Paranormal Activity or Sleep Paralysis
What Do You Think?
It happened frequently for a while.
One morning, it happened again, but something was different this time. In the corner of my room was a round bright light, so bright that I thought it must be the sun. Somehow, I was able to turn my head and look out the window and was surprised to find it was still the wee hours of predawn. Yet, here in my room was the brightest light I had ever seen. I laid there and closed my eyes to prevent the light from blinding me. I was unable to move, until suddenly, by once again wiggling a toe, I regained control of my body and was able to get up. The light was mysteriously gone.
I was more than a little surprised by the experience and wondered if this was a paranormal experience.
With a little research, I discovered none of this should be surprising. It does, after all, fit the classic symptoms of sleep paralysis. In fact, once I read about sleep paralysis, I accepted it as part and parcel of my experience and discounted any paranormal connections; but lately I have given it some thought.
What strikes me odd now is that episodes of sleep paralysis only happened during that period in my life, basically over a two year period, and it only occurred when I slept in that room. What strikes me as even odder is that my friend who lived down the hall was experiencing episodes of sleep paralysis during that same time period.
To my knowledge, she did not experience the light or any other unusual sights or sounds, that are often associated with sleep paralysis, but she did find herself awaking without being able to move. Her episodes were so intense that she began to stay up all night and only slept when dawn arrived or in the afternoon hours. I can still see her, shaken and frightened, as she ran down the hall to my room and sat in the chair with her blanket wrapped snugly around her, simply stating she couldn't't move again.
Many professionals in the field of psychology attribute sleep paralysis to claims of paranormal experiences from alien abductions to ghosts. According to MedicineNet, there is nothing paranormal about sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is nothing more than your body and mind getting out of sync upon awakening. The body, which normally experiences paralysis to prevent us from acting out our dreams during our sleep, simply does not return to the normal state upon waking. This state is considered an altered state where you neither awake or asleep. Lucid dreams can be part of that phenomenon and are often interpreted by the dreamer as some sort of paranormal activity.
The symptoms of sleep paralysis include "sensations of noises, smells, levitation, paralysis, terror, and images of frightening intruders."(MedicineNet) Although sleep paralysis was once thought to be a rare occurrence, professionals believe that nearly 50% of people will experience it in their life time.
As I think back to the time when my friend and I both experienced these unusual occurrences of sleep paralysis, I wonder if it were indeed mere coincidence that we both had similar experiences during the same time frame or if there was something else involved. Did we have overactive imaginations that fed off each other's experiences or was there some paranormal cause for our similar experiences?
Maybe it was merely a case of two young girls experiencing sleep paralysis in the same time and place, who were frightened by a perfectly normal occurrence.
Why then did it only happen for that brief period in our lives, at approximately the same time, in the same place?
How can we be so sure that the sleep paralysis causes us to have lucid dreams that are often interpreted as paranormal experiences and not that a ghosts or other paranormal experience causes us to experience what professionals term sleep paralysis?
Now, it's up to you. What do you think? Is it a Paranormal Experience or is it Sleep Paralysis?
Please leave your opinion in the comment section. As always, if you have an article about similar content, please post a link for others to read and thanks for sharing your opinion.
Published by Nannette Richford - Featured Contributor in Lifestyle
Nannette Richford is an avid gardener, teacher and nature enthusiast with 4 years experience in online writing and a lifetime of personal journals. As an award winning writer for Demand Studios, Richford has... View profile
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109 Comments
Post a Commentokay, okay. Some of you are really starting to aggrivate me. Those of you who have not experienced it need to shut your mouth. TO THOSE THAT HAVE.....
First, allow me to introduce this by stating that have been having demonic dreams since I was four. I have been experiencing this "phenominom" since I was 16. I am now appraoching 24. The dreams have not stopped and they are different from the ones I had when I was younger yet there is still a similiar entity.
Like several of you, I have been terrified to sleep. I have laid in bed balled my eyes out in anger, frustration, and terror because of these dreams. They have happened in 7 different places I have lived in, including my own homes, boyfriends, friends and my Mom's. Oddly enough, the only place they never occurred (in my adult life) was at a boyfriends apartment, whom used to abuse me mentally, physically, and emotionally. There were strange things that happened in that apartment as well...things turning on by t
this happens to me at least 2 times a week its been happening for a year now and im not sure if its paranoramal or not but ive seen some freaky stuff ive felt something pressing my chest and my arms and it still happens to me when it doesnt happend its when im passout drunk
Sounds similar to what happened to me. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5659466/my_experience_with_sleep_paralysis.html?cat=5#true
Thanks for sharing!
sorry people to burst your bubble but i av experinced sleep paralysis a few times i tried to come up with logic solutions put it down to smoking canabis or even drinking until the night of wednesday 28th october 2010 i was awake when it came for me it tried to tell me that it was a meanead but i knew different it pinned me to my bed by my arms wanting to feed from my soul i am so scared that this thing is going to kill me i av had previous experience with it but never as violent. i av never actually spoken to it as i did last night i begged it to leave me alone. it didnt. not for a solid hour. it woke me at 4:22 a.m and didnt leave until 5:22 a,m the only reason i knew i was not alone beside the fact that i was wide awake was the fact that i could smell it, sense it and saw it, it used my own mind to tell me that it would never stop until it took me that i could not fight it forever. i clawed at its face while my boyfriend slept beside me eyes wide open while it tried to take me. i tol
I'm sure it's sleep paralysis, I've had it happen to me quite a few times actually, although it usually happens when I try to fall a sleep and not when I wake up. It starts of with an uncomfortable buzzing sensation in my limbs which numbs the entire body, if do my best and struggle real hard I can snap out of it, usually I just let go though (sometimes I just get too frightend) and that's when the lucid dreams come. Usually a very pleasant experience since I know I'm about to lucid dream (which is amazing!)
I live with sleep paralysis since i'm about 3 years old. I also had lucid dreams when I was 3 to maybe 20 years old. Most of it stopped after seinga doctor and getting anti-depressor. Now I do it only while sleeping with lights on. I don't see anything scary because I'm not scared by it, I even find it enjoyable. Nothing paranormal
You guys are too anxious, you create these images yourself because your scared about being paralysed. The proof is girls dream about being rape in sleep paralysis because every girls fear rape while the men don't. The heavy feeling and heart fastening are all symptoms of anxiety and you will experience sleep paralysis when you suffer from it or during the day when you can't sleep well because of the light
I've been experiencing sleep paralysis over the past year or so. Each time it is the same scenario - I am the only one home and I dozed off in my living room during the day. It hasn't happened anywhere else or at any other time although I have had some other experiences feeling the presence of "someone" at other times in my house, which was built in 1981 and is not near any graveyards or anything. It is the freakiest thing. I can feel a tremendous pressure like someone is pushing down on me and I struggle to talk and move but can't for at least several seconds. I have never actually seen anything, it's just feeling a physical presence. I have only told one friend about this and she suggested I use something called a smudge stick to ward off spirits, which I'm planning to try. I guess it can't hurt.
I do believe in paranormal activities, but I would not be so quick to attribute sleep paralysis to the paranormal. It appears to me that since your problem occurred shortly after you went to college for the first time, you were most likely stressed about the situation and anxious to begin. I would not write off the possibility of your friend feeling the exact same way.
I have recently been affected by sleep paralysis. It's happened twice in the past week for the first time in a while. I wake up from a nightmare to believe there is a large man hovering over my body, but that's only my brain transmitting these feelings to my body.
I experienced sleep paralysis several times in my 12 years at my first house, but I recently moved to new construction and even now I have suffered. My house was built in 2007 and only one family has lived in it but they moved out because they could no longer afford the mortgage. The house is not haunted (as far as I know) so I cannot blame the it on the paran
Ashley, your message got cut off.