Nightmares (dreams)

[FrostyBoy]

I want to tell you what I know about nightmares, and I hope maybe some of you can explain them.

all the way up to the age of about 15, I had no problems with dreams, but after that, I would find myself... in a kind of non-sleeping-unconcious state, its a period where I am aware I am awake, or aware I am asleep, I'm not sure which one, but it sucks, because I feel like I am existing in whatever it is I am dreaming.

I just woke up from a bloody annoying one. Somehow, I started floating from earth, and out into the universe; now I know what is happening is not real, but it FEELS like it, its as if my senses are experiencing this nightmare and I have no way to either, 1. Stop floating out into the universe, or 2. wake up.
I literally feel my body, turning, and spinning, but at the same time, I feel the bed underneath me.

What is going on here? Sometimes it's really bad, I can't wake up for a long long time and wake up in a sweat, it's a battle to wake up from my nightmare. And sometimes I am even afraid to go to sleep.

Anyone else get this problem? I always imagined nightmares to just be a dream about something bad, not actually 'waking' up to a nightmare!

Or is this what a nightmare is?

[Vince278]

Sounds like you have sleep apnea. Might want to check it out.

[Pekka]

Sure I have this all the time. It's either sleep paralysis or something else. Or lucid dreaming, but that's usually pleasant.

Sleep paralysis can be a pain in the ass and I've had few bad nightmares like that, with killer next to me ready to put a butcher's knife through my throat. Feeling real and being half wake. Ruined my whole day it did.

[FrostyBoy]

Vince, its not that.

Pekka, I think you nailed it. From wiki:

Sleep paralysis is a condition characterized by paralysis of the body shortly after waking up (known as hypnopompic paralysis) or, less often, shortly before falling asleep (known as hypnagogic paralysis). Physiologically, it is closely related to the normal paralysis that occurs during REM sleep, also known as REM atonia.

Sleep paralysis occurs when the brain is awakened from an REM state into essentially a normal fully awake state, but the bodily paralysis is still occurring. This causes the person to be fully aware, but unable to move. In addition, this state is usually accompanied by certain specific kinds of hallucinations. This state usually lasts no more than two minutes before a person is able to either return to full REM sleep or to become fully awake, though the sense of how much time has gone by is often distorted during sleep paralysis. People who are fortunate enough to be facing a clock while having an episode may often be surprised to see how little time has gone by during an episode that seems to last a very long time.

Accompanying hallucinations

Many report hallucinations during episodes of sleep paralysis. The features of these hallucinations generally vary by individual, but some are more common to the experience than others:


Most common:
Vividness
Fear


Common:
Sensing a "presence" (often malevolent)
Pressure/weight on body (especially the chest). See for example the painting in the beginning of this article.
A sensation of not being able to breathe
Impending sense of doom/death


Fairly common:
Auditory hallucinations (often footsteps or indistinct voices, or pulsing noises). Auditory hallucinations which are described as noise instead of hallucinations of legible sounds, are often described to be similar to auditory hallucinations caused by Nitrous Oxide by persons who have experienced both.
Visual hallucinations such as lights, people or shadows walking around the room


Less common:
Floating sensation (sometimes associated with out-of-body experiences)
Seemingly seamless transition into full hallucinations or dreaming, also associated with out-of-body experiences
Tactile hallucinations (such as a hand touching or grabbing)


Rare:
Falling sensation
Vibration
Involuntary movements (sometimes the feeling of sliding off of the bed or even up walls).

The Floating Sensation, Involuntary movements (the scariest), all these I get, the common ones I don't get.

The reason involuntary movements are scary: imagine lying on your side on your bed, and put one arm out over your bed (straight, not hanging), now imagine, your body turning, and your arm "passing" through the bed; fully rotating around and back to where you are.
This is what I experienced the first times I had one of these sleep paralysis dreams. You have to remember, it's not a state where I am asleep, its a state where I am awake, but I have no control over my body, and to make it worse, I am doing something impossible (like passing through the bed), so it's as scary as hell.

[Pekka]

don't worry man, these are not that uncommon. But yeah, it's pain in the ass.

Yes, exactly, the thing that gives the fear factor to it is that you are 'awake' and you know it. It's not a realistic dream, but oyu in fact know you have woken up. And the feeling of horror or what ever, it transcends and basically it's not feeling horror in your dream, it's doing that in your real life, added extra bonus is that you can't do nothing about it, and that's a catalyst for a ruined day

But like I said, yeah, this is not too uncommon so.. don't act like you're special

[Vince278]

Pekka is right that it isn't too uncommon. I had it happen myself in my younger days. However, most of the symptoms you describe (from wiki) can also be attributed to oxygen deprivation.

[Darius871]

Re: Nightmares (dreams)

Originally posted by Sn00py Somehow, I started floating from earth, and out into the universe; now I know what is happening is not real, but it FEELS like it, its as if my senses are experiencing this nightmare and I have no way to either, 1. Stop floating out into the universe, or 2. wake up.
I literally feel my body, turning, and spinning, but at the same time, I feel the bed underneath me.

What is going on here?

Clearly you have a suppressed subconscious desire to bone your mother.

[Playful]

Re: Re: Nightmares (dreams)

Originally posted by Darius871


Clearly you have a suppressed subconscious desire to bone your mother.

Do we need to discuss YOUR suppressed subconscious desire to bone YOUR mother????

[Blake]

Yeah it does sound like sleep paralysis. I've only experienced it once, and I already knew what SP was. Here’s the really really freaking cool bit. Another name for SP is Old Hag Syndrome because it's not unusual to experience an old hag sitting on your chest (because breathing is constricted by the paralysis, imagination invents the hag sitting on chest), the hag can also be a vampire, demon, alp, little grey aliens... really anything your imagination pleases to come up with, depending on culture, obsessions, beliefs etc. The medieval peasant experiences a vampire, the bible thumper gets visited by demons while the modern kook gets probed by a little grey alien.
So anyway I "wake up" into the SP state - and I'm like okay cool so this is SP, there's a racket like a cross between a jet engine and really loud ocean surf going on in my ears - also an average symptom. (some people will hear a gaggle of demons chanting or whatever)
Then I felt the disembodied hand of the old hag grab my shin through the covers . I was rather surprised because I thought I was in lucid/rational enough state that my imagination wouldn't bother manifesting anything. The shin-grab felt really real, despite the fact I could feel the weight of the covers (and also didn't sense any presence). After that the noise in my ears got louder (which I'd have doubted was possible) then I drifted back into sleep, and then woke up properly.
Overall I rate it as a positive experience - not to be insensitive to those who have frightful SP episodes, but I did find the altered state of mind enjoyable and the grab was a real kick.
Incidentally my SP episode was induced, as such, though no deliberately. It was after a period of REALLY bad sleep habits, I think it was two back-to-back 30+ hour gaming sessions (ie game for 30 hours, sleep for about 8, game for 30 hours), it was after the second all-nighter that I had the SP episode. It's pretty much recognized in Lucid Dreaming communities that doing things like that can induce SP.

And even after a non-scary lucid dreaming/SP experience it can be very hard or impossible to get back to sleep, it's either the excitement/adrenaline or something with the normal process of switching the brain off (so to speak) gets disrupted, as you might expect would happen when your consciousness switches on while your body is still asleep.

[Terra Nullius]

... or you should lay off the Special K.

[Pekka]

[loinburger]

Last night I dreampt that I put one pizza on top of another and made a huge pizza sandwich.

[Pekka]

loin, so you were the .. toppings?

[loinburger]

No no, I ate the pizza sandwich. The crusts of the pizza formed the "bread" for the pizza sandwich.

[Son of David]

A 'nightmare', if I am not mistaken, is usually a dream which has expressed a wish for something that you would, in a fully 'conscious' state, be very ashamed to admit. Thus the anxiety.

But if you were not actually sleeping, were actually conscious, then it wasn't a nightmare as such.

But you may, if you so desire, try it out and see if it was a nightmare. See if you can admit something to yourself that the dream suggests, even if you poo-poo it and think it absurd, go ahead and try entertaining the thought.

Then, see if the sleep disturbance persists ....