Recently I have been seeing and hearing things. Last night I felt something pressing my hand, I opened my eyes, and I saw a wisp of blackish-grey smoke and something that I think resembled a hand. I wasn't scared becuase it's happened before. But this time it came with a deep graoning sound. It scared to living hell out of me. It lasted for about 5 seconds.
I don't believe in the supernatural, but I could really use an explanantion.
Supernatural....is all I can tell you. I DO believe in it..I don't push my belief on people....but when you post something like that? LOL...sorry..I know it is not funny to you.
So...even if you do not believe in that kind of stuff...IF you want this to stop....buy some incense...SAGE....and burn it in your room...and it will stop 
Spirit's are real entities and often will visit when we sleep. I have seen something similar in my room while I was awake. It resembled a human form and was a misty type thing. It moved silently into my walk in closet and threw my travel bag across the closet. So yes they are real and can do physical things like touch and moving objects. It probably isn't dangerous. I doubt it is causing sleep paralysis.
Edrick, This is quite normal in sleep paralysis (SP) and it's nothing to do with the supernatural! I can speak with some authority on the subject as a former neuro nurse and, more importantly, someone who's had SP with all its attendant hallucinations for 50 years.
I'm sure you know this already, but for the benefit of anyone else reading my post, who might not understand, this is how it works. During the REM (dreaming) phase of sleep our brain secretes a chemical that paralyses our voluntary muscles, for the obvious reason that if it didn't, we'd all be running around acting out our dreams. In a tiny handful of people, the chemical doesn't get secreted and they do indeed act out their dreams, but that's another sleep disorder, and fortunately a very rare one.
In the much more common SP disorder that both of us suffer from, the brain either starts secreting the chemical before we're asleep or carries on for a minute or so after we wake up. In some people it stops there. They wake paralysed, then manage to move after a few seconds but with no "special effects".
Some of my SP episodes are kind of vanilla-flavoured like the above, but the majority are more like yours. Unfortunately, hallucinations are very common in the SP state, and they can affect any of the senses. Mine are mainly tactile but sometimes have auditory elements. My father's affected just about all his senses. He often saw very unpleasant things and smelled them too. And yes, SP is strongly hereditary. My father, at least one of his siblings and my grandmother all had it.
I can see from your post that you basically understand that you're not being attacked by anything scarier than your own unconscious - though I realise that's quite scary enough! In addition to having SP myself I've been in a lot of contact with sufferers on-line in the past, and it's always struck me that SP hallucinations (including mine) are far more likely to be unpleasant than enjoyable, though there are exceptions. I've come to the conclusion that it's our instinctive fear of what we perceive to be "the other" that makes them so frightening. Even now, when I'm well aware that I'm only being mugged by my own unconscious, I can still react with fear in that first second when the hands grab me (or whatever) and the fear is enough to cause the whole thing to turn ugly.
Before I forget, that deep groaning you heard was probably you, even though you might have perceived it as external. As I get older I've started to snore, and I've noticed that more and more of my SP hallucinations involve growling dogs! However, I also occasionally hear noises that clearly haven't been physically generated by me - mostly just running footsteps and, for some strange reason, taps being turned full on. Maybe I was traumatised by a running tap when I was a child!
There are all kinds of strategies for avoiding these attacks, and getting out of them once they occur. The most important is to identify your triggers. My main trigger is getting overheated in the night. I also tend to get SP at times when I'm sleeping too much, or if I drink a glass of wine too many in the evening. And stress is a good all-rounder too, of course. In fact my first ever SP attack came in the run-up to my nursing finals. However, everyone has their own triggers. Getting over-tired can be one, smoking weed, over-stimulation in the last hour before bedtime (e.g. gaming), sleeping too near an electrical junction box of any kind or under high-tension cables. The last one might seem surprising, but neuroscientist Michael Persinger (google him) has postulated that it's an electro-magnetic phenomenon, and has even been able to replicate some of the effects in the lab.
To get out of an attack, concentrate hard on the real position of your body, which can be harder than it sounds because of the nature of some attacks, and try to wiggle the last joint of your fingers or the tip of your tongue.
I've also learned over the years to talk to my "attacker" - which is, of course, just another part of me. When I say talk, I mean mentally as it's quite difficult to produce a sound while paralysed. Getting angry and shouting at "it" is seldom helpful and usually makes things worse. Some people find it helps to calmly ask: "What do you want?" In more recent years, I've discovered that it works better if I reassure this other bit of me. I now say: "It's all right, I like you". A psychologist once told me that this indicates that it's the Freudian id (google again) that's at play here, as this is a rather whiny, needy part of our psyche.
Finally, you can go to your doctor and ask for antidepressants. They suppress REM sleep so will completely stop your SP attacks. I gather this is how most people deal with the condition these days. Each to his own, but I personally think this is a pity. For one thing, antidepressants can have some nasty side-effects and withdrawal from them can be difficult. And in any case, SP is very manageable once you get used to it and understand yourself.
Most people find the frequency of attacks declines with age, ditto the severity. This has certainly been my case. Now, in my 70s, I only have two or three attacks a month, and most of these are very brief and don't involve hallucinations.
Please don't hesitate to contact me by private message if you want to. Click on the envelope icon under my avatar. PMs via this site don't carry viruses or expose the email address of either party.
Hello Craig, I know your intentions are good and that you are trying to help me.
But I think you can understand when I say that I cannot shape my understanding of reality based on someone else's experience. I find it very hard to believe what you're saying. I'm not accusing you of lying about the experience you had, but I'm sure you can understand that it's rather difficult to process. And if spirits really do exist, which I don't think I can either prove or disprove, then that makes things worse for people who go through these things. How can someone possibly go to bed at night not being constantly overshadowed by fear of what could happen?
Hello Missy, thank you for expressing your concern. But if I had to choose between beleiving that this was supernatural or if was just me, I would go with the latter. Frankly, I know for a fact that almost everyone who believes in the supernatural also believes in a God(Gods). I do not.
But despite my beliefs I find it hard to sleep peacefully at night. And to be honest a scientific understanding of these experience, I think, is the best way to put people at ease.
just get the sage anyway...it doesn't mean you have to believe in God or spirits...its just a scientific way to rid..bad energy...
I have had sleep peralysis before and I don't think a spirit caused it. I do believe in spirits and you could have been touched by one. They are nothing to fear. You could see a sleep specialist, they may be able to help with the sleep issues. I don't think it is caused by the super natural.
Hi Craig, I too suffer sleep paralysis. I've been touched, pinched, scratched, bitten and far worse during my attacks, but I know it wasn't a spirit that did it. In the SP state we're very susceptible to hallucinations, because of the close link to the dream state. (Sleep paralysis, arises on entering or coming out of the REM, or dreaming, phase of sleep.)
I suspect not everyone understands the nature of hallucinations. We tend to think of them only as seeing or hearing things, and even then only in the imagination. The truth is that hallucinations can affect every one of our senses and that we perceive them as utterly real. I don't imagine that I'm being physically assaulted or thrown around the room during my SP attacks. My perception of the pain and other unpleasant sensations is utterly real. However, that doesn't mean these events have any independent reality outside of my head. If they did, I'd wake up black and blue some mornings, and I don't.
It can sometimes be useful to spend a night in the sleep lab, just to confirm that there is a disorder of REM sleep, which might reassure the person that there's no supernatural activity involved. However, there are two problems with this. The first is that the person might not suffer any abnormalities during that particular night. This often happens, as people feel secure in the sleep lab environment, and attacks tend to be generated by anxiety. This can reinforce the supernatural hypothesis.
In the event a REM abnormality is detected, and especially if the person actually experiences an SP attack in the lab, many sleep doctors will automatically prescribe an antidepressant drug, in the belief that if the patient has presented at the lab, he/she will automatically want treatment for the condition. This can then lead to the medicalisation of what is simply a variant of the normal, experienced by about 5% of the population. It's a perfectly harmless condition, with no sinister outcomes, which tends in any case to decline with increasing age, and can largely be managed by a few lifestyle changes and an understanding of what's going on.
Some SP experients are so disturbed by their attacks that they prefer to spend the rest of their life on antidepressants, with all their unpleasant side-effects and withdrawal problems. I wouldn't criticise them for that, as I know how frightening these attacks can be when you don't understand what's going on. My concern is that some sleep doctors insist on treating SP as an illness that can only be managed by medical intervention, without explaining all the options.
I'll keep that in mind. Thank you.
I know, I have many sleep issues and need to be on CPAP, however I don't use it due to the air being to warm for me. I didn't mean to imply that sp was supernatural. One can have both experiences and they are not related. When I saw the spirit form moving through my room I was wide awake and watching TV. It ended with my travel bag being thrown against the wall. I watched this happen before me with disbelief and I have had experiences after that as well, but it has nothing to do with my sleep. I was saying that one can have both experiences either together or apart. I don't expect anyone who hasn't experienced the supernatural to beiieve in it, so I get it, but there are so many things in this world that we don't understand.
Hi Craig,
I actually agree with you that there are things we don't understand. Although I believe that 99% of descriptions of so-called supernatural events are either misperceptions (e.g. mistaking the planet Venus for a UFO) or deliberate fakes of the kind we see regularly on a certain UK newpaper site (fishing lines attached to objects etc.), I do believe that a tiny proportion cannot be explained by science as we know it. I've had a few experiences of this type myself, though never connected with sleep paralysis.
I don't, however, believe in the concept of the supernatural. What I believe is that we don't know the rules of the Universe, but in our arrogance we - or at least most of our scientists - think we do. I believe modern science has only really uncovered the tip of the iceberg. I know most scientists would ridicule me for these ideas, but are they so far-fetched? Think of the struggle of those brave physicists who started postulating quantum theory 100 years ago. They were ridiculed for suggesting that everything worked quite differently at the subatomic level. Even now, ideas like a single particle being in two different places at the same time, or being able to influence another particle on the other side of the universe sound supernatural. Just as particle physics didn't disprove or negate Newtonian physics, but rather expanded it, I believe we have a lot more to learn about how our universe works - learning which will fit in with what we already know but expand it to levels we can't even contemplate at our stage of development. Once our knowledge has expanded sufficiently, we will understand the science behind all events, even those that seem inexplicable now, and the concept of the supernatural will disappear. Then we will no more be frightened of these things than modern man is frightened of electricity.
Oh yes, we're supposed to be talking about sleep, aren't we? I digress... as usual! I have to go to the sleep lab in the autumn too, as it looks as if I have sleep apnoea. I think I've had it for years, but my last GP always insisted women couldn't get it, so wouldn't refer me. Now I've moved house I have a new GP who says that's nonsense. I too am worried about having to use a CPAP machine, especially as I suffer from an autoimmune condition that already causes dry mouth.
Hi Ederick.
Just came across your post and felt i had to butt in and straighten out a "fact" you seem to have somehow distorted.
I do NOT believe in any type of god.
I do NOT believe in any type of religion.
I do, however, believe in the supernatural because of personal experience.
A lot of people i have known did not believe in the supernatural at all until they had an experience of their own.
I'm not saying this is your situation, or that what you are experiencing is supernatural.
I think you suffer from a thing called sleep paralysis.
My son has this problem but has learnt to realise and tell himself it's unreal and that everything will return to normal.
When the feeling passes, he merely goes back to sleep.
Many people suffer from this.
Once you are able to overcome the anxiety it causes, as my son did, i believe you will be fine.
I hope this helps.
I, too believe it may be something supernatural. Since you have seen this black wispy thing,ehst else could it have been? Have you recent!y used a ouji board or participated in a house hunt, evp,etc? That is when you open yourself up to these experiences. Or have you just moved into a new place? Have you been attempting an out of body experience ? Sleep paralysis sometimes is experienced prior to a spontaneous out of body experience.
You may not want to hear this, but these demonic experiences are frequently associated with these groweling sounds. If it gets bad enough, your only
Cure will be , God.
Alternatively, in the states there are many TV shows that specialize in investigating these things. Mediums will actually come to your hour and tell you if there are evil spirits there,what they want and if they are dangerous.
Well, you're perfectly entitled to your opinion, but there are other ways of looking at this. I'm a former neuro nurse who's had sleep paralysis with severe hallucinations (tactile, proprioceptive and auditory) for 50 years, and I couldn't agree less.
You're quite right in one way. Taking part in any experience (ouija board etc.) that may have spooked the individual or made him/her feel guilty about it can indeed trigger a "bad trip" during a sleep paralysis attack. But one doesn't necessarily have to attribute this to the supernatural. When in this state, we're very vulnerable to the immense forces in our own unconscious - our personal demons if you like. These can be quite scary enough without creating imaginary ones as well.
If there is anyone reading these posts who's been scared witless by their experiences during sleep paralysis (as we all are at first) and wants to talk about it in a more logical framework, please don't hesitate to send me a personal message. Just click on the envelope icon under my avatar. PMs on this site don't disclose the identity of either party or carry viruses.
If, like the title of your post says, you have a history of sleep paralysis, then that's what it probably was. A creation of the mind while you were attempting to slumber.