I had a horrible nightmare...Half awake/half asleep.

[LiberalVoice]

For some reason I went to bed last night a little freaked out. I dunno why but I did. I am a very heavy sleeper but I woke up and saw a white figure in the corner of my bedroom shutting the door. I remember hearing my self screaming at the top of my lungs as it came running at me. It grabbed me and began slamming me against the bed. I thought it was trying to kill me. It was screaming something at me and I began kicking it furiously.

It turns out my brother came into my room to wake me up for work. He was wearing a white t-shirt and white shorts. He said that he didn't say a word when he came in and was suprised that I woke up just from hearing the door click softly. He said that when I began screaming her ran over to try and wake me up. I began trying to choke him and he grabbed me and was trying to wrestle me off. I was kicking him in the stomach and in the chest and left several marks on him. He told me he was yelling his name and treying to tell me not to be afraid. I felt horrible and we were both very shaken up by it.

Everyone's thoughts...

[YellowRubberDuckie]

1. Sounds like a night terror....

But our minds play tricks on us in that part of sleep. You might get a sleep book or a dream book to see what's up. Maybe a sleep analysis is in order to see if maybe you have a sleep disorder. I wish I were still in my Clinical Psych class. I'd ask my therapist professor if he had any ideas. That's really scary. I have weird sleep walking/talking things happen, but usually I'm not terrified. Thank God. Wish I could help more.
Duckie

[Wonk]

2. Thoughts? Lay off the drugs.

re: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x1392916#1392946

[LiberalVoice]

3. lol...thanks

Althought I don't use any drugs other then pot...And I doubt that could have caused it.

[madinmaryland]

5. How come the child sitting to the right

of Howard Dean on the subway has a binkie in its mouth. The child is much too old for that.

[LiberalVoice]

9. I just don't know...

but I'll "google" it. :P

[Cats Against Frist]

4. Sleep paralysis

I've never heard of an external actor actually figuring into a hypnagogic hallucination before -- but it sounds like sleep paralysis -- a condition caused by too much stimuli of the frontal lobe (usually from caffeine or reading) and then falling right off to sleep.

Your body doesn't jive -- the brain releases chemicals to still your body, but your mind isn't fully asleep or something, and you can wake up in that state -- can't move, can't breathe, hallucinations.

Of course, it almost always happens right when you fall asleep, so if you had a good night's sleep, it wouldn't happen in the morning. Unless you had already awakened shortly before, and then fell back to sleep.

Scientists think sleep paralysis is responsible for "alien abduction" claims and near-death experiences. Do a "google." It is interesting.

[LiberalVoice]

8. I think you hit it on the nose...

I had been reading for a few hours in bed and when I could barely keep my eyes open anymore I went to sleep.

I fell asleep at 3 am and my brother came into wake me up at 4:20 am.

[Dogmudgeon]

10. External actors

(Also see my previous post, which is below this one.)

In addition to having sleep paralysis, I was a sleep technologist for several years, and I had the opportunity to actually BE the external actor in several patients' REM disorders. In one case, an elderly patient freed himself from the polygraph montage and interacted with me for nearly 15 minutes as if he was a child and I was his uncle -- who died before WWII. Even his voice was different. Instead of being a well-read, articulate older man, he was a confused farm boy who had been sent to live with his aunt and uncle.

Absolutely uncanny; he was 100% into his hallucination. Rather than trying to talk him out of it, I just talked to him and acknowleged what he said. He abruptly pulled out of it and asked me why he was awake and talking to me. He preceived that he had had a dream about being a kid, and talking to his uncle -- but was sure it was a dream!

Keep in mind, this fellow had a profound REM disorder -- his brain wouldn't properly "paralyze" him during REM sleep, so he'd often act out the dream.

In real life, external intrusion in sleep paralysis does happen, especially with bed partners, but most couples just think that their partner is just babbling in sleep. The sleep paralysis syndrome usually involves the "sensed presence" of other people or even non-human beings, no matter who is or isn't there. Michael Persinger, a neuroscientist who works with magnetic stimulation of the brain, has been able to evoke this sensation in waking, normal subjects. Now that more neuroscientists have begun to replicate his work, and fMRI and PET scans have been developed, we're getting a better idea of how these weird phenomena work.

This isn't to say that we know everything that happens in the universe -- but a lot of those things that go bump in the night are the human brain. It is we who are the aliens.

--bkl

[Cats Against Frist]

15. Wow

That's a really interesting story. Several years ago, I interviewed Clete Kushida, head of the Stanford Sleep Clinic, and I was really into figuring out what the hell sleep paralysis was -- my best friend and I went through a period where we would have these episodes. Hers involved a dark figure just kind of sneaking in the door of her room, and standing near her bed.

I had several episodes -- one in which I was levitating, and about to float out of two holes in the ceiling, another where I turned over and the tan wall next to my bed was like sand and I could write my name in it, and another where I looked out the door of my bedroom, and two skeletons were standing there.

The most memorable, however, was one that I had AFTER I learned what it was, and I had read that you could control it. So, when it started happening, I just let it go, and it ended up that a bunch of multi-colored lobsters were floating around my head, singing. So I was having auditory and visual hallucinations. It was pretty cool.

I rarely get them anymore -- but another poster talked about the "aura" which is definitly present, long after. For me, particularly, it's like a pressure in my head, and a heightened sense of awareness.

If you don't know what it is, it is VERY VERY scary. I read somewhere, at one time, that certain cultures have them more than others -- like the Polynesians or something.

[SoCalDem]

17. My oldest son would carry on a conversation with us

while asleep..and he would reach out as if he were grabbing some invisible object in front of him..

Our middle son was a sleepwalker, and we would aften find him in the morning, asleep in front of the dishwasher..or in the bathtub.. (We had to eventually, put a locking gate in his doorway, because once he went outside..he was about 3 )

Our youngest, had no sleep issues..

[Dogmudgeon]

6. Sounds like Sleep Paralysis

It's a REM sleep disorder where your brain is half-awake, half in REM sleep -- during REM sleep, you have no control over your skeletal (voluntary movement) muscles -- ergo, paralysis.

Hallucinations and panic are common in sleep paralysis. It is thought that the locus ceruleus, one of the brain's "fear centers", is overstimulated at the same time as the rest of the limbic system has shut down the ability to move.

It is normal to have an episode of sleep paralysis every now and then. I had the "full blown" sleep paralysis syndrome several times a night for a couple years, but it was cured by better sleep hygeine, a well-managed course of Ritalin, and a change in employment.

The hallucinations were very realistic for me. I got the episodes where people were breaking into my apartment and stabbing me. I also had homicidal visits from men in black, gypsy girls, and alien beings. It is thought that many of the UFO abductees suffer from sleep paralysis, and their minds have tapped into UFO lore to construct the hallucinations. (However, I'm very critical of the self-appointed skeptics who go around ridiculing them.)

These days, the most I get is a buzzing feeling when I'm falling asleep, and I occasionally hear a phantom banging noise -- without panic. But certainly, if sleep paralysis attacks become more frequent, see your doctor about it. It's pretty easy to treat for most people who have it.

--bkl

[AlecBGreen]

7. I beat my brother up in my sleep too

I was 8 or so and he was 11. We were sharing a bed b/c my aunt was in town. I dreamed that he owed me money so I rolled over, shook him and I mumbled "give me my money." He rolled over to face me and barely came awake and said "wha...?" He wasnt really even awake. I said "GIVE ME MY MONEY!" and I punched him in the face. Right in the shnozz! Well that woke his ass up REAL quick and he started crying and his nose was bleeding everywhere. All this ruckus wakes me up and Im like "what? whats going on?" and he yells "YOU HIT ME!!" If he knew cuss words at that age Im sure he used every one. I had no idea what happened yet I can still remember it to this day. Serves him right too. He really did owe me money...:evilgrin:

[LiberalVoice]

11. Serves him right!!!

He should have been thankful you weren't a bookie(sp?)!

[NorthernSpy]

12. hypnopompic hallucinations

I've had them too. Most people who hallucinate while in the process of waking seem to experience temporary paralysis at the time, but others don't. I remember leaping out of bed when I realized that this strange, pale being was lying next to me. I stood beside the bed for several seconds while it stuck its tongue out at me; the tongue grew and grew, and snaked toward me -- and the whole vision slowly melted away into the air.

The experience strongly colored my mood for the rest of the day. Things like that leave a kind of 'aura' -- a sense of fear, unease, and extreme weirdness that can last for hours. That feeling usually disappears after a nap, just as migraines (and the aura that surrounds them) frequently resolve after a period of sound sleep.

Have been undersleeping at all recently? Do you tend to wake up too early? I ask, because the more exhausted and sleep-starved you are, the more likely by far that you will suffer episodes of unquiet sleep.


Mary

[LiberalVoice]

13. Man you just gave me the WILLIES!!!!!!!

I have what you call an "overactive imagination" and that freaked me out!

But, yes I don't get very much sleep. My work requires that I be there at 5am. I usually have alot to do during the day and if I'm lucky I get 5 hours of sleep. I only got about an hour and a half of sleep in about 48 hours.

[JSJ]

14. misfiring synapses, that's all...

...and I use to have some doozies as a kid- now I simply find nightmares interesting.

[jukes]

16. you really need

to quit reading whitney streiber novels! :evilgrin: