is it even a dream? help me out

[tiredteen113]

Sometimes I have these bad dreams in which I know I'm dreaming and asleep and I feel this physical pressure on top of me and I am unable to move or to wake up. I feel as if I'm being suffocated but but able to breathe or as if I'm being pulled in every direction possibly conceived. They usually shake me pretty hard and I avoid going back to bed afterward because they have continued when I allow myself to. Usually there are no visuals connected I only see black as if only my eyes are closed.

Is there a name for these type of dreams, is it something to worry about and where can I find more information? I appreciate any enlightenment with this case.




-Sleepy

[FlyingMaster]

These dreams can be very very frightening. I understand why you try not to go back to sleep. The dreams that I have (for quite a while now) are very similar, only I have visuals and they have become very detailed. How often have you experienced this?

It seems that people have come up with a couple of explanations for this type of dream, one scientific and the other spiritual. The scientific explanation is called sleep paralysis. Under sleep paralysis, it is said that the mind becomes conscious, or wakes up before the body does---thus the awareness that you are either awake or dreaming and yet unable to move. Because of this, the mind supposedly makes up reasons why the body cannot move (things like alien abduction stories are attributed to this). Under this explanation, the pressure and pulling you describe could be created by your mind which has come up with a scenario that explains why you can't move.

The spiritual explanation is another story. If you find that you would like me to post my findings on that, just let me know.

[tiredteen113]

That makes a lot of sense it also happens to be exactly what I experienced. I only have a the dream maybe once or twice a month. It's often enough for me to remember. I just feel like I might get stuck like that. As some sort of vegetable. and the spiritual explanation would be interesting to hear.
I'm not really a "believer" but I'm interested in other views on the matter.


By the way thanks for helping me to understand something I couldn't. I appreciate your time and consideration

[bucksgirl]

these are not dreams at all this is your spirit trying to get back into your body and if you wake up before this happens we fight it beacuse we dont know whats going on

[Korynne]

I have had this 'sleep paralysis' or whatever other spiritual explanation of a 'dream' for many years, since I was about 15. In the beginning it was deathly frightening as I didn't know what was going on or why, the initial time it happened I would go in and out from a dream state I guess you'd call it where I was standing by a lake, and I would hear/feel rumbling vibrations throughout my body.. I remember thinking in the dream like it reminded me of one of those big 18 wheeler trucks and the sound they make when approaching, and then I would go back to seeing the room around me. I would try to move but I couldn't, I tried to call out to someone but I couldn't, and I kept being pulled back into this dreamstate. Also, all the other things like feeling of suffocation and having a heartattack I felt, and then finally I went back to the dreamstate and there was these crazy loud rumbling noises I could feel/hear in my ears, I began looking down at the ground, and like to the right side of me I could see a shadow, no particular shape, but kind of the way it looks when someone behind you is approaching you. I don't know why but all I knew was that it felt evil and that I felt like if I didn't snap myself out of it and move or get my self awake, that like this shadow would possess me or come into my body ... I just felt like I was about to die really.. I don't know how or what but I did finally snap myself out of it and woke up sweating and freaked out... I couldnt sleep the rest of the night cause just laying there I still felt scared. Like, even though I didn't see anything just the feeling of like someone watching me in the room, so I had to get up and try and get my mind off of it.
Since then I've had it happen, but as I've gotten older it's not as often... it still has the same impact of fear no matter what, but I'm more aware now of how to handle it and just keep pushing myself to try and move and wake up or snap out of whatever trance feeling it is. Seems like no matter what though, that initial pull, like i guess to describe it would be like magnetic pull and force pressure on my heart that just radiates throughout my body ... you just can never get used to. As I said, with getting older, I've become better at snapping myself out of it pretty early on so that it doesn't go very far.
I feel for anyone who deals with these things and there really isn't any type of comfort because it just will happen whenever, there's no way to predict or prepare for it, it's like something that has to run its course whenever it begins.
If there are certain things you can do to help avoid it, I'm not sure of them, but I'd be open-minded to anyone's suggestions or thoughts.

[Jennings]

I too have experienced the physical pressure and the suffocation and I was not asleep but in bed resting awaiting for my wife to join me. The bedroom light was out at the time and it was dark. It occurred as the culmination of a number of other physical-like experiences that had been happening over a period of time. It immediately lifted when my wife entered the bedroom and switched-on the light; I too was petrified. It (whatever it was) never returned and my view is that it has not done so due to my fear but from what some of you say, even with fear it keeps returning. You might wish to Google for the Web page of Robert Monroe to see if the experience fits. Read his first book, in particular, which you should find interesting. My experience happened during the late 1970s.

Thanks for your interesting posting, Korynne.