Hello! I'm new here and I have a question.

Well, my friend told me about this and it seems really cool and I wanna try it but there’s only one problem…I’m scared of that Old Hag syndrome…You know, when a scary person comes to you and you can’t move…I’m really scared by things like that, and I’d probably panic if that happened…So my question is, is it really that scary? And does it happen often? Does it happen to everyone or just to some people? Thanks for the answers…

hi

i’m new here too, so i don’t know if it happens to everybody! but who cares, if you panic you will wake up anyway!

Dont worry, thats nothing to be afraid of. In fact, it’ll probably only manifest itself as something scary if you think it will.
Thats called sleep paralysis, its like your mind wakes up but your body doesn’t. Its nothing to be afraid of, in fact, you can use it to have a lucid dream. Your body is already asleep, all you have to do is relax your mind and you can drift right into a lucid dream.
As far as it happening to other people, I dunno about its frequency, I suppose its different for everyone, but its only happened to me once, and it wasn’t any old hag, it was a hallucination of brightly coloured lines, all different shades of blue, which looked like they were scratch animated. I couldn’t move, and was bairly aware of anything anyway, so I just watched and saw what shapes they made. It was cool cause my eyes were still open, so I saw the images againsts my ceiling. It was really awesome, in fact, I think it would be cool if it happened on a regular basis!

I never realised that it was a type of lucid dream, but my friend mentioned to me a while ago that she has had the same experience many times. She said her body felt paralysed, yet her mind was as awake as ever. She could see, think and feel just as she usually does, but she couldn’t move a single muscle in her body, apart from her eyes.

Everyone else was mystified, as no one had had the same experience. She put it down to her chronic fatigue syndrome.

Just few thoughts:)

First of all “Old Hag Syndrome” is a folk name for phisiological phenomena called SP=sleep paralisis.This thing happens to everyone everynight.Its when brain cuts whole electric activity in our muscles to prevent us from moving or running while we dream about it.Its an evolutionary thingo- in the past it also made our ancestors safer when they were sleeping on narrow rock shelves or tree branches.

  As i said everyone has it but not everyone can feel it.We usually fall asleep before it happens.Trying counciously enter the dream(like during Wilds) eventually ends in more and more cases of noticing this feature.

Because sometimes it feels weird,strong and unusuall people without understanding the case started building whole Old Hag Syndrome about it(same thing like thunders became the amunition of gods:)
Once you know what is it and why is it it stops being scary for you,and more occasions to feel it the less biggie it becomes.
But Josh is very right there- if you think about it s scary it proably manifest itself as you expect it to be.Remember-Old Hag Syndrome is only one side-theres heaps of reports about people who enjoy it a lot.I.e me…i love the feeling,i like when thick electricity goes up and down through me…makeing me feel…hmm…kind of mighty.Its a pleasant feeling also because it usually brings lds or obes with it:)

So dont be afraid of something-you are on dreaming forum,between dreamers and when you lie down to sleep you will DREAM.Your life is safe,your cash too:)Just get the fun out of it!:slight_smile: