RE: Tripping Without Drugs: My Experience With Lucid Dreaming and Sleep Paralysis
It is extremely common for people to report feeling or seeing a presence near them during sleep paralysis. Some have even gone as far as to attribute these visions and feelings to supernatural beings (I have seen no evidence to suggest that this is true but you are free to believe what you wish).
I have had four different experiences with sleep paralysis, and my personal experiences were all very much the same. I will say that I personally felt as though I was under attack by an entity, each and every time. I vividly remember the experiences, I vividly remember the cackling voice speaking to me in Latin, and I don't believe I can be convinced that it was anything other than attacks. Could it have been hallucinations? Yes. Is is awfully coincidental that the same experience happened to me on four different occasions? Absolutely.
I will say though, that I am certainly not opposed to the idea that there may be different types of sleep paralysis, some perhaps positive, but whatever it was I experienced, was nothing I would consider positive, in any way.
well, dreams arent really the realm of exact science yet, for all i know its the glia cleaning out the ducts which leads to weird impressions of the days past as the chemicals pass through the channels, as for sleep paralysis, i have often experienced this other dimension right between wake and dream but the paralysis itself i think is mostly the body still being paralyzed because thats simply what happens during r.e.m. (considered to be a safeguard against hurting oneself b/c of actively moving along with whats happening in the dream, so the motoric functions shut down in order to prevent that ... if for some reason you get jolted out of the sleepstate while that's still active then that would be your explanation right there, the brain is still "on standby" while the body is still in self-protection mode"
probably why rem sleep is the most healing part ... you're not supposed to have that until after some hours but i find myself often falling into it right away after days of insomnia or virtual insomnia, its like crashing right into a dream state
Haha yeah I stayed out of the sciencey side of the issue but those are the reasons why I don't buy into the whole supernatural mythos that exists around the phenomenon.
I do like to think of at as an altered state just like one has with a drug or what have you. It is interesting but I don't find it to be at all enjoyable even with the potential for lucid dreaming.
There are other sleep related altered states too. If you can hold yourself in that presleep stage you can have some pretty trippy hallucinations too but they are difficult to recall so most of their "wow" factor evaporates when they do.
i might suggest reading plato's "cave"
i suggest that a lot
perception is reality
not the other way around
You're referring to the "Allegory of the cave, " in Plato's Republic. But yes, perception is reality.. Or, rather, "reality" requires that we account for our experience of perception; in other words, there is no "God's eye view," (like some science tends to assume...)
Thank you for explaining this @rudyardcatling
I didn't know this, and actually, I had never considered the implications of what sleep state my body was potentially in during the experiences. This actually makes quite a bit of sense. What I find a bit harder to explain though isn't so much the paralysis, but recurrence of the "dream" itself, if it was in fact a dream. If it was, it would certainly be classified as a reoccurring dream.
These dreams had such a vividness, and such a profound impact on my perception of reality, I can only conclude with any real certainty, that they left a lasting impression I will never forget.
dreams haven't been explained by any kind of measurable science, i'm afraid that's still very much the field of Freud
if it recurs my best bet is it's something your subconscious is trying to deal with
as for the feeling of presence, there's pros and cons, its possible with magnets to induce a feeling of presence but if people talk about dreams i personally usually assume they don't tend to sleep in a lab full of magnets
perception is reality , its not the other way around you're a brain trapped in a body and whatever that brain perceives is reality
maybe the most important thing is to make it through the next day
whatever it means but if it means something it can give you direction
or even purpose
im afraid dreams are too personnal to generalize
It is super unpleasant. I don't discount anything, of course, but I just don't see any way to test the claim so I have nothing to weigh the validity of. That being said, the feeling is vary real and the descriptions people give along with my own experiences are always very similar which gives me more pause than most untestable claims.
I agree completely. There really is no way to weigh the validity, but I do maintain a level of interest on the topic, and despite the pure terror that was associated, I find myself wondering what is to be gained from such an experience. This comes with some questions such as: "Why has this happened to me on various occasions"?, and "Will it happen to me again"?
Do I dare say I even have a fleeting thought of welcoming it again just to figure out its meaning?
Very interesting topic.
Thanks for the good read and conversation @artisticscreech
I think most altered states have something to give. I can't put my finger on it but lucid dreaming and the struggle to maintain control teach a kind of mental discipline. The state of terror from sleep paralysis reviles something about the self. One learns where the mind goes when they are in what seems like real and serious danger. From that he or she is better prepared when faced with real danger. Maybe that is stretching the concept "lessons" a little too far but I don't think it should be discounted.
As I hint at in the post though, the things people get from both these phenomena are not really worth the trouble when one can gain a lot more in a way that is much more pleasant with psychedelics.
I would distinguish the two types of experiences whith the following: Psychedelics break down the barrier between the conscious and unconscious but sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming allow the conscious mind to venture into the unconscious world but there it is subject of the whims of the unconscious mind and that can take a person to some dark places.
And thank you too.
This is actually one "theory" on "why" we dream: to "teach" us various ways to deal and essentially practice for "real life" dangerous scenarios. Because our body (when working "properly") actually paralyzes itself during dreaming, in order not to actually "jump off the building to get away from the zombies," but instead to safely allow us to instead "dream-jump" away from them--and hopefully survive not only your dream, but also when the real zombies come. ;))