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[Ostinatto]

i can't read the OP right now , but i will.

i have SP for about 20 years, i can give you some advice to deal with this, maybe you already know some of my points, but i think is helpful for people who are new to this.

BEFORE BED:

- choose a nice and comfortable sleeping outfit.
- Make sure bedclothes are clean and without wrinkles.
- take out all the electronics in your bedrooom. if possible. (TV, radio, computers etc).
- get rid of any noises inside your home, like wall clocks, or other electronics.
- if anything in your body bothers you, like nose hair, ear hair, Long nails, take care of that before bedtime.
- do not eat heavy meals right before going to bed.
- if you come home exhausted, from work or something, don't go to bed right away, try to relax first, maybe a shower?
- try to be Hydrated during the day, 3 to 4 glasses of water per day minimun.

DURING THE SP:

- RELAX !!! nothing is real, all the monsters, your beloved ones (also if you are dealing with the death of a loved one), demons, beasts, ARE NOT REAL.
- how to get out of the SP quick? my method is to take a deep breath and let it out strongly as you can, it may not work the first time, try till you find the sweetspot to wake up.
- after you wake up, change your position in bed before getting sleep again.or maybe get up and walk a few steps before going to bed again.

i will add some more later

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

Well damn, felt like I just read a creepypasta. That's sounds just way too terrifying.

I think I might need a cigarette and I don't even smoke!

 

[vikki]

This is pretty messed up, OP. I agree that you should videotape your bedroom, if only to give you piece of mind. SP is always scary for me, but I face a wall now so I don't see anything and I haven't heard the noise in a while, the noise almost indescribable. I am able to moan load enough to wake myself, or my wife, up so I dont suffer too long. If you can make your gf aware of it, maybe she can help when you are having an episode. Hopefully you learn to punch that bitch in the face if she decides to show her face.

 

[OriginX]

Im all for getting the mirror out of the room and getting rid of it. Its old and shitty looking to begin with, but it was my wife's great-great grandmothers, so she has sentimental attachment to it plus her dad said it may have some value as an antique. I may just see if I can convince her to move it to the spare bedroom since it just takes up unnecessary room right now. We'll see how that goes though. I was unsuccessful at convincing her to remove those little porcelain dolls from the room and I absolutely fucking hate those things.

 

[MikeDown]

..unsuccessful at convincing her to remove those little porcelain dolls from the room and I absolutely fucking hate those things.

If anything really scares me it is dolls or toys of that sort. Watching the Chucky movies scarred me when I was young. Also that one episode of the Twilight Zone, with the murderous doll didn't help either.

 

[thesuperfunk]

Sounds scary as shit OP ...

 

[boiled goose]

Ive had sleep paralysis maybe 3 or four times and it is pretty mild and I never really figured out what it was till I read some stories on another thread on gaf.

Usually, I am in a half asleep half awake state where I know I am dreaming yet I can't wake up. I get pretty frightened and see strange things in my bedroom. One time I saw a scary ghost girl and another time a demon like thing with a ram's skull for a head and a white robe scratching the wall.

What i always find interesting is that as I slowly wake up, the hallucinations 'morph' into a real world object. The girl turned into a chair with a shirt on top and the demon turned into some shadows of a poster on my wall. It is interesting psychologically. Almost like your half working brain is trying to process motion when there is none and misinterpreting objects for something else.

 

[kevm3]

Time for you to say a prayer to Jesus.

 

[Evolution_1ne]

You guys really hallucinate, weird. I see nothing but the darkness of my room. I guess it's becasue I'm so used to it I treat it more like a mild nuance than a encounter of the third kind.

Look I said it before in the other thread, the trick is to NOT panic, relax, let your body catch up to your mind, shit go back to sleep, you'll snap right out of it

 

[toddhunter]

I have gone through something similar.

Quite often I would have recurring episodes. Instead of an old women, I would instead find myself paralysed and looking up at the ceiling. The roof wouldn't be complete though, it always had a square window looking up at the stars above.
This is in itself not a problem. But then a horse would always appear looking down through the window at me. Sometimes in particularly bad episodes it would finally open its mouth and scream at me as I tried to get away.

This is obviously strange and I could never figure out why I would see an animal looking at me. I have no dealings with horses.

What would also happen at this time, is the cat (who would sleep on the end of the bed) would also be going nuts and either screeching or sprinting out of the room. I didn't understand why that would be when I was frozen.

Luckily my girlfriend at the time did. Whilst I was paralyzed and silent in my dream whilst I tried to move and scream? Turns out I really was thrashing around like a crazy man and screaming away. Sometimes it would happen in reverse. The cat jumping up on the bed would suddenly set me off if I wasn't sleeping properly.

It doesn't happen that often (maybe a couple of times a month) so I haven't done much about it. After I sort of just wake up and realise what is happening, I apologise and go straight back to bed. I probably should get it checked one of these days but I just put it down to work stress.

 

[shadow_shogun]

You should try laying on your side, TC, that's how I was able to overcome mine.

 

[mantidor]

Im all for getting the mirror out of the room and getting rid of it. Its old and shitty looking to begin with, but it was my wife's great-great grandmothers, so she has sentimental attachment to it plus her dad said it may have some value as an antique. I may just see if I can convince her to move it to the spare bedroom since it just takes up unnecessary room right now. We'll see how that goes though. I was unsuccessful at convincing her to remove those little porcelain dolls from the room and I absolutely fucking hate those things.

You have dolls that freak you out in your room!? no wonder what you see.

Ive had sleep paralysis maybe 3 or four times and it is pretty mild and I never really figured out what it was till I read some stories on another thread on gaf.

Usually, I am in a half asleep half awake state where I know I am dreaming yet I can't wake up. I get pretty frightened and see strange things in my bedroom. One time I saw a scary ghost girl and another time a demon like thing with a ram's skull for a head and a white robe scratching the wall.

What i always find interesting is that as I slowly wake up, the hallucinations 'morph' into a real world object. The girl turned into a chair with a shirt on top and the demon turned into some shadows of a poster on my wall. It is interesting psychologically. Almost like your half working brain is trying to process motion when there is none and misinterpreting objects for something else.

Oh this has always been my experience, usually the figure is that of a robed tall man, but it ends up being the closet or a chair. I think is obvious this state is some anomaly where you are still into sleep but your senses, specially sight, somehow "wake up", thats why it's so common to feel someone sitting on you (fortunately I never had this) or feeling paralyzed (I did have this), your are still in sleep, and in sleep your brain disconnects itself from the body, which is why you can dream about running around without actually moving your feet, of course that disconnect is horrible if you gain some amount of consciousness, which seems to be what happens there.


Also, I think is really bad to sleep with pets, specially cats, since they are more nocturne and will move around in the night, but I'm no expert there.

 

[jstripes]

I had Sleep Paralysis a few times. Fucking spooky. But only in one specific bedroom, in one specific house.

Make of that what you will. (I'm a Grade A skeptic.)

 

[TasTokyo]

The jump to supernatural explanations seemed very fast OP. I get the impression you believed them before this happened.

As others said it's most likely you are just making noises or acting scared in your sleep and this is alerting your dogs to it. Seems fairly normal they would react in some way to it.

Let's also not forget you are groggily waking up from sleep. You say your dog was looking at the spot. Is it not most likely that you wake up, look there yourself, he sees this and then looks roughly in the direction? Which you being sleepy just take as he was already looking there.

To add to this you have dolls in your room (I'm guessing at least some if not most are female) that you hate.

You are scaring your dogs, not some 'it'.

 

[mariachi507]

I had an episode last night but thanks to the last thread I've been able to get myself out of them quick thanks to toe movement. Your story is absolutely terrifying, I'm not sure what I would do in that situation.

 

[Mononoke]

I used to get this. It hasn't been a while since I had it. I don't remember what was going on in my life (in terms of how I was sleeping, or if I wasn't eating healthy). But sleep paralysis is fuckin awful. I can't say anymore that hasn't already been said, but it's such a terrifying experience. Your mind is fully awake and aware, but the part that controls your body is still not fully awake.

The worst thing for me, is that even after I knew what it was, I still would panic. And in order to get out of SP, it feels like you are lifting a thousand pounds off ur chest. With all of your might you struggle to get control of your body, and roll out of the sleep. That moment of bursting out of the SP is like swimming to the top of water when you are out of breath. It's an awful feeling.

The first time I had SP, I remember waking up. I saw my alarm clock, and could watch the time slowly go by. I knew that I was awake, but had absolutely no control of my own body. Some of the experiences in this thread are strange to me though. I've never been in a dream state when I have this. I actually wake up, and am 100% aware of what is actually going on. I can see my room, I can see things moving. I just can't control my body.

EDIT: I didn't know how to get out of them, so thanks to GAF for the advice. While I haven't had them in forever, I'll remember that.

I always tried to fight the paralysis by moving my upper body (instead of my toes), so it was an epic struggle to get out of it.

 

[RedAssedApe]

I always tell myself to not read these thread but I do anyways. lol

I'm still freaked out even though I've experienced SP before and pretty much always know what is happening when it happens. I hope I don't have it tonight. fuuuu

 

[GloveSlap]

Im going to go beyond the ghost/sleep paralysis explanation. You are physically manifesting your thoughts with just the power of your brain. Except only dogs can see it. You are on track to become the world's shittiest superhero

But seriously, the whole thing sounds pretty scary.

 

[Mario]

I've tended to have sleep paralysis episodes only once or so a year since they started in my early 20s. Though have had them a little more frequently, in my current place, a converted apartment block built out of an old dental training school (the plaque outside the front refers to its nickname "The Murder House").

My latest episode was perhaps my most terrifying.

Both my ex and current live in girlfriends swear the place is haunted, which never made sense to me because the place was a dental school not a hospital. But it doesn't help that my cat spends a lot of time just staring at the top of the stairwell like someone is there. Even though I don't believe in ghosts, it kind of makes you a little uneasy when you have your back to the stairs on the couch and the cat is just staring past and behind you.

But anyway, my night terrors have tended to happen a little more often than usual in this place. I put this down to being able to see from my bed into the hallway and the dim green light on the smoke alarm on the ceiling (my bedroom being the first room at the top of the stairs). When I'm half awake, it kind of dances around, and sometimes seems like eyes and the shadows and contrasts looking through the bedroom door to the the hallway play tricks on your eyes. I figure half waking up and then my brain processing these things into sentient beings is a catalyst for triggering a sleep paralysis episode.

So, on to my latest event.

I had just flown back from a business trip in the US, and was traveling with a friend and consultant of mine. He was asking about how things were going with the GF as she'd only recently moved in, and I got onto the subject of the supposed haunting, sleep paralysis etc which we talked about for a few minutes. I was really tired from the 12 hour flight with only a broken sleep, but worked the full day then went home. Girlfriend went off to work her nightshift, and eventually I crashed, quite jet-lagged.

After a couple of hours, I experienced a sleep paralysis episode. From memory it felt like the covers were being pulled on and off me very violently, but as mentioned in the OP for the most part you brush that off, recognize that for what it is and go back to sleep. Then some time later that night, I had another episode in which I saw a naked feminine figure walking across the room at the end of the bed, which did freak me out a little more seeing as my brain registered that it was not my girlfriend and I'd never had a night terror image that clear or of that nature before, but I succumbed quickly back to sleep.

At some point later that night, I was in the middle of a nightmare (this night was not going well). I was right in the midst of this, starting to wake up, when my girlfriend out of pitch black steps into the room at 3am trying not to wake me having arrived back home wearing a vampire bat onesie she had inexplicably decided to wear to work.

Apparently, I started screaming.

I haven't been sleeping well ever since. Going to see The Conjuring did not help.

 

[Mononoke]

Isn't SP caused by the way you sleep/your diet?

Kind of confused why so many are saying it's related to ghosts and shit. WTF

 

[boiled goose]

Isn't SP caused by the way you sleep/your diet?

Kind of confused why so many are saying it's related to ghosts and shit. WTF

haha. the things I saw were most definitely my brain playing tricks on me. Still pretty freaky.

 

[Darth Tigris]

Question: have you found two feral girls in the woods recently and taken them in?

 

[Mononoke]

haha. the things I saw were most definitely my brain playing tricks on me. Still pretty freaky.

I guess my experience was way different than some of you. Mine was literally, I woke up and saw everything around me. It wasn't a dream. Like literally half my brain woke up, while the other half that controlled my ability to move (like my limbs), was stil in sleep mode. So my experience with SP has always been grounded in reality, which IMO made it scary.

Well, at least the first time it happened to me. I thought I had a stroke, or had a serious health condition.

 

[Goldrush]

Im all for getting the mirror out of the room and getting rid of it. Its old and shitty looking to begin with, but it was my wife's great-great grandmothers, so she has sentimental attachment to it plus her dad said it may have some value as an antique. I may just see if I can convince her to move it to the spare bedroom since it just takes up unnecessary room right now. We'll see how that goes though. I was unsuccessful at convincing her to remove those little porcelain dolls from the room and I absolutely fucking hate those things.

In cultures that have a lot of superstitions regarding mirrors, it's common to put a sheet over the mirror when not using it.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

I used to suffer from SP almost nightly, with a personal record of 3 times in one single night.

Thankfully it's no longer the case, hehe. I went to a therapist for a year and a half and it helped a lot.

I remember the first few times they were quite nasty, allucinations and all that and yeah they featured a woman.

 

[GodofWine]

I used to have SP monthly, id see that shadowy man many people saw and feel a sense of dread, like many do..once I swore I woke from it and decided to walk around my apartment at the time, and while walking it off realized I was still asleep when doors started slamming and I 'dove back into my bed' where im sure i levitated off the matress and then really woke up...terrified.

they say you out grow these things and i havent had one in probably 5 years.

but the dogs sensing what you sensed is freaky...unless there are mice or electrical shorts messing with your senses while you sleep triggering it...still freaks me out to remember these episodes, that sense of dread is unforgettable.

 

[OriginX]

Luckily I was able to sleep last night without any SP episodes, just a few nightmares, which is typical for me. I honestly think dealing with so much SP over the years has fucked me up mentally permanently, but I've learned to deal with it. And just to clarify again, I don't think what happened is paranormal in nature in the slightest, I'm just freaked out as to how the dogs reacted the way they did. To those saying that maybe I reacted to the dogs making noise - from my perspective I experienced the woman in the room and then the dogs reacted, not vise versa. It's hard to explain, but I always feel like I have a good grasp on the physical surroundings during SP and then the hallucinations are just additions to that. I don't feel like my mind is generating my surroundings as well. During my SP, I can hear my wife breathing or the dogs moving. If it's raining I can hear that. I hope that makes a little sense. I just feel like I'm always paralyzed in the real world and then my mind likes to treat it like a nightmarish canvas and try to create all kinds of shit for this canvas.

 

[phalestine]

Damn OP, thats freaky. Could it be there is some kind of noise in the area it which it occurs that is triggering both your paralysis and your dogs reactions? (like mice or something)

My latest episode was falling from a plane, mid way thru I knew it was paralysis and kinda just enjoyed it (like sky diving). When I became fully awake though I was terrified, had to turn on all the lights.

Also worth mentioning, I usually get them when my sleep patterns are all fucked up. You said you slept at 1 A.M, how are your sleep patterns?

 

[Chuckie]

It's times like this you should ask yourself: What would Beetlejuice do?

 

[Nostalgic Nightmare]

I find it strange that almost universally people see either a shadow figure or womanly figure.
Perhaps everyone has a personal shadow of death and you just happen to be lucky enough to get a glimpse of it biding its time, rubbing it's hands, licking it's lips until it's time to go....

 

[Alchemy]

Is it weird this thread makes me want to have hallucinations? I mean, this sounds absolutely terrifying but I have a really hard time picturing how real hallucinations can be since I've never had any before.

 

[GodofWine]

What if he does put a camera in the room, and it shows the dogs reacting first?!?! omg.


Sorry OP..no need for more images in your head, but I see this as the obvious next scene in the movie in my head.

 

[Raiden]

Best thing you can do here is go lucid dreaming OP. You have any experiences with those? I end up with SP from time to time. I can either like one poster already said "rip" myself out of it. Or i just concentrate on something else and go back to lucid/sleep dreaming.

Also, there is no woman/ghost/demon whatever.

 

[happypup]

I bet you have mice or something in the walls and your dog is hearing them run around, and barking at them.

That or your dog is hearing burglaries or assault down the block.

Also dogs are tuned to our emotional state (from body language and scent). They also follow eye movements (pointing with your eyes). The dogs pattern recognition software (as it were) went off and said "my best friend is really scared at this area of the wall, Something bad is there. I should try to scare it off.

All animals have a predilection for choosing type 1 pattern recognition errors because if they act like something is there and nothing is there the cost for being wrong is very low. However if they act like nothing is there when something is there the cost could be their lives.

I

 

[GotEmRunnin]

OP a succubus is haunting you. I know it sounds crazy but it's true. Demons are real. Ghost are real. There are things that go bump in the night......will you bump back?

what will be your weapon of choice? holy water, olive oil, salt, or good ole fashion pugilism?

I personally prefer hand to hand combat.

Spoiler

This post has nothing to do with me having a marathon of supernatural this week. Nothing!!!!

 

[kevo_huevo]

Anyway, I had been playing Borderlands 2 on Saturday night and feel asleep around 1 AM.

I couldn't get back to sleep after that and ended up staying up until around 7 in the morning before I feel asleep on our downstairs couch watching TV.

sorry to hear op, that is some scary shit.

 

[Fireblend]

Well, you know, animals' brains work with electric and biologic impulses that propagate throughout them, prompted by physical phenomena detected through their senses. Due to the second law of thermodynamics, these impulses and phenomena can't come from anything non-physical, and thus, your dogs can only be possibly responding to some sort of physical stimuli.

So what I'm saying is basically:

If your dogs reacted to your vision, then these things are physical entities that are able to harm you and your family.

You're already dead.

 

[meppi]

Three nights ago i punched my gf in the face while she was asleep right when the paralysis cut out. She was like "wtf is wrong with you" and i told her i just wanted to punch a deformed demon baby, turned around and fell asleep again.

That is the thing that really frightens me. I've been having some form of sleep paralysis as well as sleepwalking for as long as I can remember. I'm 36 now and I know I had them at age 7-8 for sure. Never went away.
The weird part is, and I have mentioned this in similar topics before is that the paralysis part doesn't seem to work in my case.

The one thing I remember clearly from that young age was somehow getting out of bed at night and sitting by the widow. Then seeing wild wolves start jumping and climbing their way up to the 2nd story window to get to me.
I screamed my head off, waking up my mom who came to get me and calm me down.

I've been pretty sick these past 3 weeks, so the combination of feeling terrible as well as taking tons of medication is playing tricks on me at night.
Only yesterday I jumped out of bed 3 times during the same night to switch on the lights and check if there was something under my pillow, behind the wall and between the wall and my night stand. Never saw any real details, but I'm sure it was a big ass spider and other kind of huge insects. Not much fun.

The hallucination part is probably very close to what the OP is describing as he also sees things in the room that he is in at that moment, so it's not just a random dream.
My problem is that those images linger a bit longer even after I have jumped out of bed and turned on the lights or ran downstairs, depending on how freaky the visions were.
You somehow get used to it, but there is always something that is able to freak you out from time to time and catch you off guard.

One funny occurrence I had last week was during a regular dream. My best friend absolutely hates horror movies that deal with ghosts and paranormal phenomenon, even though he loves monster movies and even the worst gory stuff.
So for some reason I dreamt that I was pulling a prank on him as I was calling him. During the phonecall I started to make the throat noise from Ju-on, while to my surprise all of a sudden the exact same noise started coming back from the other side. I suddenly work up laying on my stomach and could feel a heavy weight on my back. As I tried to look behind me to see what was on top of me, I was terrified to find Kayako sitting n top of me... Lol
Then as I was freaking out, I woke up once more.

I blame that one more on the medication than anything else since it normally never links into my dreams.

 

[mantidor]

Is it weird this thread makes me want to have hallucinations? I mean, this sounds absolutely terrifying but I have a really hard time picturing how real hallucinations can be since I've never had any before.

It's horrifying beyond belief, as OP has mentioned more than just the figure walking around it's the sensation of dread and hopelessness that I really think nothing in real life can give to you, not even an actual creature in the room. The brain is really facinating in that regard. At least people with chronic SP can deliver amazing horror stories and artwork (see H.R Giger, designer of the creature in the Alien movie).

 

[Dorimukyasuto]

I used to get sleep paralysis a lot. Turned out it was a side effect of a prescription I was on. Haven't had it since I stopped that medication.

 

[Agent_ShortBus]

Op you're not alone sadly I've also woken up on some occasions where I can't move anything but my eyes. Thankfully it hasn't happened in a while, nut the last two times it was terrifying. The first one it happened while I was sleeping on my stomach, woke up couldn't move and then suddenly I hear what sounds like a woman's scream right into my ear kinda like you described. I also felt something grabbing my ankle and then it just stopped. I was kinda glad I didn't see what it was that made that sound. The last time it happened I wasn't as lucky. Woke up couldn't move and that's when I saw her, she would pace back and forth infront of my bead occasionally stopping in front of me and starring at me. She kinda looked like the girl from the excorsist and was wearing a white dress. The worst part of all of it is you can only move your eyes and as much as I wanted to yell I couldn't. Since then I've been sleeping on my stomach, don't want to see her again. I wonder why it has been women in both our cases and if everyone sees something else instead. Used my phone to write this sorry if its fucked up looking.

 

[eddfromtheriver]

Well dogs are known to bark at the paranormal... i've seen my dog get freaked out... as if he had been shooed away by someone and he gets up runs and turns around and starts barking frightened at the empty wall... he's done it several times... and my dad used to see ghosts in our house... and i once had a female entity call out my nickname in whispers and tickle my armpit.