Sleep paralysis

The one thing that is putting me off trying to learn lucid dreaming, is the chance of sleep paralysis. Call me a baby if you like, but I seen a program reconstruction of this and it scared the crap outta me…imagine what I would be like in the real situation.

So, I am a newbie, and I do need a few suggestions on these things:

  1. How to avoid SP
  2. If it happens, how to stop it
  3. How to remember dreams (always forget mine)

Any help is appreciated. :smile:

Right, I’ll try my best to answer your questions.

Some people have SP naturally, but for other people I think that it’s very rare. I’ve only had it once, and it wasn’t very strong then. So the chances are you wont get it.

I don’t think that there’s any way to avoid it, but what I’d recommend if you get it and want to get rid of it is to take a few deep breaths and relax yourself. For most people you just need to wait a short time and it will go away. Apparently if it’s strong it doesn’t work trying to force yourself to move (which worked when I had it) which will only get you panicked if it doesn’t work.

I really think though that you shouldn’t try to wake up if you get it. Anything that you will feel will be a dream (might be scary but wont hurt you). It’s a brilliant platform to get into an LD. Close your eyes and either roll to the side (and hopefully into a dream) or imagine yourself to be in a dream. You are so close to sleep it should hopefully work.

To remember your dreams the best idea is to keep a dream diary next to your bed and write everything you remember down when you wake up.

I have not hasd SP ever for and i have been lding for about 3 years. To stop there is thread way back that told us how to stop it i belive. To remember your dreams start a dream journal.

But the problem is I have no dreams to keep a journal off. When I wake up in the morning, I have no memory of any dreams.

I must have them though, my Mum is always commentating how I blabber on about gibberish in my sleep, lol.

like dreamer said i really don’t think there is away to avoid it. but there is one thing i have to disagree with.

Not true. I was had SP and i was completely awake, you think it’s bad having SP while your half asleep half awake? Try it when you’re completely awake and aware. It only lasted a second or two but hell i was so scared i nearly screamed for help.

But it’s highly possible to have SP while being awake.

Especially when you are trying to WILD :tongue:

Everyone has at least 7 dreams a night, you just have to go to sleep with the intention to remember them, pretty soon you will start remembering up to 3 a night and that is the recomended amount before you should start trying to LD. Last year before school started and i was trying this, i had started remembering 7 dreams a night (at least) and just a month before i didn’t even think i dreamed.

so yeah good luck

When I first had SP it was a bit freaky, but after I had it a few more times it became very normal to me. This was all before I knew about LDing, now that I know about LDing Ive never had SP again! I wish so much that I could get another episode of SP. Nobody seems to know how to induce SP, so Im trying to think up a way to induce it by thinking of what caused it the other times. So far the only factors Ive come up with are stress and sleep deprivation.

I had my first SP the other night, very freaky indeed! Fully awake and I swear there was someone standing beside my be looking at me! I’ve never experienced anything quite like it.

I found I could wiggle my toes a little. Soon after that i seemed to snap out of it (and quickly made a journal entry)

Thanks for your advice about remembering dreams, my first try and I remembered 2 of them. I also had one FA, which was how I remembered them. I dreamt about waking up and writing in my DD, and when I had an RL awakening, it was blank, hence I remembered my dream. One I was playing a pro-tennis match ( :eek: ) and in another the other “pro-tennis player” was a vampire biting a chunk out of my shoulder. :cry:

I just have a bit of a question(s) though:

  1. When you think you’ve remembered a dream, how do you know your mind didn’t make it up that morning? (I’m sure I had the tennis dream, not so sure about the vampire one though, it was a bit blurred)

  2. How are you meant to LD if you only remember your dreams after you’ve dreamt them?

And

I dont really think it is possible that you would spontaneously create a whole dream right when you wake up, thinking that you had it. I do think it possible though that you would put together a bunch of fragments into a dream (when such order or whatever wasnt the way you actually dreamt it). Your question is kind of delving into the technical workings of memory, which im not too familiar with (yet, LOL). However one thing, if you had an FA where you recorded dreams, those dreams could just be an FA of you recording dreams (created during the FA not before it)…i can see where that one question came from now…but hey, created in or before an FA, theyre still dreams, right? :cool:

Dont know what you mean here…are you relating this question to your first? (i kind of get the impression you are so i dont know how to respond). But one thing though, you are more likely to remember LD’s than ND’s. (dont know if theres proof behind this but it only makes sense that you would remember fully conscious events more often/fully than unconscious events that you normally dont pay attention to in waking life…of course there are exceptions which will totally hit you in the face… :tongue: - i hate those lucid fragments that come up because i think ‘oh man i actually had an LD but dont remember it fully!’ Usually, though with those, it seems like it was semi-lucid, the feelings…then again memory issues…) but anyways :tongue: , not only do you remember your dreams (or hopefully do such), but you also experience them, if that answers your question. To elaborate, i mean pick up that mouse, put it down. You both experienced doing that, and you also remember it (hopefully! unless your name is Sammy Jenkis). (though i could get into philosophy here in regards to experience/memory, i wont disturb that dusty old piece of my brain) :tongue:

hope that was insightful and not confusing

Yep, I’m getting what you’re meaning now. :wink:

Screw that anyways, I think I had an LD last night! :cool_laugh: I’m not too sure though. Its a bit complicated though, so I’ll put it in another thread.

I have another question though, is it possible to morph a lucid dream into a normal dream? Rather than waking up, and then going into sleep again I mean. As my LD (if it was one) went almost straight into an ND (after I fell flat on my arse after attempting to fly for 5 secs, lol)

Hehe, well, i dont really know how you could change an LD to an ND w/out waking up, never having myself tried it.

I would guess that you could really get into something, somehow ignore the fact you are dreaming, like maybe do something and focus only on that action.

Congratulations on getting an LD, by the way! :smile:

I think I might have seen that programme.
ags_rule, are you from the UK?
I am, and I may have seen that reconstruction on ‘Nights from Hell’
I’ve (unsuccessfully) been attempting to LD and as soon as I seen that, it scared the crap outta me. About that woman who got the Old Hag syndrome every night, and they got someone to dress up like a scary old woman and climb on top of her for the reconstruction?
shivers
It doesn’t sound scary but I have a tendency to get freaked out by weird things like that.