Nightmares....

Imagine laying in bed, completely aware of everything around you. You can hear the radio you left on and can open your eyes.... but you cant move, your body is still, paralysed. Suddenly you hearnoises, strange blood curdling noises, an overwhelming sense of fear comes over you and you feel something sat with you on your bed, hear its breathing, its growling.... it begins to move up your legs and suddenly you feel the covers moving back, and its breath on your cheek, growling like some sort of demon creature, you cannot move, your stuck but you feel the fear...the nightmare that is sleep paralysis.

The photo about depicts this really well, This is what i experience, i dont tell alot of people about it as i feel that i sound like a bit of a freak! but this known phenomenom is called sleep paralysis and its a sleep disorder that is becming more and more known, when i had my first one years ago i had no idea what it was but after some research found out all about the disorder.

Basically when you fall asleep during the REM stage your body releases chemicals that paralyse you so you dont act out your dreams.... people with sleep paralysis something goes wrong and we wake up before this process is complete, we are half way between asleep and awake, aware of everything but unable to move, and then we see hallucinations and have a horrible sense of fear and intrusion! Nobody knows why, it has been said that it is to do with the paranormal and demons but others argue its just a state of hallucination with a scientific explanation behind it. Some people have even reported to experience out of body experiences! There is more information here.

They say that every person will experience this at least once in their lifetime, for me its more like 1-2 times a week which has increased recently, i was going to go see my gp but then the episodes seemed to decrease, i think because i was happier a few weeks ago and now im not as happy, its also been linked to stress and sleep patterns, and i have also found that mine is triggered sometimes by high blood sugars before i sleep but not always.

Id be interested to know of anyones experiences with this, leave comments or contact me as i find the whole thing fascinating altho still the scariest thing i have ever experienced whilst sleeping!

Scientific explanation or demons at work??