Swims hypnagogic nightmare

[vinylmesh]

Swim edited this post because he feels he probably shouldn't have posted it in the first place.

Basically, Swim woke up with sleep paralysis and somehow managed to roll to the side and out of bed instead of sitting up. Swim walked around his house but still felt as if he was 10% asleep. For split seconds swim thought he saw things in the corner of his eye (aliens at the door ect) and was in quite a paranoid state. It was quite scary at the time, and swim was worried for the next few days.

Since the second post swim has not experienced any hypnagogia or sleep paralysis or anything like that at all.

Anyway, it made swim think if this is what having schizophrenia is like. Being 90% awake and 10% dreaming. Swim concluded that if so, living with schizophrenia must be hell.

Swim was reading about how people with schizophrenia "self medicate" with tobacco and swim could understand people taking anything needed to wake themselves up. However if schizophrenia is somehow tied in with dreaming-like states then taking a stimulant to wake up would be like turning the lights on instead of pulling across the curtains.


Experiences like this are probably normal to happen once or twice in someones lifetime and most people probably wouldn't even take any notice of it at all. Thanks to everyone who replied. It's weird what the mind is capable of without drugs. ("dream songs" are always so much better than those swim comes up with while fully awake). However, trying to have lucid dreams and dabbling in hypna/hypnogogic states might not be the best of endeavours. Swims fear is that once you begin to unlock your mind in such a way, you may find it hard to close again.

[mouthwater]

SWIM would suggest laying off the marihuana for a while. It could be contributing to paranoia and anxiety.

SWIY's description of sleep paralysis and hypnagogia sounds normal to SWIM. S/he's found the two often go hand-in-hand, disorienting hypnagogia presenting itself after paralysis, when one drifts back into the dream. SWIM remembers waking with paralysis and having his/her ceiling and room decor morph into a ship and ocean, taking him/her from not being able to move and staring at his/her ceiling to falling hundreds of feet off a ship.

Because SWIY woke up briefly and got sucked back into the dreamstate/experience, SWIM doesn't think it's particularly worrying that SWIY had those delusions: SWIY thought s/he woke from a dream but then realized s/he really just lost control over his/her mind/surroundings for a bit.

SWIM doesn't think it's strange that the terrifying images and feelings continued for a short while. Since they came at SWIY so abruptly, s/he may have become scared and paranoid until s/he had time to truly gather bearings on the circumstance. It put SWIY in a weird place, mentally.

If these episodes continue, SWIY should consult professional advice. Otherwise, SWIM thinks this experience sounds pretty consistent with generalized descriptions of paralysis nightmares and disorienting hypnagogia. (Edit: SWIM doesn't think SWIY should worry about the odd, random, and sparsely occurring paralysis/disorientation. SWIM thinks it's normal brain functioning, albeit strange. Mileage may vary on whether or not infrequent paralysis-nightmares require immediate professional attention.)

Again, lay off the dope if this experience still has SWIY shook-up.

[Desertfox]

Sounds like it could of been in endogenous DMT experience that was released from your pineal during your sleep state, but woke up still on the DMT and didn't really know what was going on. There is much literature on the subject of DMT and these strange alien exprierences. Nothing has been written(that SWIM is aware of) that connects sleep paralysis and DMT but SWIM just thinks it's a matter of time before a light bulb goes off in someone's head...


SWIM also had a fairly recent Salvia experience where he felt pinned to his bed and all attempts at movement were futile, and it felt as if malevolent beings were surrounding SWIM. Its the closest experience swim has had to what has been described as sleep paralysis.

[Synesthesiac]

Originally Posted by vinylmesh

Once again I'm sorry this story is about a sober experience. SWIM had been messing with his brain a lot in the weeks leading up to this (mostly cannabis, but more importantly, also this "legal alternative" stuff that could contain anything) , but he had been sober in the week leading up to this experience.

I blambe those legal high thingies mainly, though cannabis obviously amplified this too. As you said, no-one really knows whats in them. swim had complete de-realization for days after using one of those legal pills, it was a BZP/TFMPP based one, I think called 'Exotic' or something. Swim felt like he was dreaming, stuck in a constant weird de-ja vu state like what he was doing was more a memory than reality, and kept doing weird things for a day or two afterwards. Though there were no hallucinations, everything did look slightly different, more dreamlike than real.

Those things are nasty, swims never doing any of them again. swim also had cannabis involved in the equation, he had just quit using after years of use a few days before.

Best thing for sleep paralysis (swim has suffered from this too) is play some happy music quietly in the backgound when you sleep so when you wake up this gives you something to focus on and enable you to know for sure you are awake, without even needing to move (sad music or trippy sci-fi music can make things a hell of a lot scarier though, so choose your song wisely!). Also sleeping on your side or front seems to help.

[vinylmesh]

SWIM had hallucinations upon waking again recently (but without sleep paralysis). He woke up and the room was flashing (definitely imagined) but unlike what you might imagine as "flashing" when the room appered brighter it stayed that way for at least half a second.This lasted about 7-10 seconds. SWIM drifted back into sleep soon after.

any ideas (could this just be a coincidence)?

[Pachanoid]

SWIM has had a similar experience sober. Well, not exactly.

About a year ago, SWIM had the brilliant idea of listening to a certain brainwave synchronization program on headphones, and he experienced this sleep paralysis. There were hellish screams, "evil" laughter, a feeling of doom and danger, vultures hanging around uninvited.

This happened for about a week and SWIM was afraid of going to sleep because it would happen everytime.

There was even what SWIM would call a "Succubus" on top of me, well, you know, raping me.
It didnt FEEL bad, but it freaked SWIM out.

After a week, it just stopped. SWIM believes in Out of Body Experiences, sober or not, but he's lost quite a bit of interest in the subject after these ocurrances.

[Junkhead23]

Here is a link that may help

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

Also SWIM is a firm believer that ecstasy use can bring this on

[Wierd Logic]

Originally Posted by Junkhead23

Here is a link that may help

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

Also SWIM is a firm believer that ecstasy use can bring this on

Trying to get to sleep after a heavy night of MDMA (ab)use has given Squirrel some really fucking wierd and not entirely pleasant hallucinations, i.e. he thought the person next to him had got up and was poking around the room, that he was in random rooms sitting with various people he knew - but not necessarily close people or friends. Really weird and ghostly, he'd suddenly come round and realise none of it was true - more than a little bit disconcerting...

[seeingred]

Drugs can lead to symptoms similar to schizophrenia. Swim knows someone who did hard drugs, like bad. And then ended up totally screwed in the head. Take a break from the drugs, and maybe try to reallign and stablize yourself for awhiile.