Sleep paralysis/waking nightmare

I get it sometimes as I’m drifting off, get the sensation like something is fluttering in one ear, then out the other. If i move it stops, but if not it gets worse and i have sleep paralysis come one. I try to talk or move, but can only murmur. Hasn’t happened recently, but i try and move about if i feel it happening.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b016k9yr/The_Sleep_Diaries_Walking_in_Your_Sleep/

For the last three years we’ve spent a week in Scotland staying in the same hotel each time. During our first stay the bar man told us that our room was haunted by the ghost of a girl who had died there. We stayed in the same room the next year and on the first night I woke up feeling like someone was sat on me pinning me to the bed. i couldn’t move, shout to my brother or do anything. Scariest thing I’ve ever had.

In the morning I couldn’t decide if i’d been dreaming. However I didn’t wake up afterwards like I would have if it had been a dream.

Hate to quote Wiki but

Some reports read that various factors increase the likelihood of both paralysis and hallucinations. These include:

Sleeping in a face upwards or supine position
Increased stress
Sudden environmental/lifestyle changes
A lucid dream that immediately precedes the episode.
Excessive consumption of alcohol coupled with lack of adequate sleep

I suffered from it badly, almost nightly, when i was smoking LOTS of weed in my student days but knocked it on the head and it resolved.

I got used to it when it was happening alot I did’t look forward to goinf to bed.

I get it too, horrible innit.

A neurologist friend of mine says it’s stress related and I do seem to get it more when I’m a bit strung out.

I get night horrors sometimes which is most unpleasant – I wake up in a complete panic – suddenly awake in full blown panic “fight or flight” reflexes in overdrive.

I suffer from sleep paralysis. I only get it if I sleep on my back (I never purposely sleep on my back)

I first had it around 8 years ago. At that time I was sleeping alone and could manage to bring myself out of it by concentrating really hard on trying to move a finger/hand. Only had it a few times and then no problems for the next 7years.

Last year it came back and I’ve been unable to snap myself out of it. This leads to me panicing and struggling for breath. Initially my weird breathing would be enough to wake my partner and her voice would bring me round. Then she needed to tap me, now she needs to really shove me to snap me out of it. Can’t be very nice for her…I’ve started funny breathing/making groaning noises to try and wake her so she can snap me out of it.

I’ve read about it and apparently it’s something to do with entering/leaving REM out of sync. Apparently the doc’s can give you something to stop you entering REM sleep but I don’t feel it happens to me regularly enough at the moment. I guess I suffer from it once or two every few months.

In my case I think it’s probably related to stress.

Another one with the Scale Thing, between ages of 5-10(ish). Strange how it was so frightening