It is a fairly common event with people. Your body basicly does become paralyzed when you hit REM. What seems to happen is you wake up before your brain has turned everything back on.

This disorder also can lead to other fun and down right horrific things, such as being awake yet still in a dream state. Where you know you are awake, you see your room etc, yet your brain is also adding in dreams or hallucinations. So you could wake up then see some scary ass thing walk out the door.

More info here.
http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/S_P.html

My personal one I hate about sleeping is when you stay up a long time and are really tired. You lay down and you suddenly feel like you are falling or sinking fast. It will actually cause you to jolt. I think it feels alot like you believe you are dying, or slipping out of your body. This one happens to me a great deal.

The sleep paralysis is more rare for me, but then again I am already paralyzed.

All of this matches what I am talking about.

i used to have freaky dreams like this all the time in my old apartment, i thought it was haunted.. i only have dreams like that when i sleep alone, and in this old apartment i'd be sleeping but imagine that i could hear my boyfriend coming in to visit, and then he'd come and get into bed with me, which was fine, but suddenly something in my mind would switch on and i'd realize my boyfriend couldn't really be there because i knew i was still sleeping and he was at work-- therefore whatever was in bed with me must be a demon-- then i'd start trying to push him off, but i wouldn't be able to move, and when the demon realized that i knew he was a demon, his face would start bubbling up and he'd scowl in this horrible way and being losing his anthropomorphic qualities..

Damn - this thread becomes freaky.
Listen people. Its not about bubblin deamons or horses with 5 legs walking out of the room.
It is definitely not a dream made to look like I am awake, because I dont remember any "additional" wake-up between the initial event and the moment I am in the bathroom washing my face or whatever. This is plain and simple waking up to a state where you cant move, take a deep breath, make a sound or anything else besides wanting to and looking around. You strugle to but cant untill you finally manage to.
All the theories about abduction or living in a dreamworld etc.. is as relevant as saying we all live inside the imagination of some giant with 3 eyes. Its nice to read and think about but has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

and... Iris - I was joking when I said I was at work :winkwink: it was me after all :thumbsup I was just pulling your leg

That's really bizarre! It's never happened to me, but sometimes when I wake up in the morning I'm partially blind--I open my eyes and I can only see the very, very top portion of what you'd normally see. It's really weird. I have to sit up and then it takes about 10 seconds to go away and then I'm fine.

Cassie

I have had this happen to me. You become conscience during the dream state, I think this is what they call lucid dreaming. Being able to become "awake" in your dreams and not be bound by the physical world. The freaky thing is that since you are aware of being conscience in a dream state and your body has switched off the ability to move, to protect itself, and then you try and move and can't. I have had this happen when trying to yell or run in a dream and can't but being aware of the fact that you can't move.

Yup....same here, can move eyes around and am very aware of my surroundings, just cant move rest of body. always happens when i take a nap. very wierd stuff

Not at all what we are talking about.
Lucid dream is a dream.
We are talking about being awake (atleast partially)
If anything - in lucid dream you can do whatever you want. Even fly. So thats not "our" case.

I've had this happen too.. but there was more to it... If I was on my back when it happened, I'd panic and pop myself out of it, but if I was on my stomach, I would go with it and it would be a fuzzy sensation.. almost comparable to the tv screen that's fuzzy after the programs stop airing. Then I'd drift up and fly.. now that is a neat experience..

sleep paralysis - hell yeah i had it before. fucking scary ass shit !!

but if exeperiment with this stuff - it could be really cool. like you fall asleep and then you realize that you are sleeping and you go like: damn, i'm inside a dream, i can do anything !! And you actually can - visit and talk people you know, go places you want you can fly too - i did. The sensation is amazing - it's like you knew this feeling (how to fly) all the time, like its natural !!


but theres some serious stuff about it too. Carlos Castaneda wrote 12 books about his experiences with a shaman from mexico.
The developed their "art of dreaming" and they could actually train their dream bodies to have impact on real world. Like travel thousands of miles in real time being in your dream body. weird shit.

Seems like this is much more common than I thought. Its something people just dont talk about since its a little embarrassing to talk about personal problems.

there are tonns of info about it on the net - chat boards, newsgroups, websites, research centers.

try searching for: Lucid dreaming, Sleep Paralysis, OOBE

I've had this happen to me. Only 3 or 4 times in my life.

What happens is I wake up, my eyes are open, but when I go to move my arm or something I can't. I can't move anything. I can't even move my little finger. I'm trying as hard as I can to move my arm even the slightest bit, but nothin happens. But it only lasts about 10 seconds, then I regain the ability to move. But those are some crazy 10 seconds of being completely paralized. I wonder if it lasts really long for some people? Like a few minutes or somethin like that?

How long does it last for all of you?

I think its common dream,

I had a dream like it, I wake up and cant move or call out, i try to scream and move but I cant, and then a panic, and then I regain my senses and then I decide to just wait calmly till someone finds me, and then in a instant, BOOM, I sit up in my bed, screaming, and sweating and shaking,

and then I relized , shit it was just a nightmare,

I also had another one, were the tv turns on and scares the shit out of me, and I get up and turn it off, and then BOOM I sit up, im in bed and the tv is off, again i realize its a nighmare,

you see, you people think you are awake, because the dream duplicated your rooms and seem real, but they are not real, just your mind playing tricks

they scare you and wake you up and thats why you remeber them,

if your sleep patern had finished, you would not remeber them

like we dont normaly remember common dreams,

I experienced something like the above like 5 years ago, kinda scary and I just hoped that it wouldnt happen again... it was just for less than a minute, but scary shit for sure!

but actually its positive that you cant move at all... just imagine youre thinking that its just a dream and open your window etc. :)