn’t control my breathing, especially to breath in sufficiently to yell.
According to my girlfriend at the time, I never actually stopped breathing.
Blah blah blah
At this point, the survey asked questions about things that had never happened to me, such as floating, leaving my body, etc. The answers were either no or too dull to include here.
Have you ever felt: Fear
Frequency: Occasionally.
Intensity: 6/7
Before I knew what was happening, it was very frightening — more frightening than I would have expected.
Ever since, I’m still anxious when it happens, but I remind myself that it’s just sleep paralysis and try to close my eyes and go back to sleep.
Have you ever felt: blah blah blah
Lots of other stuff that I’ve never felt, including sadness, anger, cold, erotic feelings, trembling.
Blah blah blah
Body position, general alertness, when this normally happens, triggers, and demographic information.
That’s the whole story. Yes, I had a robot hallucination before the age of six years old. It’s one of those things that I remember so vividly that I have to wonder if it actually happened.
GKarlsen
Holy Smokes!!!
Hallucinations? Paralysis? Yikes, if those things happened to me, I would probably experiment with less sleep too!
I’m curious to know what you are trying to learn from your experiment? I’ve recently started experimenting in the opposite direction (more sleep) and have found myself more energetic, less bitchy and oddly enough, more hungry! I love sleep!
I have mild sleep paralysis on occasion, although it never freaks me out, so it probably isn’t as severe as yours (and I don’t hallucinate robots, unfortunately.) Paralysis is one of the symptoms, plus I usually feel like there’s a malevolent presence of some kind in the room with me that I can never quite see. Then I wake up. Did you know this phenomenon is believed to be the origin of most stories of alien abduction?
That is fascinating: I had no idea that this sort of thing happened to people. I admit that I have never had sleep paralysis, and must also admit to not dreaming about robots.
Sometimes I have a dream and it’s just about some banal and stupid thing that just happened to me, so I will think “This is just a dream – and a particularly unimaginative one at that Why am I so uninspired? Where are the talking cats?”
I’m with Callie – more sleep is better than less. But maybe that’s what your experiment is all about – figuring it all out.
I have had sleep paralysis twice (maybe three times – my memory ain’t great), and man did it freak me out. I never hallucinated anything, but definitely had the whole rising panic, claustrophobic, wanting to scream but no sound, am I breathing? experience. Unfortunately, there has never been anyone around during this. Luckily I haven’t had it happen in a few years now, and I hope you’ve seen the last of it too.
Wow — you’re the first person I’ve met that has also had this happen to them! I remember what a relief it was when I found out that it had a name.
I have to be clear about something, though. There’s a big difference between dreaming (even vividly dreaming), and hallucinating.
The site asks you to rate the vividness of your experience from 1 (vague and suggestive) to 7 (clear and distinct as everyday). The average was 6.18, with the majority of people selecting the highest rating.
I didn’t dream the robot — as far as my eyes were concerned, it was there.
I realize that with my modern robot fixation, this sounds kind of cutesy. I promise, this is all true.
I have had the sleep paralysis too.. More often when I was a child.
The cat now gets me out of it. She can sense somehow that something is weird and will jump on my chest and stick her nose in my face. It’s such a relief.
If you want to know more about this phenomenon and other odd phenomnon that are scientifically snubbed but very common, read the book the Fourth Monkey. One chapter is devoted to sleep paralysis. It’s very common on the east coast of Canada and is called the ‘Old Hag’ and there are references to it before even the alien abduction stories.
You know, I remember you telling me about this once, but I thought you were just crazy;) It sounds absolutely dreadful and horrifying.
what you’ve described is something that happens to me quite frequently. I think I’ve finally determined that they happen when I’m OVERDUE for sleep (I’m extremely exhausted and have missed that frame of time when I should have gone to sleep). It may also be attributed to stress.
I always thought I was experiencing sleep apnea, for not only am I in a state of paralysis, but I’m also struck with an inability to breath – as though someone was sitting on my chest.
In the past couple months, I’ve experienced this “parlysis” more than 10 times. But I can’t just tell myself to go to sleep when it’s happening like you can – I can’t breathe, I try to wake myself up, but when I finally wake up, I’m so exhausted that I immediately tumble back into slumber only to experience it again. It makes for a very scary night.
Thanks so much for sharing this with us – I really thought I was alone on this one. I just wish there was a way of stopping it – or even preventing it – maybe Lady K could lend us her cat?!
Wow, four other people — this is astounding.
Sugar plum, your experience sounds way worse than mine. I’m not sure if it’s ever happened twice in a single night for me.
I read once that calmly wiggling your fingers or toes, or rolling your eyes can be enough to wake your body up, but I’ve never tried.
Hope it’s just a bad episode for you, and that everything goes back to normal. For me, it usually happens a few times during a few weeks, then goes away for years — or maybe forever.
That’s crazy ass!
Worst I ever had was before knee surgery when the anaesthetic was kicking in – I was still “awake” but I felt like I wasn’t breathing and try as I might I couldn’t draw a breath, then I lost consciousness and died. Oh, no wait, I didn’t die, I woke up in recovery with 4 holes in my knee and then started puking – I’ll puke for pretty much anything.
Anyway, yours seems like a bad thing, all y’all have my sympathy.