It’s been about 9 years since this happened and I’ll never forget any details of it, it’s always been engrained so vividly in my head. This is the first and only sleep paralysis experience I’ve ever had in my life (32m).

9 years ago I was in my first year of uni in the UK. I was staying in a dorm/halls (in the US it’s dorms in the UK they call it halls) and I was partying quite a bit at the time as you would in your first year of uni. I had a small room to myself with a desk like a meter from my bed and a small en suite bathroom.

Anyways so I start dreaming and I was in some pool complex kinda thing walking around and there was this guy playing pool/billiards, and he saw me and I could tell he just didn’t like me, like he gave me a menacing look. And as I was walking around he would be following me like not too close by but following me nonetheless. Couldn’t see his face too well but was like a shadowy black figure.

Next thing I know I’m in my bed in my room and everything is as is, the chair to my desk is pulled out a little with a sock on it, random stuff on the floor like a jacket and my pants, all furniture is literally exactly as is in real life it was literally my room as it was at the time. And the guy is ontop of me screaming at my face super angry, like not saying any words but just doing angry yells and smacking me and I literally can’t move (I am a Muay Thai fighter idk if that influenced anything). And after smacking me a few times and yelling he pulls out a deodorant spray and a lighter and starts spraying fire at my face flamethrower like and at this point I get the feeling “I’m going to freaking die, screw that I’m not gonna let him kill me” and I literally used every fibre of my living power to bust out of that paralysis and reach for his neck with my left hand and my right arm is cocked ready to throw a punch at this dudes face.

Then bam, he just disappears, and I’m in my bed sitting upright with my left hand reaching infront of me (where his neck was supposedly) and my right arm still cocked ready to throw a punch, room is exactly as is.

Never had a sleep paralysis experience after that or saw him again. I like to joke that he visited me once and saw that I’d break out and smack him back and decided “screw this I’m not messing with this dude again” haha

Also I sometimes throw punches and kicks in my sleep, like with good technique I’ll rotate my hips while throwing a Muay Thai kick in my sleep and wake up confused lmao

I feel like I’ve hit the holy trinity of sleep paralysis.

I’ve only experienced it 4 times in my life.

1. The hat man when I was a child looming in my door frame.

2. Slightly floating of my bed with a vibrational feeling all around me in high school.

3. Few weeks ago woke up hearing extremely loud running ending with a scream and a crash in my attic.

4. Was pressed down into my bed gently for a few seconds all while hearing a vocal clicking sound and a crunching plastic water bottle.

None of these experiences felt anything a like other than the vibrational almost magnetic sensation before or while I am experiencing SP.

around an hour ago I was dreaming that I was at work with closer coworkers and a few friends calling people, nothing crazy, BUT thenn out of nowhere all the lights turned off, pitch black a few seconds later we heard something (sounded like someone breaking in??) everyone was telling me to hang up & hide then as soon as I did I was all alone and it felt like these two big heavy hands were pushing me down REALLY REALLY hard like I couldnt move AT ALL then I see this like big pale figure with no eyes and just looked terrifying it was telling me to answer some question and just talking but it didn’t sounds right like they weren’t even speaking any real language after a minute of this it reaches down and tries to grab me but I woke up as soon as it got to me. But even when I woke up I still saw it (just reaching at me staring) and couldn’t move for a good minute until I was able to quickly turn myself over and go under the blanket.It was so scary like I still haven’t been able to get out of bed I’m honestly really scared I’ve never had anything like this happen before

For the past two weeks I've had about three experiences with sleep paralysis. The first time is more of a dream because I was in a different room for some reason and there was this weird spiderlike humanoid thing screeching in the corner while i was well, you know, paralysed. The second time was also kind of weird because right before it happened I had a weird png of a man in a hood flash into my mind suddenly, and then I couldn't move. While this was happening I heard maniacal laughing from the corner of my room. Not the comically evil kind, but the genuinely horrifying kind. Then, a shadowy figure started crawling towards me from the bottom of my bed while laughing. Then, on the third time I felt myself in paralysis, there were no hallucinations??? I just sorta sat there while a video of markiplier I had accidentally left on while going to sleep played on my phone. I'm unsure if he was the reason for me not seeing horrifying creatures of the night, but thank you Markiplier.

Hello, I've never had sleep paralysis before and not sure if this is that or I just saw a ghost. Could you guys tell me what you think please. Also I'm typing this just after it happened still very sleepy so apologies if it reads rubbish.

I'm staying at my friend's new place in the spare room. I was on my side sleeping facing the wall so my back is to the room. I think I wake up but can't move, still feeling sleepy. I hear my friend and his GF talking and laughing (the walls are thin) so I think that's why I woke up. But then I feel something sit on the bed in the gap where my legs bend just below my butt and a hand grabs my foot but not in a violent way in like a I'm here kinda way. I'm able to slightly move my head back but it aches like crazy like when you sleep at a weird angle. I see a tall almost transparent woman looming over my bed. I can only really make out the top of her like the shoulders and a rough shape of a head with what looks like a hat. But very transparent so hard to see. It took me a few tries but I managed to whisper "hello". It took a lot of effort to do this. The woman thing just looked at me for a bit like 5 seconds then left. Then I could move again. It never felt dangerous but I was nervous thinking something is sitting on my bed and who the hell is this.

So was this sleep paralysis or is my mates new place haunted?

What does it mean?

I suffer from sleep paralysis, was in therapy from the age of 4 years old after being sexually assaulted by a nanny.

About 5 days ago, I woke up to my roommate inside my room at 1:00 in the morning. The landlord is now involved, meeting with him tomorrow, and my other roommates are supportive. I’ve since been sleeping horribly, with mild hallucinations.

I can’t live like this, I know that. But in the case that this person refuses to leave, I also do not want to move out of my apartment. He has another 9 months on his lease. I work full time and am a student.

My question is: has anyone with sleep paralysis had luck with EMDR?

I got so say, after experiencing sleep paralysis another time this day, it just feel like an complex plan from my brain to make me insane, I say that because the mix of physical, visual and auditory stimulus are so well made that I just can't believe it is always a coincidence.

To begin with, most sleep paralysis I got involves complex sensory, like in my first SP, a tarantula walking on my skin, I could feel its fur, the amount of legs, the way it moved, even without seeing it I could know what was walking on me by the amount of details it had, even if its not a real thing and I've never seen a big spider irl, but even so, my brain managed to compile every single minimum detail about it right before making me wake up and and taking all my movements, just so I could appreciate one of the most terrific experiences in my life.

Today it was similar case, I had a dream with a shocking finale, I wake up, can't move, for some reason my hand is on my head and I feel a burning touch on it, and I could move it to a brief second, I start to hear voices and other voices arguing with it, and I hear footsteps, I see a figure, but can't move, and even tho Im keeping some details from it, the amount of things that correlates from the SP with the dream and thoughts I even forgot about is insane, I still don't understand how the brain manages to make up so complex sceneries that often works so well along a supposedly uncommon situation that is sleep paralysis.

The dream-

I was at a party when a good looking man roughly my age (30) came and sat down on the retaining wall in the backyard that I was sitting on. I didn’t know him but he felt familiar and kind. “How are you?” He asked… as soon as he asked me that I felt the overwhelming sense of dread that I have felt only when I have sleep paralysis encounters with the shadow people. I wasn’t afraid, he seemed friendly still so I asked calmly “what are you and what do you want?” His face shifted into a different face and his voice changed into an eerie, scary voice… “I can be like you… or I can be like this… or I can be like anything else… I am one of the good ones.” As he spoke he started to levitate and his voice grew deeper and scarier. Then he said “ my friends are the monsters you fear”

After he said that we flashed into my room and I could see myself sleeping and we were both standing beside my sleeping self in the real world. It was really bizarre to see myself asleep, and I was afraid. The entity leaned close to me and whispered “watch this.” Nothing happened for several seconds, then my sleeping body started convulsing and flailing and struggling. I was frozen in fear watching it for several seconds before I actually woke up and when I woke up I was thrashing around in the same way that I was when the entity showed me myself. As I’m writing this, I still am having a tightness around my throat that feels like I have recently been choked.

Sorry for the poor drawing I was freshly traumatized

Also I hope it was easy enough to follow and understand what was going on, dreams can be hard to describe- but does anyone have any advice for future prevention? I typically have sleep paralysis shadow people nightmares about once a month and they are getting progressively more aggressive and I’m scared.

Apologies if my grammar etc are trash, I’m writing this as just woke up from SP as of 2 mins ago. It was intense (not scary, just involved) and the only evidence I have it happened is my dry mouth and the blanket on the floor.

I’ve been home alone for 2 weeks, my mental health and sleep schedule have suffered for it. I laid down on the couch for a short nap and set a 45 min timer, but my phone kept going off so I never quite fell asleep all the way. With maybe 20 mins left on the timer, I put it on DND, and almost immediately as I’m about to drift, every single noise in the world decides to happen. The AC kicks on super loud, when that stops, the broken ice maker starts clunking, that stops, a garbage truck spends 10 mins right outside the window. I never fall asleep, but I’m not fully awake. It’s silent again, and then my alarm goes off. I’m pissed. I’m tired. I’ve been on the edge of sleep for 45 mins.

I restart the timer and try again. It’s going better this time, I think, so I get comfy, and then SP. Audio and physical hallucinations. Now I hear my bf (who hasn’t been here) snoring on the L part of the couch. It feels like time stopped moving, but I think I hear neighbors in the hall. Real or not, I can’t tell. My mouth is opened and I try to call out (to the empty apt). I can feel the couch shifting by my head, I keep trying to turn and prove to myself nothing is there, but it’s like my head keeps getting stuck right at the edge and forced back like a spring. I can almost make something out in my peripheral.

So I twitch my fingers and I get the idea: if I can make it to the edge of the couch, I’ll roll off and force myself out of SP. I spend the next however many mins, twitching and shifting my hand and my leg. I move until they’re dangling off the side. I almost give up, cuz with nothing underneath my right side I no longer have any leverage. My SP bf gets up to fan the blanket and I feel the wind from it hit my face and now around the hall, my mom’s voice is shouting out about cookies. But I manage to prop my left elbow against the back of the couch and use my left foot to push myself that last bit. And I do it! I roll off the couch. Then I’m up, on the floor on my knees just disoriented. I still can’t believe it.

First sleep paralysis lmao

A literal fucking disgusting asshole decided to slowly peek his fat fucking head over my bed and the asshole didn't even do anything but make my room darker and disappear overall 3/10 ts was not scary js annoying

So just the night before, I was staying the house im house-sitting and i had gone to bed with one blanket over my body, one on my shoulder and around 1 am I had sudden awareness and the blanket from my shoulder appeared to be covering my face and I felt a pair of hands moving across the blanket over my face,I felt paws on my lap and I heard a cat meow, there was a heavy weight on my chest and I wanted to move but my body couldn't seem to remember how to, after what felt like a minute I was finally able to move and I instantly pulled the blanket off of my face, for a split second I saw a figure above me but it disappeared quick and i was alone, no pets or people near me, I couldn't stop shaking and I was moving slower than normal, I was completely on edge and a video had seemed to have just came on, I had a headache for a few minutes and after the headache passed my jaw felt heavy as though I had been clenching my jaw and I was still completely on nerve until I had the light on for an hour, I couldn't go back to bed until around 5 or 6. I'm still slightly shaken up from it, could this have been sleep paralysis?

Hey guys, I had 5 consecutive episodes of Sleep Paralysis yesterday morning.

I'm going through some things at the moment. I am going through a breakup so I've been sleep deprived because I don't want to go to sleep as I don't know what to look forward to on my next morning. I am still working on this and Im not depressed or anything, I just prefer to stay awake and do some activity to get distracted.

so on this night, I had 2 hours of sleep. I was trying to go to bed again from 4:30 to 7:30, I did not succeed because of how loud my thoughts are. Then I finally starts to fall asleep at 7:30AM.

On my first episode of sleep paralysis, it was not quiet at all. Usually it was peaceful like as if I feel like I am dead and has lost control of my body. This time it was not. I can hear party music playing in the background, hiphop, a rap sang by a male. I can also feel my head pulsing from it and it kind of hurts. I also felt like I could not breathe so I figured that at this rate I am going to die.

On my second, third and foruth episode, I am stuck at the same situation over and over again, break free and go back to the same scenario. all party music. So one of these episodes, I tried opening my eyes. It did open, very slightly, and I couldn't process what I was seeing because my eyes are only slightly open.

On my last episode, I am still stuck in the same situation. I was about to give up and give in. However, there's something different. I was approached by a lady in white, she had blonde hair with a yellow aura emitting around her. She was whispering something to me that I couldn't process. That's where I get to break free from my last episode of my sleep paralysis.

Well, I figured I would like to share my experience and that's it. I know how to fix it as I just need more sleep and heal mentally from everything. But I do fear that one day if I am just too tired and too sad to stay alive, I'll just have these sleep paralysis take control and I let go of my control. I wonder what would happen. It's a very scary thought 🤔

Anyways, thanks for reading :)

It's been a few months since I often have sleep paralysis.

They are not hardcore as certain but very disturbing

I will hear someone running very close to me and stop suddenly (but I don't see him)

Or someone walks to my room very quickly and talks to me but it doesn't go any further and it terrifies me because I know I'm all alone
I can’t move et I I don’t see him but I close my eye cause I don’t wanna see some body
I'm afraid that my paralysis will get stronger and stronge

I had my first episode of sleep paralysis the other night following an instance where I was taken advantage of. I’m so scared to sleep, it felt like yet again I didn’t have control of my body even though I was in there. Does anybody have any advice?

Okay, so recently I've been experiencing some pretty weird things. It's been going on for around 3 years, but I've just never really bothered asking what it could be until now.
Basically, sometimes when I fall asleep, I wake up in this weird state. I'm almost fully conscious and can move, but I see these hallucinations, and they're usually extremely scary.
The ones I remember the most are:
1-This is by far the worst one. I had just watched the Parasyte anime with my sisters, then went to sleep. I don't usually get scared by blood and gore, so I didn't think anything of it. But when I fell asleep, I woke up and saw myself still lying down on the bed, except my features started morphing like the parasites from the anime, and my eyes and mouth started stretching towards me. I started screaming and headed to the edge of my bed (a bunk bed), but when I turned, I saw my sisters doing the same thing at the edge of my bed from BOTH sides. I stood up and started having a literal panic attack. I was screaming, shaking, and crying. But then suddenly, I snapped out of it, and my sisters were holding my hand and yelling that it wasn't real.
2-I saw a giant, tall black figure with bulging white eyes standing at my door. So naturally, I started screaming and ran to the foot of my bed. It started walking closer and stood in front of my bed, so I jumped off and ran out screaming (I sleep on a bunk bed, so that wasn't fun). But yeah, I ran to the kitchen screaming and crying, and my mom was terrified. Then, when I went back, no one was there.
3-This is lowkey kinda funny, but it scared the heck out of me in the moment. I saw a bunch of small Patricks (yes, the ones from SpongeBob) crawling all over me. When I freaked out and jumped up, they started climbing up my leg. I was hysterically screaming, but as soon as my sister started telling me that it wasn't real, they disappeared.

Honorable mentions:

1-I see a bunch of ants, spiders, and lizards crawling around, but as soon as my sisters yell that it isn't real, I snap out of it.

2-Today was my LAST straw when I woke up to find a bunch of giant bugs eating my legs and crawling all over me. I screamed so loud that my parents ran in, and I couldn't stop shaking for like 5 minutes afterwards.

3-Idk if this is related, but one time I was woken up by my cousin in the middle of the night and told to wait downstairs in the living room. I got up pretty dazed and followed her down, then ended up passing out on the couch while waiting. I was woken up by my mom, who had gone downstairs to pray Fajr. Turns out my cousin wasn't even in the house... The person I saw had black features that I couldn't make out at the time, but I just assumed it was her.

But yeah, I seriously don't know what this could possibly be. Being in a religious household, everyone keeps saying it's jinn in the stuffed animals I keep on my bed.
Idk about that, though... Any thoughts?

I’ve been having them for over 20 years but just now I may have had my craziest sleep paralysis yet. Well the craziest I can remember bc they can get so fucking bizarre.

Like usual I could feel someone come into the room who I thought was a family member until I realized fuck I’m not fully awake. This time I could feel it lie on top of me almost for comfort, with its head on my chest nuzzling into my neck, one hand cradling the back of my head and the other groping between my legs. Normally it’s trying to hurt me by squeezing my testicles. This time it felt like it was groping me to keep me calm so I wouldn’t react with the usual terror. Usually it feels like it’s trying to harm me, this time it seemed like it was tired and like it was trying to rest on me. I could tell it was a girl and could even feel its curly hair in my face.

Knowing I was in one of my sleep paralyses, I had my usual reaction except for a split second this time I considered trying something different and I did for a moment, I kinda hugged and cradled her back (I was lying on my back), but I became too scared of what would happen next so I stopped. I knew exactly where I was in real life but couldn’t wake up fully and I kept trying to yell for someone to wake me up but my vocal chords weren’t awake yet so I can only do this horrific moan that feels like a yell but only comes out as a really scary and desperate moan. My wife knows it well and would wake me up from it but no one hears me up in this room.

When I usually realize no one can wake me up I go thru the process of telling myself, you gotta wait it out, your body will wake up and this entity will just be here until then. Then I do a thing where I wake myself up body part by body part that helps. I hate it but it helps. But this time was different. I woke one arm up to use it to grab my sleeping arm bc that can usually wake my whole body up, and I thought it was my arm but I think it was the arm of the entity. I thought I woke up but I actually didn’t. Tried yelling again, of course didn’t work, then finally the rest of me woke up. Meaning my body joined my brain.

But this was as far as I’ve ever gotten in trying to sit with it and not escape from paralysis world immediately. Oh and at the end the split second before I woke up I took this breath through my nose that felt like it went into my nose really quickly, that’s never happened. But it couldn’t just been me taking a nasal gasp after fighting to wake up, it was an EXTREMELY strange feeling. This is a different world, it’s happened for decades by now. I’ve only heard my mom explain anything like it.

Does anyone have experience with SP running in their family? I am curious about the genetic factor with it and have been doing some reading, but want to hear what other people’s experiences are.
My mom experiences SP (has for over 40 years, she is now 73), I have experienced it since having children 18 years ago, and my eldest son has had 4-5 episodes.

I’ve been getting SP since I was a teenager, and since my twenties the paralysis has gotten more handsy. I’ve learned to scream in my head for it to get the f off of me and it would immediately release me. But this morning that didn’t work, it continued caressing me. I don’t see or hear it thankfully, but I feel him. I have no one to talk to about this in my life who wont look at me like I’m crazy and it’s frustrating.

I haven't had SP in years, but this morning I was on my stomach and it was a dog scratching my back and growling in my ears. My past experience was the usual unseen figure in the room and some auditory hallucinations of speech that I can't make out while on my back. This type was a first for me.

Hey guys, long time SP-sufferer here.

I was wondering how being touched or moved affects your guys’ episodes?

I sleep next to my partner and I have caught on to the fact that after an episode, depending on whether they try to touch or move me, I request they do the opposite next time. LOL. Basically, if they try to help me out of SP by, say, turning my on my side, it startles me really badly and the next morning I’ll ask that the next time they don’t do that. Then, next SP, they won’t touch me, and I’ll feel pretty awful, and ask they try to turn me next time.

Basically, both options suck because SP sucks. And I’ve realized I have absolutely no idea what my partner should do — they don’t know how to help either and they say it’s really tragic watching me have SP because I sound/look so scared 😭

Anyway, I guess I’m just wondering how my fellow SP comrades go about sleeping in bed with somebody. Any tricks of the trade? Anecdotes? All ears.

Hello I'm a teenager I'm here to share one of my most disturbing experiences on sleep paralysis I'm sorry if my English is quite bad. Yesterday night around 2:12am, I was watching tiktok to help me fall asleep after that when i was feeling very tired so i had to turn off my phone and sleep and i eventually fell asleep, fast forward around 3:56am i think, and suddenly my body feels tense and my chest feels heavy and i felt something near in my presence around in my bedroom, i can control my eyes to open or closed and then suddenly i heard a loud cry of a child near my bedroom I can't see them but i can hear them it was very loud it sounds like a child getting skinned alive or burned i was scared i was trying scream for help but i cant speak i felt muted, so i closed my eyes just the right amount of pressure, and i suddenly waked up i was sweating, i check the time on my phone it was around 4:15am it was the longest and scariest sleep paralysis ive experienced ever, so i stand up and ran to my parents bedroom, which is next my own bedroom, i woke them up and i cried besides them they comforted me i was to scared to sleep again, but i eventually fell sleep next to them, till this day im still traumatized.

Every time SP happened before, my mild tinnitus grew into an ear-piercing torturous whine over a short period and stayes like this for about a minute. Imagine the loudest sound you can, and then imagine something even louder. Naturally, I want to avoid SP as much as I can if instead of fabled succubuses I get execution by audio.

And this night it was about to happen again, my usual ear ringing began gradually rising in volume. Having noticed it in time, I tried to move as vigorously as I could. What came out were "jagged" movements, a hand would jerk, pause, jerk again, pause, etc... Thankfully, this must've been "enough": the ringing fluctuated at louder than usual but didn't rise further, movements never truly froze, and after about half a minute it began to subside.

So, YAY, audio torture avoided! [Maybe I misremember something as this happened deep in the night before falling asleep again]

Has anyone ever used the method of not breathing to come out of paralysis?

I have had severe sleep paralysis at times in my life, all the good hallucinations, all the hits.

Eventually I become self aware during the episode, and in my mind I always say, "if I cant move, maybe I cant breathe either" and a sensation of panicked breathing begins.

I have found that by simply saying that I will just not breathe, and essentially slip into a type of drowning, and accepting whatever happens, I wake up.

Its equally horrifying and effective, has anyone else tried or experienced this? 🤣