Sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming

ElKahn wrote:

stnkht wrote:It appears to me there is a link between schizotypal personality disorder and sleep paralysis, something I'm very well acquainted with. Have any of you experienced it? Or even managed to willfully induce it? I know a few have mastered it to be able to perform astral projection, but it's far beyond my own abilities.
Another thing, related, how many of you have practiced lucid dreaming?

I get sleep paralysis a lot!!! It's scary! Sometimes I even get hallucinations like voices whispering in my ears while I can't move or feeling a dark presence in my room.
Never experienced lucid dreaming but I want to learn. I've tried astral projection but I'm too scared, so it wasn't succesful.

Astral projection occurs during sleep paralysis, or depending on how you look at it sleep paralysis is the gateway to it, a hard gateway to find let alone pass through, at least in my experience. I had a few partial OBEs, never voluntarily induced. I've experienced every type of hallucination, including whispering voices, the strangest was a loud burst of them that faded and were so many in number that it was cacophonous. Tortured screaming and war sirens were a bit unnerving but cool haha. I always found it an interesting experience.

Lucid dreaming is different from astral projection and far easier to practice as you don't have to enter into the transitional state that is sleep paralysis. Some people might consider astral projection a type of lucid dreaming, others would disagree strongly. Personally I don't consider it lucid dreaming, they're qualitatively far too different. I don't believe it's leaving the body or entering another plane of existence either, but I am open to the idea and wouldn't rule it out, it's not as if we actually have any clue what reality is, dark matter could be an astral plane for all we know.

I think I had some kind of OBE once....or more than once.

Been hearing whispering voices at night lately.....cannot explain it but it feels weird.

I used to have hallucinations and distortion of external stimuli in the past....and it feels like a few things are coming back.

Cool? Idk. One whispering voice was very funny yesterday though

ElKahn wrote:I think I had some kind of OBE once....or more than once.

Been hearing whispering voices at night lately.....cannot explain it but it feels weird.

I used to have hallucinations and distortion of external stimuli in the past....and it feels like a few things are coming back.

Cool? Idk. One whispering voice was very funny yesterday though

Is this happening solely during sleep paralysis or just at night generally? I get the impression from what you say that it's the latter, there are also far more common hallucinations that occur during sleep paralysis than voices. I would recommend you see your doctor and discuss this with them given your history. As for your suspected OBEs however, these experiences may well have been just that, it's clear to me that psychosis-prone individuals have a greater inclination toward unusual sleep experiences.

There's a study in fact supporting this, full access available for free too!:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2725210/

I get sleep paralysis a lot (I was told I may be 'mild' schizoptypal by pdoc) and it is awful. I just cannot differentiate between what is really going on and what I am dreaming/dreaming whilst being awake. I often try to get myself out of it, or at least I think I do, by consciously touching my eyeball with my finger. I am not actually sure if I do this or whether this or part of the whole experience. It is just awful. I am between awake/asleep, experiencing utter terror, trapped, unable to move, unable to speak but widening my mouth as if to scream but no noise leaves my mouth.

I wouldn't wish this on anybody. I wake up truly terrified.

Sleep paralysis is sleep disorder like narcolepsy and it's caused by extreme stress.

DanielCalabrese wrote:Sleep paralysis is sleep disorder like narcolepsy and it's caused by extreme stress

really? is sleep paralysis perfectly normal?

hmm.. sleep paralysis used to happen everyday for me. it still happens occasionally at the present time though and it's really scary. also,i have really incredible pain in my head after the episode. i'm still figuring out how to prevent sleep paralysis. i've been searching how to prevent it for a long time but sadly i haven't found it yet

They say that healthier sleeping habits may improve it. But I don't believe that...

Do you have tried any antidepressants?

I think that it is of interest how different individuals describe their experiences as 'scary' or 'terrified of'...is it possible that there is another 'cause' for these experiences?

yes,i took anti depressant in the past. why? will it help with sleep paralysis?

DanielCalabrese wrote:They say that healthier sleeping habits may improve it. But I don't believe that...

i don't believe that either because my sleeping habits were fairly good (somewhat) when i used to experience it everyday...

Torrent wrote:yes,i took anti depressant in the past. why? will it help with sleep paralysis?

DanielCalabrese wrote:They say that healthier sleeping habits may improve it. But I don't believe that...

i don't believe that either because my sleeping habits were fairly good (somewhat) when i used to experience it everyday...

It is said tha antidepressants may improve some sleep disorders.