Hallucinations upon waking?

[amc80]

This has happened to me a few times. Most recently (though it was a couple of years ago) I woke up to see a man standing on my husband's side of the bed (DH wasn't home). He was old and scraggly looking, and he started to crawl across the bed (think Samara-like from the Ring) towards me. I initially felt paralyzed, then freaked and scrambled off the bed, and "woke up" standing next to the bed and he had vanished. I thought it was a nightmare that just felt really, REALLY real.

That is until DD, who was 5 at the time, called me from her room, crying, about 15 minutes later. She said she had a dream that she woke up, looked out her window and saw an old man standing in the driveway watching her. She also said that he was a "bad man" and that she couldn't move or breathe.



I'm still quite freaked out by it!

This just gave me chills. Eek!!

 

[amc80]

I read this entire thread, thankful this has never happened to me...until I got to one of the spider dreams and remembered I did have one. Maybe 6 months ago or so. I woke up thinking there was a spider on me or in the bed or something (can't quite remember). I HATE spiders so it freaked me out. DH woke up and turned the lights on and searched, but there was no spider to be found. It was so real. I can't imagine seeing people, that would warrant staying up all night.

 

[Maisie]

I read this entire thread, thankful this has never happened to me...until I got to one of the spider dreams and remembered I did have one. Maybe 6 months ago or so. I woke up thinking there was a spider on me or in the bed or something (can't quite remember). I HATE spiders so it freaked me out. DH woke up and turned the lights on and searched, but there was no spider to be found. It was so real. I can't imagine seeing people, that would warrant staying up all night.

You would think so! But I always fall asleep really easily afterwards. I flap for about 5 minutes then realise it was all in my head and I settle down. My daughter told me she would refuse to sleep in the house if she saw anything but what can I do? I can't just up and leave. I could sleep in the garden shed I suppose

 

[Silvia]

I'm not stressed out. The only thing that is different in my life at the minute is that I have given up sugar. I started 21/2 weeks ago. About the same time as the night terrors got really bad. I had them before but not very often. Now its every other night. I don't eat anything processed or anything with sugar in it. I don't suppose its connected but thats the only thing that has changed recently.

I've also limited eating sugar & most carbs for only the weekends since July last year also, but I don't remember any weird dreams apart from the usual ones :/ hopefully they go away soon for you.

What an interesting thread.

A few years ago I used to constantly have something similar to 'night terrors' or 'hypnagogic hallucinations', especially when I was lacking in sleep and wanted to sleep the most.
Basically I found if I was super super tired, my body would fall asleep but my mind would wake up again and I would feel like a buzzing sort of sensation I guess like an electric current. I used to get so scared as I couldn't move or make any sound or scream, and I wanted help so badly. Sometimes it would feel like there was someone squashing me. After quite a while (months) some nights I was able to 'control' the buzzing feeling (but I was not be able to get rid of it completely), but be able to move it around my body... I would eventually be able to shake it and move or wake up, but as someone previously said I think I was partially asleep still. Some of the dreams prior to waking up involved knowing there was people in my house/room or getting attacked in bed and that seriously scared me (I lived in a share house, but always had my bedroom door locked)
I googled it, and it explained why it happened, but for some reason it freaked me out (ghosty spirity stuff scares me), but it eventually went away.

There is a Vietnamese superstition, the direct translation is 'if you play with shadows, ghosts will squash or lie on you at night'. Luckily I never experienced them when I was a child!!

I used to have the same sensations during sleep paralysis! The feeling of an electric current running over my body and not being able to move was terrifying. I would also hear voices and conversations in unknown languages. I seriously thought I was going crazy. This would happen every night for about a month during my freshman year in college. During the scariest episode, I realized that that energy I felt vibrating over me was actually my "spirit" trying to leave my body. A strange sort of sleep-induced astral projection I guess

I told my mom about the incidents and she also suggested a nightly affirmation about not fearing such experiences and having control over them if they did happen. For whatever reason the terrors stopped soon after. Good Luck and sleep well

Noo! That's scary, I don't want my spirit running away... I think I read something like that and stopped reading about it because it creeped me out!


Speaking about weird dreams though, last night (or the night before) I had dreams about rich people and kids throwing giant frozen spiders at me and my hands were busy so I couldn't deflect them all!! Ew

 

[Maisie]

I'm not stressed out. The only thing that is different in my life at the minute is that I have given up sugar. I started 21/2 weeks ago. About the same time as the night terrors got really bad. I had them before but not very often. Now its every other night. I don't eat anything processed or anything with sugar in it. I don't suppose its connected but thats the only thing that has changed recently.

I've also limited eating sugar & most carbs for only the weekends since July last year also, but I don't remember any weird dreams apart from the usual ones :/ hopefully they go away soon for you.

What an interesting thread.

A few years ago I used to constantly have something similar to 'night terrors' or 'hypnagogic hallucinations', especially when I was lacking in sleep and wanted to sleep the most.
Basically I found if I was super super tired, my body would fall asleep but my mind would wake up again and I would feel like a buzzing sort of sensation I guess like an electric current. I used to get so scared as I couldn't move or make any sound or scream, and I wanted help so badly. Sometimes it would feel like there was someone squashing me. After quite a while (months) some nights I was able to 'control' the buzzing feeling (but I was not be able to get rid of it completely), but be able to move it around my body... I would eventually be able to shake it and move or wake up, but as someone previously said I think I was partially asleep still. Some of the dreams prior to waking up involved knowing there was people in my house/room or getting attacked in bed and that seriously scared me (I lived in a share house, but always had my bedroom door locked)
I googled it, and it explained why it happened, but for some reason it freaked me out (ghosty spirity stuff scares me), but it eventually went away.

There is a Vietnamese superstition, the direct translation is 'if you play with shadows, ghosts will squash or lie on you at night'. Luckily I never experienced them when I was a child!!

I used to have the same sensations during sleep paralysis! The feeling of an electric current running over my body and not being able to move was terrifying. I would also hear voices and conversations in unknown languages. I seriously thought I was going crazy. This would happen every night for about a month during my freshman year in college. During the scariest episode, I realized that that energy I felt vibrating over me was actually my "spirit" trying to leave my body. A strange sort of sleep-induced astral projection I guess

I told my mom about the incidents and she also suggested a nightly affirmation about not fearing such experiences and having control over them if they did happen. For whatever reason the terrors stopped soon after. Good Luck and sleep well

Noo! That's scary, I don't want my spirit running away... I think I read something like that and stopped reading about it because it creeped me out!


Speaking about weird dreams though, last night (or the night before) I had dreams about rich people and kids throwing giant frozen spiders at me and my hands were busy so I couldn't deflect them all!! Ew

Oh my! I don't mind spiders but even I would be afraid of a giant one... frozen or not!!!

 

[honey22]

OMG Maise, I don't post here often anymore but had to respond to this one!

This happens to me quite frequently, last night in fact. It has happened for about 8 years now and it always freaks me out. I wake up screaming and crying and my rate rate and breathing is through the roof. My doggies (who are normally quite good guard dogs) are so used to it they don't even come and check on my anymore lol.

I have never had it checked out as I didn't even think about it to be honest, but now I am curious.

I have always thought that perhaps spirits were trying to contact me but I was get so freaked out, I couldn't possibly communicate with them.

I probably should know better, as a scientist myself I probably should have thought that there was some sort of sane reasoning for it all.

I can't offer any advice sorry, but in a weird way, it's nice to know I am not alone and probably not crazy.

The man last night was really angry and scary, it was a particularly bad episode. Usually they are not foreboding or angry really, I just get frightened as there appears to be someone in my room when they shouldn't be.

Interestingly, they all started when my uncle died, we inherited his home and hubby and I moved in. One of the earliest 'appearances' was a little boy. Who to me, looked scarily like my uncle when he was a little boy.

Geez, I sound crazy when I read it back.....

ETA - moving house might not help. My 'visitors' have followed me to the new place. And have hung around for 7 years.

 

[Maisie]

Aww Honey, i'm so sorry this is upsetting you so much. I completely understand the fear though. Its horrible. I'm glad you feel reassured that its not just you though. In a way it makes me feel better too.

I have had a few really good sleeps. I have been sleeping with a lamp on in the room and I haven't seen anything at all. I don't know if its just a coincidence but i'm going to keep using the lamp. I feel so much better without broken sleep. Maybe you could try it? Hugs!

 

[distracts]

*cries*

Stop scaring me, you guys! I don't need my scary-man-in-a-tracksuit-standing-in-the-doorway dreams becoming scarier! (I am pretty sure he is not a robber though as no respectable home invader would wear a white tracksuit.)

Crying, Ericad, CRYING omg your stories are so scary! (This is why I make the dog sleep in the bed with me when my fiance is out of town! To protect me from scary old dream men!)

Anyway re: the spider dreams, one time when I was at camp as a kid, I had that crawling sensation on my face as I was falling asleep, and didn't think anything of it until another girl went "AAAH YOU HAVE A SPIDER ON YOUR FACE!" I brushed it off. It wasn't very scary at all. Maybe this will help with spider dreams?

I do also find my dreams where I wake up and see Tracksuit Man (seriously, what's up with the tracksuit?) in my doorway and feel paralyzed are a very different breed than the dreams where I wake up because I was screaming (or because I was screaming and my fiance woke me up). I never had the Tracksuit Man dreams before I moved in with my fiance, and I think they are a product of looking at the doorway and the way the shadows lie across the wall behind it could make it appear to a highly imaginative mind that there was a dude with dark hair wearing a white tracksuit. Previous places I've lived always had wall-to-wall bookshelves, which do not lend themselves to much misinterpretation. I've also always previously lived on the second to fourth floors, and am irrationally afraid of sleeping in a first-floor room. But it's a one-story house so I don't have much choice!

 

[Maisie]

I would much rather have your man in a tracksuit! He doesn't sound very threatening at all! My men are dark and stooped and menacing. Maybe you could shut the door, or change the drapes in your room so there won't be any light coming in?

 

[distracts]

I've found that leaving my closet door open, so the doorway area shows the darkness of the closet instead of the closed closet door, helps. Which is funny because I used to be terrified of leaving the closet door open.

 

[Maisie]

I hate leaving my closet door open. Thats where all the clothes I am too fat for are

 

[jeweln]

maisie
I am glad you are getting a good night's sleep with the lamp on ,I guess spirits do not like the light !

 

[fieryred33143]

Honey that sounds scary. I think you should consider checking it out for sure.

Maise I'm so glad the lamp is helping. Weird how small changes can make a huge difference.

I get sleep paralysis often. I would say 2-5 times a month. It's frightening. My eyes are open, I can see the room and hear sounds but I can't move. It feels like I need to fall back to sleep but I'm always so afraid that I won't wake up because it honestly feels like I'm being compressed. So I "shake" myself awake, although not really shaking, and when I do fully wake I get an awful headache. Once it happens, it happens about 8 times in a row. The only thing that will stop it is finding the perfect spot on bed or having FI hold me really tightly. When I was younger I used to see things too, like animals and men, but I'm not one to believe in ghosts and what not too much so I just chalk it up to mind tricks.

 

[AGBF]

As some of you know, my stress level has been rather high for the past year or so. Not only has my daughter, who has severe emotional problems, been doing poorly, but my husband has been filing divorce papers and what not. At one point I had a strange experience while asleep where I am living in Connecticut. I felt an uncontrollable shaking in my head. I tried to make it stop, but I couldn't. It was very, very scary. Then I became fully awake/conscious. I ran to the mirror and checked my face for signs of stroke. I saw no signs of lopsidedness. My tongue looked straight. I seemed to speak normally. I nonetheless ran downstairs and woke up my father and told him I thought I was having a stroke or a seizure. He immediately told me I wasn't, that I was just under too much stress. I don't know where my daughter was. Usually she sleeps with me, so maybe she had just been hospitalized that night!

I had an appointment with my neurologist in Virginia (whom I see purely for headaches) for later that month, so I moved it up to later that week. I drove down to Virginia just to see my doctor because I was so worried about what had happened. He gave me a once over in the office and, like my father, said he didn't think I had had a TIA or a stroke, but then he went on to order every test under the sun for me! So in the next couple of days I stayed in Virginia and was scanned and MRIed and EEGed from stem to stern. Brain stem. Carotid arteries. Sleeping. Awake. You name it! The result was that I had definitely not had a TIA or a stroke. I might have had a dream. I asked if it was possible I had been grinding my teeth in my sleep since I hadn't been wearing my nightguard and it had occurred to me that as I slept the grinding might have alarmed me! (The neurologist was noncommital about that. He just kept saying I hadn't had a TIA or a stroke!) My GYN has taken to referring to this as my "near-stroke experience".

It is not, however, the only way that I experience stress in the night! I also scream frequently and make long speeches. My husband used to marvel at the coherent speeches I gave. My daughter rudely interrupts them. If I am interrupted, I often feel the need to finish what I am saying in the dream since I am usually pleading a case. Last night, however, I was screaming at someone how much I hated her! On one occasion I had to spit something out in a dream and found myself spitting on the pillow in reality...which made me call up my childhood friend the next morning and tell her that she was now not alone. She had once dreamed she went to the dentist who told her to spit...and she did (on the pillow).

The sleep state obviously still holds a lot of mysteries for most of us. I don't know well it is understood by anyone yet. It is clearly of great importance to human beings, however!

Deb/AGBF

 

[sonnyjane]

On one occasion I had to spit something out in a dream and found myself spitting on the pillow in reality...which made me call up my childhood friend the next morning and tell her that she was now not alone. She had once dreamed she went to the dentist who told her to spit...and she did (on the pillow).

The sleep state obviously still holds a lot of mysteries for most of us. I don't know well it is understood by anyone yet. It is clearly of great importance to human beings, however!

Deb/AGBF

I have a vivid memory of wetting the bed when I was 5 or 6 years old. I was dreaming, and in my dream, I was in the arctic, it was freezing, and there were icebergs and lots of penguins. I kept looking at the ocean and thinking "oh man I have to peeeeee" but I was trying to hold it (in my dream). Well, then the penguins started talking to me and said "Hey, it's okay! Just pee and you'll feel nice and warm!" so I listened to the penguins and totally peed my bed! Oh, the subconscious mind...

 

[AGBF]

On one occasion I had to spit something out in a dream and found myself spitting on the pillow in reality...which made me call up my childhood friend the next morning and tell her that she was now not alone. She had once dreamed she went to the dentist who told her to spit...and she did (on the pillow).

The sleep state obviously still holds a lot of mysteries for most of us. I don't know well it is understood by anyone yet. It is clearly of great importance to human beings, however!

I have a vivid memory of wetting the bed when I was 5 or 6 years old. I was dreaming, and in my dream, I was in the arctic, it was freezing, and there were icebergs and lots of penguins. I kept looking at the ocean and thinking "oh man I have to peeeeee" but I was trying to hold it (in my dream). Well, then the penguins started talking to me and said "Hey, it's okay! Just pee and you'll feel nice and warm!" so I listened to the penguins and totally peed my bed! Oh, the subconscious mind...

I wish I could make one of those "old fashioned" smiling faces out of a closing parenthesis and a colon! It would express my feeling about the innocent sweetness of that memory, more than a smarmy icon would! Thank you for sharing that, sonnyjane.

Deb

 

[distracts]

Okay, so of course I had one of those night terrors with the paralysis last night! I woke up at about 3:30 and thought I heard noises and was petrified. Then I FULLY woke up, and realized there were no noises, but was still petrified. I couldn't go back to sleep for nearly two hours, I was so scared. The memory of Ericad's old man story did not help!

(What did help was walking all around the house to check that it was empty, and then turning the lights in the bedroom on.)

 

[Circe]

Dudes, glad I'm not the only one who was freaked out by Erica's description!

I don't have the exact kinds of dreams y'all are describing, but I'll frequently have dreams where I'm either fighting with someone/fighting someone off where I feel frustratingly powerless, or dreams where I'm shouting where I feel like I'm choking on my words: I assume in both cases it's because my mind is so worked up it's trying to actually move my body, and processing the fact that I'm asleep and fairly immobile as weakness.

I hate it. But aside from trying to remember to do the lucid dreaming tricks (checking my watch, etc., since you can't tell time properly in dreams), there's not much to be done.

A question for those of you who have the waking/waking dreams: have you tried wearing sleep masks? I put one on for a rare daytime nap the other day, and it occurred to me that it might give you a clear kind of demarcation if you have to pull it off to check and make sure ....

 

[distracts]

I do wear sleep masks on occasion, but they come off in my sleep, so by the time I have something scary happening, the sleep mask is probably wedged between the bed and the mattress.

I do know that I only have regular nightmares when I am too hot while sleeping - I don't know if this corresponds to the night terrors though. But I never had one during the period of time when I lived in an airconditionless apartment (makes it very hot in TX), even though it was the most nightmare-filled time of my life.

 

[Maisie]

I've also tried a sleep mask which ends up on the floor at some point through the night.

If I forget to switch my fan on I end up having poor sleep. I over-heat really quickly. I haven't had any more of these scary episodes since I started sleeping with the lamp on. I'm very pleased!