About Sleep Paralysis

Perception of Sleep Paralysis

What is sleep paralysis? It is a natural function that takes place in every sleep but usually is not noticed. This paralysis has a purpose – it should prevent from converting dream activity to physical movement or acoustic sounds.

The conscious perception of the sleep paralysis is rare. It often happens shortly before waking up when we are already able to think on an usual daily basis but the brain centers which coordinate the movements are still in the sleep state.

At the end of out of body experiences (OBE) it may happen that we get into the state of sleep paralysis. Then, we may need some seconds to get the control of our movements back. The more often a person has OBE the shorter the time of the pre-OBE sleep paralysis gets, until it completely disappears. Additionally, one is even able to move the physical body while being in an OBE state. This might be helpful if the OBE has to be canceled.

Anxious people commonly ask how to cancel the sleep paralysis.

While being in the sleep paralysis it is helpful to deeply breath in a few times (the breath is still controllable in this state) and breath out producing a snoring sound. The vibration of the palate has a good waking effect.

OBE-letter 6:
“I know that my spirit is awake. I can hear, smell, have sense of time, perceive my wife that lies next to me but I cannot move. I cannot control any muscle of my body. With time I learned to breath heavily to draw attention to me. My wife knows this sign and pinches me or shakes me slightly. This is how I find back to a normal wakefulness.”

OBE-letter 171:
“Ever since my childhood I have the same dream. I am chased by a black creature and cannot run away. When the creature reaches me it wants to punch me. I wake up sweating and frightened. And I scream for help! My heart beats like crazy. What does this dream mean?”

OBE-letter 42:
“I am 22 years old and live in Cologne. Originally, I am from Poland. Ever since I was 12 years old something happens to me that I cannot explain. I try to describe it as good as I can.
It happens when I am relaxed and concentrated on nothing. Often it happens when I do not even expect it. It is also not depending on the time of day. I am on the threshold of sleep but also conscious and awake. My head fills within moments with an increasingly loud noise. It sounds and feels awful. It roars in my head so that I even have to bite my teeth. I feel a big pressure in my thoughts and in my mind.
The weird but also interesting part is that I cannot release myself from this noise. I can feel my whole body even my heartbeat but I cannot move. Sometimes I try to say something or scream but it does not work. I can feel my body but it seems like my arms and legs are just switched off. I fight against it. With all my strength I try to move.
I realized that even if I feel like I have moved I “wake up” and see that I did not move at all. I see that I am still in the same position.
I call this state “inebriation” because its an delirious state for me. Additionally, I have to say that I do not take any drugs or consume similar things.
On one hand side I think it's interesting and stunning but on the other hand side it also scares me due to the fact that I still do not know what it is. This condition lasts two minutes maximum. Afterwards I wake up by myself. It happens that I fall into this state twice right after I have closed my eyes again. This means that there can be several delirious states within a half hour. Normally, I fell asleep after experiencing some of these states. Afterwards I usually sleep through the night without waking up.”

Dream with sleep paralysis (own experience):
“In the dream I lay in bed. A stranger entered the room. Apparently, it was a burglar. Slowly he came through the door and sneaked into a part of the room which I could not observe because of a paravan. I wanted to get up and leave the bed so that I could defend myself. I was paralyzed and could not move neither an arm nor another part of my body. With the help of some kind of “space sensing” I could perceive that the dark and fuzzy person came closer. I still couldn't move. I tried some ways to move my arms and my head but it didn't work. Then I tried to shout out but only some gurgling sounds left my mouth. (The next morning my wife told me I spoke some unintelligible sounds in my sleep.) Then I realized that I had my breath under my control. I tried to breath a snoring sound. It worked. I woke up with a snore.”

OBE-letter 78:
“I lie in my bed. Already I felt asleep and woke up again. I know that I am awake but cannot move. I feel a total paralysis. At the same time I have a constantly growing murmur in my head that makes me feel like my head is going to explode. I have the 100% feeling that an outside force is pulling on my main chakra and that my soul wants to leave my body there. It is like an undertow that I can barely resist. The only way to leave this state is an inner scream. I know that my partner next to me is not noticing anything. But I scream like insane and with the help of that I can kind of break out of this paralysis. But only with maximum effort. This really scares me and I barely dare to fall asleep again.”