Hello Everyone, firstly Thanks for your support and response to my previous post about The Himalayas.
So today I am going to share one of the scariest thing that happened once or more than once with most of us.
This is a serious issue and I hope that you will spare some time to read this long post.

Has it ever happened to you that all of a sudden you woke up in a nightmare and felt as numb as death? All your muscles went stiff and immovable and you were unable to call out for help. You felt terrified; a sickening vibration ran up your spine and it was as if a demon was trying to break free from within yourself but was being encountered by the heavyweight on your chest, just like someone malicious had occupied it as its seat. You hallucinated an intruder or something frightening to you, completely or partially aware that its just an evil dream yet unable to come out of it, unable to wake up in the real world. Well, if all these ring a bell, you surely are acquainted with and a sufferer of SLEEP PARALYSIS. Until a few years back, I used to get these attacks quite often and irrespective of how many times I experienced those awful fits, they were equally petrifying every single time. If you ever had had such experience, you might find this blog interesting as well as helpful as I’ll be summing up everything about SLEEP PARALYSIS in this one, covering the causes, the remedy and how it’s similar yet nothing like the pleasant LUCID DREAMING and well, I’ll tell how you can convert your SLEEP PARALYSIS attack into a LUCID DREAM.

So after researching for quite a long time and practicing it I feel that I should also share it with you.

• So what is SLEEP PARALYSIS?

SLEEP PARALYSIS is the transitional state between being awake and being sound asleep. You know it is sleep paralysis when, mostly while imminently going back to sleep after waking up abruptly or while stirred up from being asleep, you are unable to move.


You are completely or partially conscious of the surroundings. This is often accompanied by scary hallucinations and feeling of a strong current or vibration, specially through your torso. Many of us might find it intriguing to believe the popular myths about the demon sitting on top of you and your body vibrating because something evil is trying to break free. I heard cock and bull stories of how, because an alien species makes your soul a gateway into this world, you experience sleep paralysis. There are also the familiar stories about incubus and succubus. Well, you will be happy to know that these are all lies and the more you believe them consciously, your subconscious mind will make you suffer longer and harder in the event of future sleep paralysis attacks. So stop feeding your demons because studies have come up with ample scientific explanation of the occurrence of this dismal phenomenon.

Sleep Paralysis, when occurs, can persist for several seconds to several minutes and the experience is eerie. It happened, at least once, to every one out of two people. Like lucid dream, it also occurs while one is in a REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep i.e. while one is supposed to be deeply asleep and dreaming but in reality, is partially asleep and partially dreaming but the thing differentiates Lucid dream from SP is the fact that SP happens when the REM cycle is flawed. When one is into deep REM sleep, the brain instructs the voluntary muscles to relax and go into freeze mode (paralysis), which is called ATONIA. It actually helps to protect the body from injury by stopping one from acting out the movements in one’s dreams. This is why one finds it difficult to wake oneself up from a SLEEP PARALYSIS. RIGHT? Well, read on.

• CAUSES BEHIND SLEEP PARALYSIS

There are 2 main stages of a sleep circle. Each circle lasts for around 90 minutes and we experience around 4-6 of such circles in an average night-sleep. The stages are NREM (Non Rapid Eye Movement) and REM and when the REM sleep dysfunctions and overlaps the NREM sleep, which is much lighter than REM, our brain wakes up before it is supposed to but our body still remains asleep.

Again, when we go to sleep we slowly enter the 1st phase (out of 4 phases) of NREM cycle where our muscles start to relax. Breathing rate and heart rate gradually drop lower in this phase and sometimes we feel like slipping or falling down. In the first 2 phases of NREM our body doesn’t fall into a deep sleep and if the REM stage overlaps these (i.e. starts before the completion of all the 4 phases of NREM), our body freezes while we are still slightly awake. Researchers have found out that it happens especially when a person is suffering from sleep deprivation or disrupted sleep patterns. This is also caused by extreme stress, alcohol, caffeine and other factors.

Another group of researchers found out a reason which describes how our nervous system sometimes become malfunctioned and give wrong signals to the brain that disturbs the sleep cycles causing them to overlap and it mostly happens because of chemical imbalance in the brain.
Twin studies showed that there is also a genetic component present in sleep paralysis. Many who sufferers of Sleep Paralysis admit that their parents or some other family had experienced consistent sleep paralysis at certain stages of their life and that stage often coincides with their own.

Another theory states that the mirror neuron system is responsible for inducing “the intruder hallucination” and out-of-body experiences during sleep paralysis. The mirror neuron system is modulated by sensory afferents and the prefrontal cortex and interacts with the right superior parietal lobule of the human brain. A functional disturbance of these circuits would interfere with the feeling of receding in one's body. According to this theory, sleep paralysis creates the hallucinations of human-like shadowy beings.
Also sometimes people get under such attack because they attempt to breathe deeply and find themselves unable to do so. It creates a sensation of resistance which activates the threat detecting system in our brain which interprets the situation as an uncanny and mysterious being sitting on the person’s chest causing suffocation.

*Enough about the knowledge of Sleep Paralysis,we already know how scary it is. So the best part is how can this scary thing can be converted into a pleasant thing ; basically it is just energy transfer, the negativity changed into the positivity. Let's see how? *

• CONCEPT OF LUCID DREAMING AND HOW TO CONVERT YOUR SLEEP PARALYSIS INTO ONE

As discussed in my previous blog, LUCID DREAMING is a dream in which the dreamer is aware of dreaming. Thus it can be safely assumed that it is also a transitional phase between being consciously wide awake and being deeply in sleep. What contrasts Lucid Dreaming from Sleep Paralysis is that during Lucid Dreaming, the dreamer has some sort of control upon the dream i.e. he/she may be able to able to manipulate it, its characters, narrative and ambience. If put more simply, a dreamer has the same authority upon Lucid Dream as has the author upon his novel. So, how to gain that authority?

• A little warm up session for the dreaming brain

If you really intend to turn your Sleep Paralysis into an ‘under-my-control’ Lucid Dreaming a bit preparation is necessary and the most significant lesson is to be able to distinguish between your reality and dream. Dream Recall is of utmost importance. You have got to find a way to preserve records of your dreams before your memory becomes oblivious of them. Keep record of every fragment, no matter how much of gobbledygook it may seem. While in that transitional state between consciousness and sleep, try to pay attention to ‘dream signs’. These are the things that would never occur in your normal life. For example, a spooky apparition, an impossible deed by yourself, historical figures etc. This way you can convince your brain more firmly of being in a dream and not in reality which will in turn muster the body to wake up.

• The WILD METHOD:

The Wake Induced Lucid Dream (WILD) method is one of the most preferred techniques to prepare to have a lucid dream. It is useful for people dealing with Sleep Paralysis and can also be practised by others to have some fun with Lucid Dreaming. Follow up the steps:
1. Be tired and relaxed so as to fall asleep as soon as possible. But careful, you have to be just tired enough to retire into the transitional state and not exhaust yourself as you do not intend to fall fast asleep. Set an alarm to wake up after 4 to 6 hours of sleep.
2. Once in bed, focus on relaxing your feet and imagine them releasing their weight and going numb gradually. Apply the same technique with the rest of your body and mind not to move. This way you are going to convince your brain that you are asleep.
3. Now for your mind, try to contemplate a repetitive thought like going to some place from your home and coming back while analyzing the ambience, the texture, the sound and smells emanating from anything and everything in the way and if you are not good in visualizing, try to listen to the sounds around you but nothing too loud or distracting. What I do to remain conscious is try to imagine my arms or legs while I am laying there.
4. After few minutes, your body should begin to enter to a hypnologic state- the one intermediating being awake and being asleep. You might hear a faint droll, feel a pulsing or visualize random patterns of light. These are completely normal. What you are ought to do is to stay calm. It might take you a few trials to get completely at home with the thing especially if you had fearful sleep paralysis experiences in the past.
5. Many a times, while trying to manipulate their brains into believing that the body has fallen asleep, the person actually falls asleep and gets caught into Sleep Paralysis. This is why, while trying the method out it is very important to be able to distinguish whether one is actually awake or in a dream. In this case, trying to recognize ‘dream signs’ mentioned earlier can be helpful. Try to figure out what is happening instead of believing that you are still awake. You’re already halfway to a Lucid Dream because your body is technically asleep but your mind is aware. Do not try to move your physical body as you will unintentionally excite the part of your brain responsible for hallucinations. Accept your immobility and try to bring into imagination a place or an ambience you want to be in.
6. Once you realize what is happening in your Sleep Paralysis i.e. about the intruder in your room or whatever you might be visualizing or what’s causing the heavyweight on your chest rather than thinking that you are still awake, you should begin to enter a dream state. You should now be able to convert it into your preferred dream. Try to imagine a land amiable to you and you would be in it. But that’s not the end of it. Try to stabilize that dreamland of yours; plunge into action in your imagination. Do whatever you want to with whatever you find in your dreamland. Grab it, utilize it, convince your brain of your pseudo-reality. Yes, convincing your brain is the main goal.
When you are in full command of what your brain is believing in and you know that you hold the reins of the land you are in, Congrats, you have successfully rendered a frightening Sleep Paralysis into a congenial Lucid Dream.

So, I guess next time you face an attack of the horrifying Sleep Paralysis you will be fully equipped to counter attack it and in as a gift for your valour gain a beautiful Kingdom created of your own imagination. The advice would be to pay emphasis on practising the warm ups as well as the WILD method voluntarily. Remember, practice makes you perfect. All the best ;)

P. S. If you are looking for any other way to get out of Sleep Paralysis rather than converting it into Lucid Dreaming, you can try out the following:
1.Try twitching your fingers and toes or clutching your fist for waking yourself up because sleep paralysis mostly affects the middle portion of your torso.
2.Try not to struggle. Remember the more you struggle the harder the current flows. Try to relax yourself, take deep breaths, calm your body and you will go back to sleep.

3.The ultimate solution is to clench your face muscles, snort frown and do the same thing when you smell something bad. Do this for 2-3 times and it will wake you up 70-100% of the times.

Thanks, I hope it helps! Waiting for your responses!!

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