Hi I also have similar types of weird things happening when I am usually just starting to fall asleep. I thought maybe I was having some type of seizure activity and I started searching around the net looking for info. I came about here after seeing a posting it is from 1-2 years ago, and is very similar to your experiences.

i get this every so often, sometimes it will run for a few days straight, then wont happen for a month. I did have a sleep study but nothing happened on that night. Here is what happens to me. I will be just falling asleep and I will get a very strange feeling over my entire body, like a numbness. I feel a pulsating in my head and very loud ringing in my ears. It intensifies until I am fully awakened. Then as I try to get back to sleep it keeps happening a few more times, some more intense, others less intense. I do not sleep with anyone who can tell me what is happening. I also get another type of episode from time to time. As I am just falling asleep I get violently awoken where I jump up. It is as if I was hit in the face with a baseball bat, or fell off a building and hit the ground. Its like boom, and I jump awake. Really scary. I am going to start documenting when I have these episodes to see if there is any similarities in my activities, what I ate etc.. Had one last night, but it's been a few weeks since the last episodes. Sometimes too as I lay down to sleep it feels like someone is shaking the bed.

Yeah that is the most similar description i've seen so far as to what happens to me. I've read about sleep paralysis before and that just seems like one of the symptoms I (and others) experience. I could deal with just the paralysis it's all the other crap that makes it unbearable. One thing I have noticed is that a few people on this forum have similar reports but no one has any clue what it is.


Anyway, a couple of pointers that might help:
1) when it happens, don't try to go back to sleep until your head clears, or you'll probably go back into it. I usually smoke a cigarette and that seems to help my head clear.

2) this usually happens when I try to sleep on my back. It almost never happens in other positions, so I try to avoid sleeping on back.

3) since i'm "aware" during these episodes, i'm spending most of the time trying to wake myself up so I can come out of it. Once, I thought, maybe i'll just try to ride it through, or to beat it, or whatever, instead of trying to wake up. Not a good idea. It just kept getting worse. After a good 60 seconds it felt like I was convulsing violently, although I don't know if I really was or not. Also this has never happened when I was sleeping next to anyone, even in the same room, it is a sneaky culprit.


I emailed a copy of the previous posting to this guy:
http://sleepdisorders.About.Com/b/a/228638 .Htm (if you want to look at it you have to make the h in htm lowercase or it won't work, the forum program capitalizes it cause it's stupid)
idonno if that will ever amount to anything though...

Hi, I also get this allot. In the morning I wake up, allways hours before i'm supposed to. If I want to get up at 6:30, I start waking up at 4 am. After the first awake at 4 I never really seem to fall back asleep. It is like I am in a half awake half sleep mode. During this I experience very vivid dreams. I like when its time to get up because I hate laying there in that half sleep mode. But the thing is very very vivid real like dreams.

Yeah sometimes I just lay there all night and can't sleep... Or just wake up at any random point in the night and then can't go back to sleep. I can deal with that, it's the stupid sleep attacks (as I have come to call them) that piss me off. It's funny, it never started till I was 19, except this one time when I was 16, my doctor prescribed me amitryptalin (i think I spelled that wrong) because I couldn't sleep well. This is the same stuff as elavil, which I think is an antidepressant (my doctor was an fool) the first time I took it, I slept great and then in the morning I woke up but my body was still asleep and I felt like I was suffocating and then freaked out, and eventually woke up. Well like an fool I took it agian the next night and, you guessed it, it happened again. So I didn't take any more of them. Sometimes I wonder if that stuff like messed something in my brain up, although that solution just doesn't seem to make any sense. I wanted to go to a sleep clinic for a while, but they "sleep attacks" are so unpredictable I never know when they will strike. I still haven't heard back from that guy, either (the one who was doing research on strange sleep problems or whatever)

i have had the exact same experiences. Strangely enough in that order too.
I go to bed and can't sleep, will toss and turn. Then i'm suddenly aware I can't move. I then realise I am dreaming, so try to call out to the sleeping me to wake up. I can almost float above the second me and then view her. It's almost like a case of watching myself, watching myself. The original me in bed, the me in the dream unable to move and the me observing this. When I try to shout out I can't. Then when the original me wakes up in bed there is this thing I can only describe as a ball of noise (memory perhaps?) that sort of buzzes in and out towards me, the closer it gets the louder it is. And whatever it is, it is truly terrifying and I want to get away.



interesting because I have been taking amitriptyline for several years.

Yoz,

seems like a lot of people actually have this problem atleast once in their life. I have been having such episodes since i'm a kid.

For me, it more of a lifestyle issue. If during periods when I am spending too much energy staying up late and constant staring at computer screens playing my fav game, I will get such problems.

What are your causes?

This is exactly what i get holy HECK... i totally want to know what this is!... is it sleep paralysis? or something else... Holy crap... they are hellish twisted things that i just called quakes... sometimes theyr accompanied with the most craziest realistic dreams ever its so crazy... sometimes i like them... other times its just black and i am very awear of being in bed and know im having one of these weird things... and every time try to wake up from it cuz they are so mest up... my head feels like it rushing down to center of earth or something.... one time i saw a skull screaming in my face and my ears were very rumbly... Yes i couldn't move watsoever and it was scary because i was stuck in my sleep... and one time i did try to go with it... it turned to CRAZY... it was like diving in earth's atmosphere on fire... at night, thats when i realized it was bad idea, so i tried to get myself out... I rreeeally want to know what these are... IF they have a name... if anyone knows please pm me.

I've been experiencing similar feelings for a long time. Usually when I'm stressed out right before I went to sleep and sleep really late at night like 3am or 4am. Sometimes I had to sit up for awhile before going back to sleep again, otherwise same feelings happen. Although I know the medical reasoning behind this disorder, I still feel extremely scared. I often hear people talking remotely and doing things in the living room, when I'm the only person in my apartment. I would feel something scary is coming to my room. Here are some tips to avoid the situation:
1) If you are a gamer, don't play any intense game right before going to sleep
2) Stick to your routine sleep time
3) Listen to some soothing music or do something relaxing before going to sleep if you've had a stressful day
4) Try not to sleep on your back, sideways is the best
5) Do not fall back to sleep right away the first time you experienced that at night. Sit up and think about something happy or looking forward to tomorrow.
6) Do not eat too much or things that would upset your stomach before you go to sleep. Don't eat anything 1 hour before going to bed.
7) Keep good mental health. Even we experience such feelings, don't be too scared. Your brain makes up all the things you feel, try to reason with it Laugh at it and relax.

eeylime, what is the medical reasoning?

I have this happen for at least 10 years that I can remember. (no, colors or shadowy figures though) I've worn a halter monitor on two separate occasions, but nothing happened during those times. I have yet to find an answer. If I try to make myself sleep, (rather than just falling asleep), I begin fearing it might happen, then I stay awake for much longer than I want to.

Normally it's only the paralysis-like half sleep/half awake suffocating feeling, with major panic.

On two separate occasions (I can remember them as if they just happened) I was suddenly awakened out of it by a forceful man's voice. Scared the crap out of me. It seemd totally real like there was someone standing over me yelling in my ear.

at first it was so scary i couldnt sleep or i would wake myself up right on the verge of sleep. after i got used to it a bit it was just scary, thought it was spiritual (never know, it could be). for me it was the worst when i was abusing pain killers and muscle relaxers (perkaset, hydrocodone, soma, etc). i would get them almost every night i took them, i was addicted to pain killers for about 5 years. i was so hooked on that stuff and so used to the sleep disorder that i didnt even care anymore. it has been over a year since i cut the drugs out of my life but i still get the sleep paralysis, but only from time to time (about 80% less than before).

i did some research on it and found out i have narcolepsy and a slight case of cataplexy. both sleep paralysis and cataplexy are symptoms of narcolepsy. i started to get the cataplexy about 2 years ago. i believe the withdrawl symptoms i got from the drugs were what brought on the cataplexy. i feel the cataplexy only when i make or hear a really funny joke or when i get angry at my dog (ie. goes through my trash). the back part of my shoulders and neck seem to give out a little (no head drop yet, and hopefully never will). cataplexy is no joke, i have read and seen videos of other people with cataplexy and its scary.

i have experienced most of the symptoms above. loud buzzing sounds, body tingles, shadowy figures, the difficulty of breathing, overwhelming fear, and of course paralysis (the paralysis is ALWAYS there) are most common for me. when i try to fight it it only gets worse (louder buzzing noises, tingles turn to pin pricking, the feeling of even more immobility, etc). a few times i have experienced excruciating pain in my pelvic area and wake up with no sign of ever having pain there. i remember trying to fight it for over 2 hours once, yea 2 hours of paralysis in one attack! it was nuts!

for me the best way to break out and wake up is by letting it take over for about a minute then try to fight it, if i dont break out right away i will wait then repeat until i do. nowadays when i get an attack i let it take over my whole body and put myself into a meditative state. doing this either puts me to sleep or it puts me into a lucid dream. over the last 15 years this is my best solution to the problem. i could go on forever about sleep paralysis but ill stop it here.

1. i dont think there is anyway to avoid the attacks.
2. i think the best way to deal with it is to learn to deal with it.

my dog was barking at 3 this morning. I woke up and by the time I fell back asleep, it happened again. I was laying kinda like in between my side and stomach...

I don't ever experience pain or buzzing sounds or lights or anything though.

How do some of you let it go? I don't seem to have any control whatsoever on it. But it's like I'm somewhat conscious. The other night I tried to move my arms to try to get my husband to wake up and I was hoping he would wake me up! I also try to make sounds, but I always seem to be "alone" when it happens.

I want to know what this is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia

Im 21 years old and I've had insomnia as long as I can remember. When I was 16 I was prescribed alprazolam (xanax)for panic attacks and anxiety and zolpidiem (ambien) for insomina.For about a year I took those until I believed I was relying too hevily on my medications. I stopped both immediately and experienced minimal withdrawal symptoms aside from the continuing insomnia. At that point my doctor prescribed me amitriopyline to sedate me before sleep. This had no effect on me whatsoever as did natural remedies such as valarian root and melatonin.

At some point when I was 18 I participated in a sleep study in which my results came back as abnormal. I apparently had awaken too many times during sleep, not progressed in the different stages of sleep in a normal time frame and it was determined that I was sleep deprived. I briefly saw a sleep psychiatrist until i decided that he was incompetent as he wanted to chalk up all of my problems with sleep up to the fact that I was a young adult and wasn't on a proper schedule with falling asleep and waking everyday.

About a year passed with bearable insomnia until I stared seeing a new psychiatrist at which point I was prescribed with major depressive disorder. I tried out a handful of anti-depressants including welbutrin, zoloft and effexor none of which helped me at all, in actuality I believe they hurt me. I atempted suicide by swolling a few hundred mix and match pills with some vodka, and was discovered passed out by my then boyfriend. After a few days in the hospital, I was commited to a mental hospital where I was rediagnosed with bipolar 1 disorder. I was then started on a slew of anti-psychotics including 600mg of seroquel to aid in sleeping at night.

It has been about a year and a half since my time in the hospial. I have continued to take my 600mg of seroquel and have since added additional medication as that has become unaffective. i have since taken lunesta, ambien cr, mitrozolam, and rozeram. It was then determined that I might have a rem sleep disorder as I had habit of waking up upside down and had very vivid dreams especially nightmares. I was then prescribed 2mg of klonpin before bedtime for a few monthes until that became unnafective, I have since been prescribed 30mg of temezapan.
Temezapan worked fairly well yet only put me too sleep did not keep me asleep, at which point I would take another, which left me with about 6 days that I was able to fill my prescription.
During those days,I spent approximately 5 hours each night trying to get too sleep. During the last two or so hour I would be in a half-asleep,half dreaming state. I found myself heavily hallucinating and speaking out load to my hallucinations. I found myself on the floor numerous times as well as a result of moving in response to the dreams. I have an appointment on friday to address this issue but the only idea I have found this to be is hyponagogia.

I get loud buzzing in my ears right before I fall asleep almost everytime when I sleep during daytime after my night shifts. Sometimes the buzzing would get so loud that I would wake up, & I have to try to fall asleep all over again.

I usually get the feeling of hearing or seeing people when I sleep in lousy conditions during night shifts in my office. I would plead with them to wake me up & they would fail to do so. It feels so realistic. I was anxious to wake up because I was conscious of the fact that I was at work & should not stay asleep for too long.

Nowadays, when I turn conscious of the fact that I've fallen asleep at work during night shifts & couldn't wake up in a state of sleep paralysis, I'd stop fighting it & continue sleeping. For I know I wouldn't be able to wake up no matter how much I fight it. It works for me. If I don't fight it, I no longer get realistic talking people visiting me in my conscious dreams.

Accept the fact that you're conscious that you are asleep & you are unable to wake up even if you try to, as you are in a state of sleep paralysis. Don't fight to wake up, continue sleeping. If you're relaxed, you won't see or hear scary shadowy people & you will drift into a dream more fitting for a dream.

I don't know what to do about the buzzing in the ears right before falling asleep though.

I used to be like that when I was little. When I get those feelings of someone in the room with me it usually is like a guide telling me something wants my attention. People say meditate and stuff along those lines but when I do I concentrate on the feelings of fear that I suffered through in my sleep. As scary as it may be try to think of when they started and the fearful things that went on in your life. Like trauma of some sort. Or phobias of things and try to release the fear by facing it. It's difficult, but when I did that, even at a young age, I grew to be less afraid and when things like that still happen, like someone shaking me, I take deep breaths, turn on the light and relax. I write down a lot of what I feel or see as well. Another hurdle to try and jump over until I do.Animals help too. Or if u sleep alone, I buy stuffed animals that, when I first see them, give me immediate comfort. Music blocks out some things, too. Good music.

Hi everyone, one thing I do know, and have become shockingly aware, is that this is changing my life, And i cannot sleep! This has happeneded to me about 6 times in the past few years, but last night was the most overwheaming experience of all.

It started with the werid noice vibration in my ears, then, the fear started and eventually I could not move, I had someone sleeping next me, I tried so so hard to touch her, I could'nt.

Last it happended about 6 times in about an hour or so! The last time I experienced the feeling, I had visuals of demons, or dark creatures, however, lucky not this time. Back to last night, I could actually feel it coming on, everytime, the Noise in the ears would start, oncame the fear, and then i would burst with movement to prevent it I tried to challenge it, the part where i cannot move, however once you settle in that state, there is nothing you can do. I left scared, tired, and afraid to sleep.

Read This: a few quoatations from reasearch I did, that hits this experience spot on:


A third connection between paralysis and panic attacks is an interesting and sometimes, little known event. Sleep paralysis is a brief period in which a person is unable to perform any voluntary movements. This condition may occur at the beginning of sleep or immediately upon awakening.
The paralysis leaves when a sound is heard or someone touches the person. Medical research has found that people who experience daytime panic attacks have a greater chance of experiencing this type of sleep paralysis as well.
There are several connections between paralysis and panic attacks. First, there is a psychological aspect. The main feature of an attack is an unmistakable fear that overwhelms the person
: The second stage of paralysis associated with a panic attack comes on the physical level. Shortness of breath, chest pain, nausea or dizziness make a person incapable of moving




You wake up, but you can't move a muscle. Lying in bed, you're totally conscious, and you realize that strange things are happening. There's a crushing weight on your chest that's humanoid. And it's evil.

You've awakened into the dream world.

This is not the conceit for a new horror movie starring a ragged middle-aged Freddie Prinze Jr., it's a standard description of the experience of a real medical condition: sleep paralysis. It's a strange phenomenon that seems to happen to about half the population at least once.

People who experience it find themselves awake in the dream world for anywhere from a few seconds to 10 minutes, often experiencing hallucinations with dark undertones. Cultures from everywhere from Newfoundland to the Caribbean to Japan have come up with spiritual explanations for the phenomenon. Now, a new article in The Psychologist suggests sleep researchers are finally figuring out the neurological basis of the condition.

This is what im suffering from
This research strongly suggests that sleep paralysis is related to REM sleep, and in particular REM sleep that occurs at sleep onset,write researchers Julia Santomauro and Christopher C. French of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit, Goldsmiths, at the University of London. Shift work, jet lag, irregular sleep habits, overtiredness and sleep deprivation are all considered to be predisposing factors to sleep paralysis; this may be because such events disrupt the sleepwake cycle, which can then cause [sleep-onset REM periods].
n other words, you experience just a piece of REM sleep.
As David McCarty, a sleep researcher at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center's Sleep Medicine Program, explained it, humans tend to think about the elements of the different stages of sleep as packaged nicely together. So, in REM sleep, you're unconscious, experiencing a variety of sensory experiences, and almost all of your muscles are paralyzed (that's called atonia).
In my case, it would happen right as I was falling asleep on the two twin beds that I had taped together. The most vivid time, I woke up with the uneasy feeling that something awful was to my left, on the border of my peripheral vision. I couldn't really see it, but I knew that it was evil and coming closer to me. I felt true terror, like you experience when you are about to get in a car crash. I was sure it was going to hurt me.

After a few minutes, I could finally move and took the opportunity to run across campus to a friend's house and asked to sleep on the couch. With the lights on. It happened a few more times

My question boils down too? If demonic images are involved, which medical experts state happen, then is this really a Medical condition, or is this not perhaps assoiciated with underworld influence?? I have no idea how to control this, and Im scarred!! Thanks for all the posts

hey i am 19 years old and have been having experiences similar to "isayso" who first posted the question. it all started for me after i tried marijuana for the first time, but this may have no connection. the feeling i get is not like a normal sleep, when i have this episodes i KNOW wat makes them different from sleep. first- it usually happens when i sleep on my back, 2. it has happened to me the most when taking afternoon naps 3. i feel like my body and head begins to fall back 4. i feel like im in reality until something weird happens and i realize that im not in reality 4. the visuals are incredibly real and i feel like im really there, but i know its not 5. i try to escape this weird place i am in. 6. i realize i cant move my physical body 7. start to freak out, like sleep paralysis, but no buzzing sounds or anything like that 8. feel like reality is just a hand away from me, but i cant seem to pull myself out of this world 9. i instantly snap out of it, and feel like odd cloudiness in my head ....like what the hell just happened. 10. usually if i try to sleep again, this will immediatly happen all again..... after tonnes of these episodes over the last few years, i have began to acknoledge i cannot prevent them, and i must except them, 11. today i had 4 episodes in a row,which was weird and scary however by the 4th one i was used to being in that state that it didnt bother me, i let it ride out and once i snapped out, i felt this calm and restfullness to me, kinda beautifull wat the mind is capabile of. all i can say though is that the sence and visuals (hallucinations) are even more so realistic that a dream most of the time, and when i wake up from the state, i may even question reality if its real until my mind clears.