I sleep talk on a regular basis from what my roommate tells me. It's always random things I talk about though, I can't make any sense out of it.

In terms of sleep-paralysis, I do suffer that very occasionally, but I'm sentient enough at the time to realise what's happening to me. If you've ever taken the drug Ketamin, it's a similar experience to a k-hole. I have a friend who once fled from his house after a bout of sleep-paralysis, believing it to be haunted. It can be an extremely disturbing experience.

Quote from Shotglass :

hm this whole sleep paralysis thing sounds a bit like lucid dreaming without realizing it
maybe you shoudl try to embrace it and enjoy the freedom of being able to do anything without putting your body in harms way

It's not like lucid dreaming - you're very much aware of your actual surroundings and the fact that you're asleep, but it's not possible to just conjure up imagined dream-content. There is a weird hallucinatory nature to it though - this commonly-reported feeling of being observed (at best! Often freakishly visceral sensations of being touched) by some malevolent entity. Sometimes when I failed completely to snap myself out of the paralysis and got so exhausted that I just gave up, as far as I can tell on those occasions I just slipped straight back into normal sleep. No lucid dreaming, nothing.

When I was at school my (pot-smoking) friends always used to encourage me to try to extend the out-of-bodyness. One of them used to write words in his bedroom window at night and challenge me to tell him what they were the next day, but I could never get out of my room.

It's impossible to know whether you're actually physically moving your body or not, which makes the idea of jumping out of windows a bit less attractive. I also couldn't feel any feedback from anything (because I wasn't there! Duh!), it was like having cold-numbed fingers in thick wooly gloves.

(I forget I'm talking to Europeans sometimes - I apologise for the uncommon words I might've used above. I'm a bit drunk)

Does anyone ever get those dreams, where they are doing something, and seem to just fall into infinity, and then end up falling into your bed, where you then sharply wake up and go "WTF".

I used to get those lots when I was younger, and I could just stay in that falling state staring at the ceiling for a while, but then it was almost like a trip, with objects in the room congregating towards me, and then I woke up and it was all normal again. I think my lamp still burns out lights intentionally because I never let him have my hot sexy ass.

Oh the joys of sleep!

I get that out of body thing too, normally on weekends. I think it's when I'm just absolutely knackered, and physically can't get up. That happens a lot at weekends too...I keep "getting up" and going to the kitchen for brunch, only to be halfway through and find I'm still in bed! I can feel everything as it happens though, and time seems to go quickly.

I also get the paralysis sometimes, maybe once a week. It's freaky shit, even after 5+ years of it. I can't seem to speak or shout either, which makes it worse. I'm just lying there rigid, with these yokes floating around me. They aren't any particular shape, they're just "there"...

At least I'm not alone in it, I was considering going to the GP with it

ill admit im thoroughly out of my depth here for never having experienced either phenomenon (my sleep is more like that of matt0snaps brother ie im able to talk to someone whos trying to wake me up and tell them to bugger off without ever waking up or remembering that i was supposedly wide awake) but wikipedia seems to agree with me that sleep paralysis is a way to enter a lucid dream

Oh I am a pro sleeper once I get going, alarm clocks are nothing, I even once slept through a 4-minute warning klaxon alarm that accidentally sounded on the roof of our town hall (when I was 9, 1983, height of the cold war - thanks for waking me up, Mum!).

But getting to sleep is hard for me. Actually it's what... 1:34am here now. I slept the night before last from 7am until about noon (I can cope with 5 hours sleep, but 6, 7, 8 or 9 leave me tired, 10 is fine!), so I've been awake for about 37.5hrs at the moment. I've gone through periods where I was falling asleep at work and I had to shake myself to stay awake, but right now I'm not even feeling tired.

I am going to bed though. Wish me luck.

yeah i know the feeling... during the week the less i sleep the more productive i am and 4h seems about optimum if im at my best
the worst is i have 2 windows of tiredness each night one at around 12 the other one at around 6 in the morning... miss the first like i always do and youll spend the rest of your life on new york time

plus one thing you guys have achieved is to make me scared of going to bed... i hope youre happy now

7 Hours of sleep = perfect. More or less I'm tired.

Quote from Shotglass :

that reminds me of my favourite kind of sleep paralysis (ok actually it isnt) which is waking up with somebody elses arm in your bed only to find out that its your own but completely numb and bloodless from lying on it for hours

Hahah, that's terrible. But I feel a little off the subject as well as I don't have any sleeping stories to tell. The only thing that bothers me a little is that the more I sleep, the more sleepy I get. Sleep around 5-6 hours/day and I'm ok, sleep 8+ hours and I'm like a zombie all day.

I also take a lot to fall asleep when I go to bed, even if I'm very tired. Always more than an hour, sometimes more than two. But I'm used to it.

Oh, and I have the "power" to always wake when I want. I mean, I don't miss the time I have to wake up, I simply wake up (not rarely exactly) at the time I need to. I have an alarm for backup :P but I can't remember the last time I really used it (I usually wake up and wait for it to sound to get up).

That too, if I know I haffto wake up at a time, I'll beat the alarm always, usually by 30 mins too.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

That too, if I know I haffto wake up at a time, I'll beat the alarm always, usually by 30 mins too.

O_O I thought that only happened to me!
It's actually weird because I set the alarm and I'm always awake to turn it off when it goes on. :S So it's kinda pointless but if I don't put it I'll just keep sleeping. SO weird.

Heh I remember going to visit my cousin in France and she was sleeptalking. It's freaky and anoying when you're sleeping in the same room. Had trouble sleeping and then decided to beg my parents to get us a hotel room :P

After reading this thread I am starting to remember A LOT of weird things that happened to me when I was young.

Once all I remember is me walking into my room, seeing myself floating in the corner of my room and then feeling tiny pins and needles all over my body...

One time I jumped off a green electrical box in my front yard and I remember falling and then landing on my bed then waking up and jumping straight out of bed.

I ALWAYS get the completely numb arm. It feels so weird when I wake up because it feels like my arm is 3x thicker, and super heavy. It's almost scary when I wake up and feel a random arm against my back... "WHO THE F#@k is in my bed?" lol

And bout the alarm clock thing, it is the same with me. I always set my alarm clock, then when I wake up it is always within 5 minutes of when my clock goes off.

often, ill be sleeping peacefully then all of a sudden i dream im falling, off a cliff or something, i jump real high and i wake up instantly, it scares the crap through me, it at least happens once a week, and often i have the same dream, that i get chased down and shot.
i donno what its all about.

to those experiencing sleep paralysis, next time when it happens, try to focus in being relaxed, breathe slowly, don`t freak out. then, come back and share the experience, if anything "changed".

about the waking up before the alarm clock, it usually happens to me(1-2 min before), when i organize my sleep hours and stick to the schedule. i somehow figured out that, if i fall asleep while relaxing in a comfy position (my favorite being 'face down, hands under the pillow' ) i can usually wake up at the desired time. it happened more than once to wake up, and 5 seconds later the alarm started to ring, but on rare occasions.

sleep has its secrets, has a pattern (stages), my ideal sleep period has been 3/6/or10 hours. anything in between only made me wake up dizzy, numb all day, feeling tired, having muscular pain.
now i made a habit on drinking coffee in the morning, which i find really confusing for my "system", sometimes "feeling" my heart pounding really strong while i`m totally relaxed. i think i`m gonna stop it, as it turns out it modified the pattern, and i have to sleep for 7 hour now, to rest properly, but waking up is a dizzy experience.. until i drink the coffee, then i`m OK.

right now as i write my sleep pattern is messed up, staying late, studying/playing, sleeping from 4 to 8 (yea, not 3/6/10), but i`ll try to recover in the next days, and while i`m at it, maybe help others with their questions. for that - hope i won`t get anyone (a mod) 'upset'(if it`s not legal i`ll remove it, and supply a PM link to it ) - i`m going to upload an ebook that changed my vision about sleep, and answered many many questions, that before 'wtf`ed' me .

so here it is.

Quote from mickyc30 :

often, ill be sleeping peacefully then all of a sudden i dream im falling, off a cliff or something, i jump real high and i wake up instantly, it scares the crap through me, it at least happens once a week, and often i have the same dream, that i get chased down and shot.
i donno what its all about.

I sometimes get the first one too...Normally I'll be cycling a bike, or riding a motorbike, and then it will just start wheelying and I'll wake up, and give a jump with my arms in front of me like I'm holding onto handlebars Normally happens when I fall alseep outside of bed, in a car or whatever...

Does anyone get a dream that you think you've had before, but you can't be sure? It's fudging annoying! I'll wake up after a dream, and think that it's familiar, and I've had it before. But I mightn't have had it before, and I'm just thinking of that one again...leads to very complex interior dialogs

You may laugh and point at me for saying this, but have any of you guys had something happen in a dream, which then happens in the future?

My one happened about 5 years ago. I fell asleep, and dreamt that i was moving house. The night we finished unpacking, i was sat in the living room, watching top gear.

About 6-8 months later. My dad announced we were moving. After we packed up and moved, i unpacked all my things. When i was done, it was night time. That night i decided to go downstairs and watch some TV...top gear happened to be on....

Freaky! *does spooky motion with his fingers*

...Or just a coincidence Nathan?

Quote from The General Lee :

...Or just a coincidence Nathan?

Maybe, but a hell of a coincidence to be exactly how i dreamt it?

p.s why are'nt you on msn no more :P

Top Gear is on a lot though Still, a little spooky.

I am on MSN, I just blocked you...

O_O

Fine then....

Your avatar is pointless to me now....I CANT TALK TO YOU WHEN YOU HAVE BLOCKED ME! HAR!

Anyway, back to sleep talking now...

If you wasn't such an ass, I wouldn't need to block you :P

Back to the original topic: I went to wake my Dad up for work not long ago and when I asked him where he was working, he replied "Germany" to which I thought "Eh?" as he is a Cellar Technician and BOC Expert in the South West region...When he awoke, he told me he was dreaming about the 'Ring sticker on my car

After I read about the falling down into nothing experience, I remembered, when I was a kid, I'd have this dream when I had to pee.. So as I grew older it became a cue to get up and go to the bathroom.

I can also wake myself up when a dream gets too spooky, so I kinda never have nightmares.

And yes, I believe I had dreams which happened later in my life. Or just flashbacks as if I experienced the same thing before. Once I was lying on the floor in the living room, in our previous house. And suddenly I remember me lying there exactly the same way, looking the same way, but there used to be a fish bowl..
Just recently I was sitting with a friend, I only met her recently, and when I was in her living room, I suddenly felt like I'd been there before.
I had that kind of stuff happen before a few times, kinda weird. But I remember reading something about it, about your brain tricking you into believing you already did something, but it's not true.