I dont know whethe this is the right place for this, first time posting here..

I had the worst night of my life last night, i havent slept for more than a few minutes the entire night.

I dont know who i should speak to about this so im going to here..

Last night my girlfriend feel asleep at around 11, i was wide awake in bed until just past 3. Then all of a sudeen it felt like my whole body felt this moderate pressure on it, the only way i can describe it is someone laying directly ontop of me pushing me into my bed, I couldn't move for what seemed like a minute but it was probably no more than 3-4 seconds. basically i couldnt move, couldnt breathe, couldnt talk - i was trying to say help to my gf but nothing could come out - like the kind of nightmare you would have when you were little. then after what seemed like ages i could move and was wide awake again and like panting and kinda fucking freaked out which woke my gf, and i told her what happened.

Obvious response from her - just a nightmare, i am pretty sure it wasnt just a nightmare.

I was laying on my back when that happened. i was realy really tense but rolled onto my side and tried to get to sleep like that, thinking it may of just had something to do with the way i was lying (i dont know my thoguhts were racing). it took forever to fall asleep, i was wide awake for what felt so long and also was semi trying to not fall asleep cos i was kinda freaked out still. Then after what seemed like a shitload of time, i feel asleep (i supppose) and it happened again. This time i could hear this constant vibration noise in my hear, but the same force holding me down, i couldnt move, couldnt cry out for help for a few seconds, i couldnt breathe. I looked at the clock, it was 3.09. All this had taken place in 9 minutes and it had seemed like hours in between the incidents.

By this time i was going nuts with paranoia. As soon as i "gained control back of my body - you could say" it woke my gf again, my eart was racing and so were my thoughts and I said i think it is actually a ghost or a spirit or something. i was trying to think of reasons why, this is the first time anything like this has ever happened to me, i was sleeping in my brothers room which i thought could mean something, but i lived in that room for years so idk. as all ghost story cliche's i was home alone, but with my gf - the parents and sublings on holiday.

her response to it again, although worried for me etc tried to find a more reasonable explanation - i was pretty fucking set on something paranormal going on. She said it might be that i was extremely dehydrated - i have a cold and my temperature fluctuated countless times in the night from cold to sweating a shitload. anyway she said maybe the dehydration made my muscles sieze up or something and would explain what i feel- i cant really remember what she said. i wanted to beleive her and she had work early in the morning so i said i would try to go to sleep again after mustering enough courage to get out of bed and get a drink - (LOL i know.) - by this point im feeling fine again, basically i felt like a little kid who just woke up from a nightmare and all better again, so i went back to bed adn layed there for ages, kinda reluctant to fall asleep because even though i felt better, i was still having massive hot spells and seriously did not this shit to happen to me again.

at 3.30. it happened again. laying there, though this time the force pressing me was strong, the vibrating in my ears moved to my whole body, it felt like my whole body had this numbing vibration on it, again i couldnt move, couldnt breathe, couldnt speak and by this time so fuckign freaked out, after a few seconds i could sit myself up and was like FUCK THIS dude this is fuckign real, its happened 3 times in the space of 30 minutes there is no way this is not physically happening to me, it was real and it was really happening to me.


she then started to get really worried herslef but, staying off the spirits / ghost topic, she suggested it was Night Terrors. I had heard of them before but no idea really what they are.

Im almost 20 years old, this is the first time anything like this has happened before, though i swear on my life i had seen a figure in a different room of the house a few years ago, but thats it.

i spent the rest of the night laying in bed starring at the the roof forcing myself to stay awake the rest of the night, which i did. its now morning and i kinda feel like maybe i was over reacting and it wasnt as bad as i make it out to be, but the other part of my remembers what it was like feeling powerless and not being able to breathe was one of the scariest moments of my life.

sorry about the massive wall of text :/

any thoughts / advice? thankyou

its called sleep paralysis
Sleep Paralysis: Awake But Still Asleep
Hiro Takahashi

A Sleep Paralysis is possibly a hereditary disorder in which one experiences very frightening seconds or minutes of total body paralysis with little respiration and eye movements (1). A victim in this state feels awake, but he cannot move or speak (2). In addition to the immobility, the common symptoms include feeling choked or suffocated, hearing strange noises like footsteps and voices, seeing beings or dark shadows, and feeling an existance of someone in the room (1). Although these symptoms often direct the victims to believe in ghosts, mistransmission of neural signals in the brain causes Sleep Paralysis. When a person sleeps, his brain sends signals to inhibit any muscle contraction (3). If he comes into consciousness before the brain sends signals to activate muscle contraction, he cannot move his body, and consequently, become "paralyzed"(2).

In order to understand how a body becomes paralyzed while the person is awake, it is necessary to understand sleep cycles. In a mammalian sleep, the brain activity undergoes two different states called non-REM (NREM) sleep and REM sleep, which differ very much from wakefulness (3). NREM and REM sleep alternate cyclically through the night; in human, about 80 minutes of NREM sleep starts a night of sleep, about 10 minutes of REM sleep follows, and this 90 minute cycle is repeated about 3 to 6 times during the night (3). During NREM sleep, a body produces few movement, but the body has capability of tossing about in bed and producing some other motor events, such as sleepwalking and sleeptalking (3). The cardiac-muscle contraction and breathing occur at a uniform rate, and the eyes move slowly (2). During REM sleep, on the other hand, heart rate, respiration rate, and blood pressure vary (3). The eyes move rapidly because most dreaming takes place in this period, and the sleeper probably "look" at the moving objects in a dream (2).

This post was edited by slither on Jun 6 2010 06:07pm

A nonreciprocal flaccid paralysis during REM sleep is accomplished actively by postsynaptic inhibition of motorneurons (3). Although the exact process of motor inhibition is not clear, some neurotransmitters and hormones are known to generate the many components of REM sleep. Aministering physostigmine, an inhibitor of the catabolic enzyme, increases the concentration of acetylcholine within the neurons in the pons, making it possible to artificially generate and start REM sleep in the middle of NREM sleep (3). Carbachol, the cholinergic agonist, produces a period of REM sleep in cat when directly injected into the pontine tegmentum (3). The hormone melatonin, a "master hormone" (5) that mainly controls circadian rhythms, also seems to play an important role in enhancing the REM state; the level of melatonin secretion by the pineal gland reaches its lowest during REM sleep (5). Such neurotransmitters and hormones probably activate or inhibit the activity of second messengers, which then activate or inhibit the third messengers, and so on till the last messenger inhibit the synaptic transmission or cause hyperpolarization of the motorneurons. And if, for some reason, the nervous or endocrine system continues to release the neural inhibitors, a person may experience Sleep Paralysis as he enters awakefully into or awakens directly from REM period (2).While the modern neuroscience can describe the state of Sleep Paralysis as some errors of the neural transmission in the brain during REM sleep, a person who has seen or heard ghost-like figures/voices may easily believe that eveil spirits fully controlled his entire body. However, the images or noises, which the victim believes that he has seen or heard, are most likely hallucinations; and hallucinations, too, can result from the brain activity. In the 1960's, the Canadian neurologist W. Penfield introduced that electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe can cause the auditory hallucinations in the wake state (5). The buzzing or ringing sounds in the ears and other auditory hallucinations are closely associated with the activity of the auditory cortex and involves the temporal lobe (5). During the early period of sleep paralysis, the activity of the temporal lobe increases significantly, sometimes inducing hallucinatory sense (5). Similarly, the visual cortex generates internal visual stimuli, causing the victim to "see" terrifying figures during the paralysis (5).

How an episode of Sleep Paralysis induces visual or auditory hallucinations is still not clear, but it seems to have a significant relationship with anxiety (5). For anxiety is a neurocognitive event closely related to both psychological and physical processes, the extreme anxiety or panic may cause the release of several different signal molecules that trigger all kinds of physical events (5). A person experiencing Sleep Paralysis feels mortal fear or extreme panic, and hence, the brain generates and releases internal visual or auditory stimuli, producing hallucinations.


This post was edited by slither on Jun 6 2010 06:01pm

Also, hallucinations during Sleep Paralysis may happen, for one keeps dreaming even after some parts of his brain wakes up directly from REM sleep. Since the nervous and endocrine systems continue to release the neural inhibitors which sustain the paralysis, it may be possible that those systems keep releasing the neural activators that stimulate dreaming. Thus, a person continues to "see" the images and "hear" the noises produced in the dream that he has just had in REM sleep from which he has awaken.

Understanding more neural concepts of Sleep Paralysis, some researchers now hypothesize that a very rare condition called Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome (SUNDS) may closely relate to Sleep Paralysis (1). Upon the death, a SUNDS victim produces no body movement even though he experiences a myocardial infarction and strong breathing difficulties and should straggle in agony (5). The death may be caused by the extreme muscle atonia during Sleep Paralysis, which is so severe that even the cardiac muscles and the diaghragm paralyze (5).

Until I started researching on this subject, I have believed that the total paralysis of a body is due to an evil taking absolute control over the body. However, the interactions between neurons in the brain can explain this seemingly mysterious phenomenon in a scientific way. Although the explanation is not complete yet, for there are many unclear processes about Sleep Paralysis, the current hypothesis appears to reject the possibility of ghosts on this matter. Of course, it is impossible to completely disprove the existence of "spirits", "minds", or "God" affecting one's behavior. Nevertheless, like Sleep Paralysis and SUNDS, many or the mysterious conditions and behaviors which are only explained in supernatural terms probably result from brain. i hope this helps i did a lil research for you

This post was edited by slither on Jun 6 2010 06:02pm

possibly hallucination to. i've only had one night terror that i recall and it was pretty damn vivid and seemed to last for a few minutes until i snapped out of it.

Holy shit. I fit like every category and symptom of sleep paralysis.

re: the part about the motor nuerons, my uncle is currently almost dead, he has motor nueron disease. do you think its worth seeing if he ever experienced sleep paralysis, :/ i hope this is no connection to motor neuron disease, it has got to be one of the most awful diseases in the western world.

and thanks alot, i was researching night terrors and other shit i would neer have stumbled across this, it helps alot

glad i could help someone today. i only know this because i have had this also. go see your doctor he might be able to prescribe you something. i cant remember what i was given as it was prolly 10 years ago for me. but gl to you.

ty, this is the first time i experienced it, is it wierd to get it for the first time @ 20 years old? its probably the most un stressful and happy time of my life, got a steady girlfriend, got a part time job, live with the parents, go to uni

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thank dude

Sleep paralysis, I've had this twice, it's pretty scary shit