Sleep Paralysis and Lucid Dreaming

[Enigma]

I experienced weird things when dreaming. We all did at one point. By watching videos on YouTube, I got on a video explaining the science of Lucid Dreaming. After doing more and more researches, I found myself very interested in sleeping and dreaming phenomenals. Below is a list of things concerning Lucid Dreaming and Sleep Paralysis.

Lucid Dreaming

It is basically becoming aware that you're dreaming and starting acting like so. There are 5 lucid dreaming layers and I'll give a brief explication and an example for each one of them :



Layer 0 :


This layer is when you talk about or watch something including the Lucid Dreaming subject without becoming lucid.

Ex.: You dream about talking to a person about how to lucid dream.



Layer 1 :


This layer is when you become lucid while dreaming but willingly or unwillingly wake up.

Ex.: You are in a nightmare but you realise it before the scary part comes, so you wake up to escape.*



Layer 2 :


This layer is when you realise that you're dreaming, but not what it implies. The dream scenery is blurry and greyish. Sometimes, the dream will seem like a movie.

Ex.: A dream character tells you you are dreaming/you realise you are dreaming because something's wrong but you don't realise what it implies and don't care about trying to take control over it.



Layer 3 :


This layer is when you fully realise that you are dreaming and become very lucid and the dream will be very vivid and stable. However, you will not have full controll over your dream and will let it pretty much go the way it was before and it may seem like you are watching a movie.

Ex.: You become lucid but you watch the dream without having any big impact on it.



Layer 4 :


This layer is when you fully realise that you're in a dream and you can controll everything. You will be able to do whatever you want like play a game of Jet Moto with custom character and track, you just have to be creative. Everything will be vivid and you will be able to touch, sent, ear and taste.

Ex.: You realise that you're dreaming and you become fully lucid. You start flying in the air.


*When you wake up, it is possible that it leads you to Sleep Paralysis (see bellow)

Sleep Paralysis

Your body works that if you fall asleep, your body muscles will completly block themselves in order to prevent you from moving in your sleep. Sometimes, however, your brain can awaken before your muscles. It is called Sleep Paralysis. There are two types of Sleep Paralysis :



Type 1 :

Sleep Paralysis of type 1 is something every single person will experience at least once in it's life. If you are in type 1, you will be paralysed for 15 seconds to a minute while you will be aware that you can't move.


Type 2 :

This type of Sleep Paralysis can be really scary. In this state, not only is your body paralysed, but you will also hallucinate to reveal scary sounds and images! You can also feel something touching you or hurting you. With all this, you will have this INTENSE feel of fear!

Ex.: You wake up uncapable to move and see a monster on your ribs crushing it and punching you while it screams like a demon!


Did you knew about that? Have you ever experienced Sleep Paralysis or Lucid Dreaming? Leave your thoughts and stories down below!

[Enigma]

I experienced Layer 1 of Lucid Dreaming AND Type 1 Sleep Paralysis. You see, I was having a nightmare and just before the scary part of the dream happened, I was aware of it and I woke up myself by opening my eyes in real life. Opening my eyes was a pain in the ass since opening my dream eyes and my real eyes was not the same thing and plus, my eyelids were paralysed! I woke up in my bed only to find out my whole body was paralysed! I was trying SO HARD to move and stay awake that I got up in 5 seconds. After that, BOOM, I was awake and I was no more in this nightmarish state. I waited a couple of minutes before going back to sleep so I wouldn't return in my nightmare again.

[toxik87]

just for fun i let the nigtmare continue- i was laying on the couch in the afternoon with a nice dreamy sunlit feel to the room when the silhouette of an older woman wearing what seemed to me one of those amish caps the women wear, started to try to peek inside my home from outside even though the curtains had been fully closed- she kept trying to see inside... meanwhile i just layed there annoyed wanting her to move on but she kept at it and i even yelled for her to move it along it was then that her arms made the motion that she was coming in defying the reality that there was a window blocking her,at that point i threw the pillow i had been laying on at the window directly at her just as she was seeping in... then a strong white light emitted from the edges of the door next to the large window she had tried to come in by and then like a movie everything faded to black while i was totally aware of what was going on, i just layed on the couch for like a second or two in complete darkness and then suddenly all i could see was a large screen like a television having replaced the location of where the large window had been, on the screen was an image of a what seemed like an angry old lady and that was the end... i wanted it to continue but that was it, i hate it when you become aware that your in a dream and suddenly there's like a set timelimit as soon as you realize it because then you wake up. yeah i had the second type of paralysis it was terrible yeah i fought non-stop so that i could move and it felt like someone was on me while i layed on my stomach, i was hearing these really wierd grunts and then i just woke up for real

[Enigma]

Ok. I never experienced the second type of paralysis nor a layer 4 lucid dream, wich is sad! The whole "old lady" just made my day! ^^ (I'm going to sleep in a couple of minutes so I hope I'll not dream of it D:) Your nightmare ressembles to mines, basically something going all weird and then a jumpscare appears resulting in me being scared and waking up. My experience of Sleep Paralysis was just feeling very heavy and tired. It's funny how I already had a Sleep Paralysis without hallucinations but also just plain hallucinations both after waking up from a nightmare! XD

[Deleted]

Layer 4, depending on certain factors. I have developed a way to wake myself up though. Either I look at my hands in a dream or splash my face with water. Sometimes I do have Layer 3 style dreaming.

It's something that takes practice, the only issue is you don't always hit the perfect state of REM to always have a dream. I've had experience in experimenting in my head through meditation and dreaming. I did it mostly in my teens and it's part of the reason why I can explain or create something and know every little detail of it. The interesting thing is if you do it too much you can loose touch with reality and you'll start seeing things while you are awake. Not like psycho status or anything, but you could see what you want in your head while being awake and conscious and doing other task.

As for sleep Paralysis, I experience everyone in awhile. It's either I wake up and I don't really wake up, but I can't move, or in some cases where Half or most of my body is paralyzed and I somehow will myself awake. It usually causes a state of panic at first but after experiencing it so much in my life I usually realize soon after whats happening and enter a state of "When the hell is this gonna end." Thing about sleep paralysis is you won't always remember it.

It can be a double edge sword though, the mind is a complex thing and sometimes I wish I hadn't gone so far into it for reasons I don't really care to explain, for the sake of not sounding like a psycho.

[Enigma]

As for this, I experienced Layer 4 of Lucid Dreaming, one time... I experienced Layer 1, Layer 2 and Layer 4. The Layer 1 was me having a nightmare and waking up. I had multiple Layer 2 experiences :


- Once, I was watching a story of a little bird going to die from being too small, I could become on Layer 4 but the story was too good! The dream was greyish and foggish.

- Once, I was jumping on the top of houses and I fell off. I hit the floor but it didn't hurt. I became aware that I was in a dream, so I was lucid enough to start jumping really high and jumping from top to top like a DBZ character. The dream was greyish and foggish.


My only Layer 3 dream :

- I was on a boat with a guy my age (about 10-12 years old) and we were having alot of fun by exploring the gigantic boat. I was aware of everything and I was doing what I want. Then, suddently, I knewm I had to wake up. I told him and we were both sad because we both knew it was a dream and to wake up, I had to fly off the boat and disappear in the sea. The dream was colourfull and very awesome, I never had a good time like this in my whole life. Strangely, the other person looked so real and had a personnality so unique he looked and acted like he was in my dream but was a real person... The power of the brain is so powerfull!

[OskyCMK]

Back in 2007 or so I tried to do lucid dreaming. I was doing the whole dream journal and reality checks stuff. I managed to do it briefly once. I gave up after a while. But I had some great dreams during that time.

[Enigma]

Feb 18, 2014 14:23:46 GMT -5 OskyCMK said:

Back in 2007 or so I tried to do lucid dreaming. I was doing the whole dream journal and reality checks stuff. I managed to do it briefly once. I gave up after a while. But I had some great dreams during that time.

That's cool dude! I didn't try the dream journal yet because my dreams are more and more remembered each night, but if my dream recall dosen't get higher, I'll try it. If you already got a good dream recall, try doing FILD (finger induced lucid dreaming) where you have to wake up during the night and move your fingers, here's a link of a video if you wanna try : www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-vnfG9Byik

[Enigma]

That night, I woke up! I tried to do the FILD technique (Finger Induced Lucid Dreaming) and I then performed a reality check. I pinched my nose and I was still able to breath through it! I opened my eyes, and I was in my bed, everything was IDENTICAL to what it is in real life. I was confused, so I turned my head around and redone the test... I was still able to breath through my nose! I didn't understand so I thought it was normal and I fell into another dream. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! I was at freaking Layer 4 and I lost it! And I know it WAS a dream because when I think about it, it's hard! It's all foggy in my mind...

[Deleted]

There are times when you are actually awake, but your brain isn't completely. In this state you can do basic things and even reply without any knowledge, but a slightly fuzzy memory.

It's not quite the same as sleep walking but I've had it happen before.

That's also a reason dreaming can cause a confusion with reality.

[Enigma]

Ok, but this time I experienced false awakening. It's a common thing when you try to WILD (FILD is a type of WILD).

[Deleted]

I was just discussing different experiences.

[Enigma]

Feb 22, 2014 0:46:36 GMT -5 Adonael said:

I was just discussing different experiences.

Yeah, I know, and it happened to me, sometimes, I wake up at night but I don't fully remember what it looked like and it is weird. Like sometimes I get scary hallucinations after waking up from a nightmare but I just have to look a source of light to stop them. Although I am awake since the time remains the same when I check and recheck.

[Enigma]

I had a lucid dream last night... But I lost it, again, but this time, it was on purpose. It was Layer 2-3, and my dream was really weird... Here it is :

So I was at Amos (a city near where I live) but everything was changed, it was a mix of Val d'Or (another near city) and other cities I don't know. So I was at a courthouse with a friend (I don't know him in real life) and I was acused of some crime I didn't do. The room I was in was huge and it was made of a couple of walls going to the inside with doors. We were alot of people and the goal of this, said a random manager guy, was to kill each other and the last man standing would be granted a couple hundreds dollars. I was running around so nobody would see me and they continued fighting. After a while we were told to go to an inside wall and continue fighting, as the room got smaller and smaller, we were less. At the end, only me and my friend were last standing. We had to go in the center to go battle... A FREAKING LION!!! We had to fight a lion without any weapon! I asked "The last man standing will be free?" I got responded "No, we will give him money, but he will die, this money will then go to his family, we lied." so my friend entered the room with the lion. It was not moving... But it was looking at me! It wanted to kill me so he was waiting for me to enter the room. I didn't want to die eaten by a lion! I said quietly to my friend : "I will count to three, and at three, we run like hell to the door and get out of there!" he said ok. I did that and we escaped. We were going to escape but the next door was leading to a church (yeah, because obviously it was logic... -_-) and there was alot of people singing in there. We didn't want to alert everyone so we hid in a bathroom and locked the door. [No memories] After a while, we got out and we escaped! We got to a forest behind the place. It was still snowy because it was spring. [No memories] Somehow, I felt I was going to wake up so I entered Layer 2-3 of Lucid Dreaming. Because of that, I knew I was dreaming so I wanted to go back in the place to see who was the leader of all this, because death sentence is illegal here in Québec and I did nothing wrong. I let the dream go as it would be and watched it! I got into the building and I saw... The assistant director of my school Dany Pomerleau! He told me "What are you doing!? You should be in the room with everyone else!" I said "No, I won't go die in there, I did nothing and you don't have the rights to kill me!" "Go in there now!" [No memories] And that was it! I don't remember any other things of my dream. It was really weird and interesting.

[Enigma]

I... Just... Got... The most... Intense... Sleep Paralysis... EVER!! So, I went on my couch and layed on my side and relax. I've read on a Lucid Dreaming forum that a guy was able to trigger Sleep Paralysis AT WILL. All he had to do was look up very much and it would make him dizzy and he would enter SP. So I told myself : Why the hell not try that? I was really tired since I didn't get much sleep last night, so I closed my eyes, looked up and started getting the dizzy feeling. I then opened my eyes and everything was normal and I only felt a bit dizzy for a couple of seconds. I repeated a couple of times but the last one, oh dear god! I was more tired than before and as soon as my eyes hit the top of their sockets... BAM!!! FREAKING TYPE 2 SLEEP PARALYSIS!!! Demons pictures switching from one to the other, a strange sick feeling in my chest and head and a demonic, deep, scary and very loud scream! They started flashing very quickly from one to the other, so I tried to move but didn't even feel my limbs or anything! I opened the corner of my left eye with all of my might (it was very difficult) to see if I could get hallucinations and got about 2-3 mm of view but... I only saw my room normally and snapped out of my SP immediately. My first reflex was to do a reality check because even though it seemed so real, I already got tricked into thinking it was real, but I was really awake... This was my first EVER Type 2 SP... All I can say is WTF! People say hallucinations will only be what you think they will be... I imagined that it would be just being paralyzed and I knew nothing was there and convinced myself that it wouldn't happen but it did anyways... BTW.: I don't recall the dream I wrote up there...

I've just read that if i didn't focus on these hallucinations I would've entered a Lucid Dream...