Over the centuries, spooky stories have warned us of the creatures of the night. But these tales don’t just come from dusty fairytales: they are panicked stories of real experience transmitted down through family lines and melded into myth.

The ghosts, goblins, and werewolves we celebrate during Halloween are still with us today, thanks to the ever-present condition known as sleep paralysis.

Ever felt held down when are waking up?  Like someone is sitting on your chest?  Or felt a cloud of evil lurking in the room while you hear the sound of footsteps shuffling towards you?

These are all symptoms of sleep paralysis, which is the harmless sensing of bodily paralysis that comes with REM sleep.

But it gets weirder when you start projecting your dream imagery into the bedroom, literally calling to order your worst nightmare.

To honor the spooks of sleep paralysis, I teamed up with Zeo to illustrate the history and complexity of these lucid nightmares throughout the centuries.

Click the image below to see the full sized infographic, and please share it and pass it along!

If you’ve ever woke up and realized you can’t move, or you find yourself sat upon by some foul hag or monster with bad teeth and worse breath, you’ve experienced sleep paralysis. Many sufferers stay up all night to prevent another terrifying episode. Some also find themselves eating a midnight meal, or having a night cap, to calm the fear so sleep comes again. Ironically, these typical ways of coping only increase the likelihood of another encounter.

Instead, you can prevent attacks by reducing stress and getting enough quality sleep at regular intervals.  This is more easily said that done, isn’t it? Here’s my top 10 ways of preventing sleep paralysis naturally, so you can get on with your life.

10 Ways to Lessen Sleep Paralysis

1. Sleep on your side, not your back. The supine position is asking for sleep paralysis, especially if you’ve woken up and are going back to sleep. Try the trick that works for sleep apnea sufferers: place a tennis ball in the pocket of your pajamas to prevent middle-of-the-night roll-overs. 
2. No more night caps or heavy meals before sleep. Alcohol can help you fall asleep, but it also disrupts the sleep cycle. Heavy meals (fats, proteins and sugars) also disrupt sleep.
3. Drink herbal tea or a glass of milk instead. Herbals teas like chamomile, lemon balm, and passion flower gently relax the mind. Milk, or a small cottage cheese snack, contains casein proteins that increases melatonin levels.
4. Wind down before sleep. Give yourself an hour of relaxing time before bed, with soothing music, candles, and/or  your favorite book (especially a book that brings you joy and comfort).
5. Turn off electronics too. Watching TV, playing video games, and texting before bed is linked with greater sleep disruption.
6. Reduce or eliminate caffeine in your diet. Everyone knows it can impede sleep, but caffeine—and withdrawal—also increase anxiety. 
7. Get more sleep. One of the greatest predictors of isolated sleep paralysis (those who don’t have narcolepsy or sleep apnea) is sleep debt. If you aren’t getting more than seven hours of sleep throughout the 24 hour day, chances are you are in sleep debt. In particular, REM sleep deprivation increases the chances, and it’s REM sleep that usually takes the hit when we get six or less hours sleep a night. 
8. Stick with it. However you sleep—all at once in the night, or a long lay down at night with a shorter nap during the day—stick your sleep schedule.  Your circadian rhythm will thank you, and your stress levels will plummet.
9. Try meditation. A simple breathing mediation of watching the breath is one of the fastest and most effective ways of reducing general anxiety without medication. Recent studies suggest the effects of meditation can be seen in the brain within a couple weeks. The brain is plastic, but we have to train it. 
10. Journal your nightmares. It may seem counter-intuitive, but journaling your sleep paralysis nightmares can give you psychological distance. Date your entries and give each one a title. Over time, these valuable reports can help you see patterns regarding when you’re most likely to have SP (seasonally, weekly, menstrual, work-related etc). This record will also be a great clue to learning about what works during the sleep paralysis encounter in terms of waking up, losing your fear, and even facing the uncanny attacker.

I have suffered from sleep paralysis since I was a teen, and learned slowly how to prevent SP, and even encourage it when I want. Sleep paralysis can be a blessing in disguise, especially if you are interested in lucid dreaming, spirituality, or having out-of-body experiences.

To learn more about how to manage and thrive with sleep paralysis, my book is available as an instantly downloadable ebook, and also on Amazon.

And please share your own “prevention” techniques below!

Many readers have asked me about specific tactics for turning a sleep paralysis attack into a lucid dream. Because isolated sleep paralysis happens during REM at sleep onset, we’re only a hair’s breadth away from losing the paralysis sensations and moving deeper into the dreamworld with our self-awareness intact. As such, sleep paralysis is a reliable portal into lucid dreaming, as well as astral projection.

The problem is, we often get stuck in the doorway.

So here’s how to get unstuck. This post is derived from my book Sleep Paralysis.

Gulliver forgot to breathe.

Prerequisites: Affirm, Breathe and Set your Intention

Fear is the number one hurtle to overcome in sleep paralysis. I would be lying if I suggested that I have completely mastered this 100% of the time. SP is freaky by design, and I always have to work with my ego defenses before exploring further. Every. single. time.

First, affirm that “I’m in sleep paralysis” to calm the nerves. The paralysis is a normal mechanism that comes with REM sleep, but being conscious of it and fighting against it only spirals into fear and spookier hallucinations. Acknowledging this is a good preparation for the out-of-control emotions that sometimes come with REM dreams thanks to the strong activation of the amygdala, the part of the brain that the activates fight or flight response.

Next, focus on your breath so you see that you can breath normally. If you try to breathe in quick gulps, you may feel extra pressure or resistance, due to the fact that the throat and chest muscles are slack during REM paralysis and you may also be taking in less oxygen than when awake. Breath is the key to relaxation. Just do it normally, and you’ll notice how more in control you feel.

Then, remember your intention to go deeper into the dream. If you have a specific desire, now is the time to recall it and bring it into the moment. The three techniques that follow are examples of well-formed intentions.

Remember, if it gets too weird, you can always wake up from sleep paralysis.

1. Be Here Now

This method is about imagining where you want to be, and opening your eyes to that reality.  After you have centered yourself, close your eyes. (Your eyes may actually be closed already while you are in SP because you may be dreaming the bedroom scene without knowing it. In either case, closing the eyes is a psychological step towards moving inward.) Notice how the strange floating sensations continue, and relax into them.

Now draw up your intention and make a declaration. For example, “I want to fly over the ocean!” Rather than imagining yourself traveling there, imagine yourself here, at the ocean, right now.  If you are still in the dream state, the dream will emerge from the darkness of your closed eyes. The dream will actually crystallize around you until it seems as real as waking life. Remind yourself, “I’m dreaming,” and notice how clear your mind feels, how real the sensations feel, and how bright the colors are.

2. Enter the Vortex

Close your eyes, and focus your attention in between and slightly above the eyes. When the lights and imagery begin to swim around, keep the focus. After a while, the spectral lights will “gather” around your point of concentration, like a kaleidoscope. Keep the focus, but will yourself to enter this imagery. With practice, if you are still in REM during sleep onset, the imagery will expand and envelope the visual field. This imagery forms a vortex and often is associated with feelings of falling or flying. Go through the tunnel and enter the dream. When you’re in the tunnel, you can set an additional intention about where you want to visit, or you can just wait and see where you emerge. Both will have some surprises.

3. Go with the Flow

This is one of my favorites. Instead of using intentionality (or prospective memory, as Stephen LaBerge calls our remembered desires during lucid dreaming), just go where you are pushed. For example, I often get sleep paralysis when sleeping on my stomach in the late mornings when my sleep is characterized by long REM periods and light sleep. I’ll feel the pressure and gravity pushing me down. I just “pull” where I’m pushed. This is the concept of wu wei in traditional Taoism, defined as “effortless action.”

Often this method causes my perceptual body to melt through the mattress and into a vast empty space in the dreamworld. It’s similar to the lucid dreaming void encountered when going into mirrors or walls during lucid dreaming. From here, I can set an intention, or float around without a dreambody and enjoy the amazing geometric imagery. Sometimes I wake up, and other times, the dream will recrystallize around me.

These techniques are what work for me, and are also based on what I’ve learned from lucid dream teachers, including Stephen LaBerge, Robert Waggoner and Lucy Gillis.

I’m sure there’s more techniques for transforming sleep paralysis, so I welcome you to share your methods for transforming sleep paralysis into a lucid dream.

Cover image “Tunnel” thanks to Jugbo

This time of year, traditionally known as Last Harvest in Europe, and more specifically as the cross-quarter between the Solstice and the Winter Equinox, has a long association with ghosts, goblins and spirits. I’ve explored the Celtic roots of Halloween before, as traditional European culture still plays a heavy hand in how we perceive and celebrate this time of year, even though we often don’t have any idea why we’re doing what we’re doing.  Indeed, giving way food, putting out gourds in the front yard, and dressing up as ghosts are all left-overs from the ancient rites of staying out of the way of spirits as our worlds collide.

So let’s talk about one dreaming source to some of these traditional tales: sleep paralysis. Now, just because someone has a vision during what we today call sleep paralysis or hypnagogic hallucinations does not mean there’s no validity for their experiences. Biology does not explain away inner truths, it only provides a framework for the material correlates to that truth. So, keep this in mind the next time you have a old hag sitting on your chest.

Some common sleep paralysis entities

Vampires

Christopher Lee vants to suck your bluuud

Vampires are not an invention of Romantic era in Europe. They’re a cross-cultural phenomenon. They often are first seen in doorways or thresholds in sleep paralysis, which may be one experiential root to the myth that you have to invite them in. They have long teeth and they bite your neck and steal your vital energies. Sexual vampires, or succubi, are a sub-class of this kind of entity (see below). Bram Stoker’s Dracula was probably inspired by sleep paralysis, by the way. This passage speaks for itself:

“There was in the room the same thin white mist that I had before discovered . . . I felt the same vague terror which had come to me before and the same sense of some presence . . . Then indeed, my heart sank within me: Beside the bed, as if had stepped out of the mist—or rather as if the mist had turned into his figure, for it had completely disappeared—stood a tall, thin man, all in black.  I knew him at once from the description of the others.  The waxen face: the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing between; and the red eyes . . . I would have screamed out, only that I was paralyzed.” ¹

Little people

The Brownie is mischievious and playful

Fairies, goblins, and dark elves are common entities to encounter during sleep paralysis visions.  In German, the word nightmare, “albtraum,” literally means “elf dream.” I wrote more about the connection of elves and paralysis here. These entities are typically playful although they can be ghastly to look at. In Germanic traditions, the goblins known as Brownies are blamed for lost objects and other poltergeist activity in homes. Tricksters by nature, they may poke their hands into places where they shouldn’t.

The Dead (and the Undead)

Many SP visons start with the sound of shuffling feet, chains or other strange noises

Dead people show up in sleep paralysis all the time. A common vision is to see the individual standing by the side of the bed. They are often mute. If you have repetitive encounters with these silent entities, they can be quite communicative if you ask (in your mind) “How can I help you? What do you want?”

A classic hypnagogic-inspired tale of a ghost visitation can be found in Dicken’s Christmas Carol. In this tale, Marley’s visit takes on many of the classic characteristics of a visitation, such as the feeling of presence in the room, followed by the sound of chains and approaching footsteps, and the narrator’s adamant conclusion that he is awake despite the otherworldly nature of the encounter. In Ireland and Hawaii, ancestors are often heard in SP as they traverse “spirit roads.” In these cultures, it’s recommended to not look the creatures in the eye as they pass.

Here’s another account collected from Japanese researchers in the journal Dreaming:

One night in July 1961, Mr. Ishida, a chief mechanic, had a dream of a sailor while he was sleeping in a dormitory room at Tsuiki Air Force Base, Kitsuki County in the nap room of the Tsuiki Airforce Base, Fukuoka Prefecture, which was a commando-type air force base during World War II. The sailor wore a uniform and said he had been killed by being caught in a spinning airplane propeller. While he was dreaming, Mr. Ishida felt a heavy weight in his breast and couldn’t move an inch, though he struggled to. Mr. Ishida examined the history of this air force base and learned that had been such an accident in the past.²

Succubi

This 16th Century sculpture representing a succubus hung outside a brothel

In medieval Europe, accounts suggest that demons could sit on the sufferer’s chest and sexually molest them against their will.  These demons were known as the Incubus (male) and the Succubus (female). The Malleus Maleficarum (“the Witch’s Hammer”), a guidebook written in 1486 and used to prosecute pagans and witches during the Inquisition, suggests that witches are those who voluntarily submit themselves (and have intercourse) with the Incubus demons. Some succubi legends suggest female demons collected men’s sperm during forced intercourse at night.

These encounters still happen today, and according to the accounts I’ve collected, they are not necessarily unpleasant. These entities, who can look undead, or half-human, or even like alien greys, may want to have sex with you while you are paralyzed… yet oddly aroused. In such cases, they may succeed. Orgasms are frequently reported, for both the spirit and the “victim,” although I’m not sure how to tell if the spirits are faking.

Demons and Animal Monsters

An 18th century engraving

Some sleep paralysis entities are really terrible creatures. They may have red glowing eyes or long claws. Some take on the shape of animal hybrids, such as BirdMan, SpiderWoman, and WolfBoy. They have bad manners and sit on your chest and drool on your face. Their breath stinks too. Insect hybrids tend to be more taciturn than mammal hybrids.

Here also are the Alien Greys, with their long limbs, waxy skin, and shiny black eyes.  Aliens have a preference for power tools and medical technologies. These creatures come with purpose. Center yourself and negotiate, or wake yourself up before they bore into your skull.

Sleep paralysis is the original spooky. With nightmares like this, who needs horror movies?

This article is adapted from my book Sleep Paralysis: A Guide to Hypnagogic Visions and Visitors of the Night.

Sources

¹Stoker, B. Dracula. p. 267

²Furuya, H., Ikezoe, K., Shigeto, H., Oyyagi, Y., Arahata, H., Araki, E., and Fujii, N. (2009). Sleep- and non-sleep-related hallucinations—relationship to ghost tales. Dreaming, 19(4), December 2009, pp. 232-238.

First Image: “One summer’s evening…” by John Baeur, 1913. Illustration for “The Changeling” by Helena Nyblom in the anthology Among Pixies and Trolls.

A lot of my focus on sleep paralysis and its related night visions has been on how to transform fear into curiosity. Then a reader recently commented, “I can’t believe no one’s talking about the out-of-body experiences!”  So let’s open the dialogue, because this is one of my favorite aspects of SP/HH, although I make no claims to OBE mastery or the final say on the “reality” of soul travel.

The following is a book excerpt from Sleep paralysis: A guide to hypnagogic hallucinations and visitors of the night. The excerpt includes a couple tactics for inducing OBEs from sleep paralysis, as well as the role that expectation and fear can play in their unfolding.

The experience of being out-of-body has been recounted for thousands of years. Whether you believe that the soul is actually separating from the body or that it is a simulation based on sensations from the brain, out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are highly linked to sleeping and dreaming states.81 Many people start their journeys while lying in bed, and when the experience is over, they wake up safe and sound.

Sleep paralysis is a reliable launching pad to an OBE. The powerful feelings of being crushed, twisted, or pulled along are a good indicator that you can separate your mind (the “I” or the seat of your personal perspective) from these bodily sensations. According to SP expert David Hufford, OBEs are more likely to emerge after SP experiences that last at least 2 minutes.

Here’s an example of an SP-to-OBE I had recently. I was sleep deprived (jetlagged actually) and knew that if I took a nap lying on my back I could probably have a SP. It worked like a charm. Here’s the account:

I hear a rushing sound in my ears; it comes and goes like ocean waves. I focus on my ears so the rushing increases; it comes back in longer and longer durations. Finally, the rushing sensation is constant and I hear a distinct tone as well, like a bell. I try to move but cannot. “I am in sleep paralysis,” I think. I then try to move out of my body. I try to go up but it seems blocked, so I kick myself out to the left and down. It’s an odd sensation; my “me”leaves a part behind. As soon as I’m “out,” everything changes. It is quiet, cool, and dark. I feel like I’m drifting down a stream. I have a small fear arise, and then, I relax into the sensation… it’s very calming. Some lights like stars are overhead. My breathing is slow and deep. After a while, I decide to go back. I wriggle my little toe (which I cannot see because I am still floating down a dark river!) but the focus brings me back. After a few seconds, I can move and I open my eyes.

Note how I calmed my fears, noticed my breath, and finally used the tried-and-true toe wiggle method to wake myself up. With a little practice, these techniques become second nature.

2 Techniques for Inducing OBEs from Sleep Paralysis

Focus on the Belly

This tactic was devised by Jorge Conesa-Sevilla. When you are in SP, focus on your belly. Specifically focus right underneath the navel. Now imagine your body is “rolling up” into that spot. If the feeling of pressure increases just on that spot, but nowhere else, then you are doing it right. When the pressure increases, again use your attention to just “roll” out of your body. You may feel a “pop” as the mind dissociates from body feelings. From here, you can go on to have an out-of-body experience or simply wake up from the dream.

The Sit-Up Trick

This method works for a friend of mine who is an advanced dream adventurer. When he feels he is in SP, he focuses his intention by concentrating on the spot between his eyes, and then, he tries to do a sit-up. Of course, he’s in SP, so he can’t actually sit up. But if the intention is strong enough, rather than waking up, you can “pop” right out of your physical body and float around.

A note concerning fear during OBEs

OBEs are weird. Even veteran explorers of the inner worlds saythat OBEs feel different than the usual dream. They feel more real than real. Sometimes, you may get scared, especially if you start floating off into the sky and have the thought, “What if I never come back?” Like many aspects of conscious dreaming, your beliefs can greatly affect your experience. Sometimes our beliefs can be limiting (“That’s impossible!”), but they can also be grounding (“I trust that I cannot be hurt because I am dreaming”).

Unexamined beliefs are the wild cards: These act as subconscious expectations that can really hijack a conscious dream. Take a moment and reflect on what you believe about out-of-body experiences. Do you believe in a soul? Do you believe in life after death? What about reincarnation? Are you in fear of a final judgment? Is the OBE a trick of the brain, a “virtual reality” owing more to synapses than to souls?

These are the kinds of thoughts that can greatly influence your OBE, negatively or positively. Sometimes, an unexamined belief can actually cause a serious crisis of faith in the middle of these experiences. So, the more you have considered these deep questions, the more comfortable you will be in this profound altered state.

When all else fails, wake up!

Just like a lucid dream or SP proper, you can will yourself to wake up whenever you want during an OBE. Control your breath; control your fear. Also, focusing on one point for a few moments is a good way to disrupt an OBE and lead you closer to snapping back to the “real world,” whatever that means anymore.

Got any other tactics for inducing OBEs from sleep paralysis?  Please share below.

I’m pleased to announce that my new book about sleep paralysis is now available on Amazon! So with the first day of autumn, I officially am a published author.

Sleep Paralysis: A Guide to Hypnagogic Visions and Visitors of the Night is an updated and expanded version of my sleep paralysis ebook. It’s the first printed book about sleep paralysis with a practical how-to perspective to help readers work with their sleep paralysis and hypnagogic experiences.

The book also covers all the latest research into the science, psychology and anthropology of these powerful uncanny encounters that have haunted humanity since we’ve been living in the trees. (Because SP is chiefly a REM phenomenon, it’s reasonable to assume that it occurred throughout hominid evolution).

Auspiciously, not only is today the autumnal equinox but it’s also a full moon. Traditionally, tonight’s full moon is the Harvest Moon, named because “At the peak of harvest, farmers can work late into the night by the light of this Moon,” according to the Farmer’s Almanac. Metaphorically, today is a day for celebrating the bounty of our lives, to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

This moon, as well as the equinox, are also warnings that the dark days lay ahead. Don’t get me started on how I haven’t procured a winter coat yet now that I live in Philadelphia; it’s stressing me out. In my ancestral Celtic traditions, the end of harvest is celebrated as the Celtic new year, Samhain, which falls around November 1st. Today this festival is celebrated as Halloween, the night that the spirits of the dead are visible.

So starting tonight, and culminating on All Hallow’s Eve, the boundaries between this world and the Otherworld are getting thinner…

There’s also a deep connection between sleep paralysis and the Harvest moon. In Old Irish lore, fairies are known to be out and about in force tonight. The good fairies will be making merry and can be found in the forests, far from civilization. (By the way, don’t try to use your cellphone’s flashlight app to find a fairy tonight: they despise such technology and some scholars think they may be electrosensitive.)

But it’s the bad fairies that deserve special attention, as in European myths they were known for abducting children from their beds and dragging them back to fairy-land. Many fairy abduction stories start with the victim feeling paralyzed in bed, and then the fairy shows up and the victim is brought (through flying or levitation) to fairyland.

Sounds familiar, huh? This narrative structure has all the marks of a sleep paralysis vision, from paralysis, to the presence of the stranger, followed by an otherworldly but realistic-feeling lucid dream. The connection between fairies and paralysis is still present in the word stroke which is a contraction of the old English fairy stroke.

Don’t worry, as the days grow shorter this month and the veil between the living and the dead grows thinner, I’ll be going into more depth about the connections between sleep paralysis hallucinations and the cross-cultural accounts of ghosts, goblins, vampires and fairies. These visions are with still us in the 21st century, despite our illogical wish that the world is governed by reason, because, quite simply, we are hard-wired to see spirits.

In conclusion, please buy my book.

Sometimes the only dreams we remember are the ones we wish we could forget. Nightmares can be instructive, and most psychologists believe that they are a healthy part of life. But if you are plagued by repetitive nightmares and are losing sleep, sometimes changing your daily habits can reduce nightmare frequency. In general, nightmares can be caused by insufficient sleep, poor exercise and diet, and stress.  The tips below all are aimed at cultivating a healthier sleep and dream life, drawn from my ebook Enhance Your Dreamlife.

1. Don’t go to sleep angry or stressed out. Give yourself time to cool down.

2. Regular sleep patterns = better dreams. Including weekends.

3. Don’t eat right before bed. In particular, foods that take longer to digest, like meats and cheeses, can increase nightmares.

4. Reduce alcohol and caffeine consumption.

5. Cultivate gratitude. If this doesn’t come easy, do a “thankfulness” exercise every day in which you list the aspects of your life that you are thankful for.

6. Reduce exposure to violent images in the media, especially in the evenings. Horror movies can cause lingering nightmares for years.

7. Spend time in nature as often as possible, even if this means sitting in a city park for fifteen minutes every day. Many therapists believe that we all suffer from “nature deficiency disorder.”

8. Don’t sleep on your back. This encourages a special kind of nightmare known as sleep paralysis, in which you feel like you are awake and alert while at the same time you  cannot move. Sufferers also feel breathless and/or sense an “unknown presence” in the room.

9. Start a gentle body practice like yoga, walking, or tai chi. In general, moderate exercise increases the quality of sleep.

10. If you have repetitive nightmares, role-play how you will face your nightmare attackers next time.

11. Keep a dream journal. Often writing it out can dispel a lot of the powerful emotionality.

12. Join a dream-sharing group. Many larger cities have them. If not, start your own.

13. Give yourself some self-love and acceptance. Easy to suggest, but hard to do. I use journaling to remind myself that I am loved. Affirmations — while they can seem cheesy at first — are effective as well. My backlog of journals is essentially a history of pep-talks I’ve given myself over the years… and it still works.

14. Keep fresh flowers or aromatic oils in the bedroom. Research shows that good smells positively effects your dreams.

Note: If you have numerous, repetitive nightmares that are related to childhood scenes or some personal trauma you encountered, I recommend seeing a counselor or therapist. Severe nightmares are  a common symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which can be caused by war, devastating personal loss, rape and suffering through a natural disaster. Ministers and priests are also good resources for dealing with nightmares if you attend a church; many are trained in working with the spiritual and traumatic side of dreams.

For more information about getting better sleep and exploring dreams, download my free ebook Enhance your Dreamlife.

Title image: Sweet Dreams by Sekaino Ai.

Dark Intrusions by Louis Proud is a much needed investigation into the paranormal aspects of sleep paralysis visions. Proud digs deep and views SP within the philosophical and literary traditions of spiritualism, mediumship, ghost hauntings and channeling. Hands down, it’s pretty much the spookiest book I’ve read this year.

Proud is a sleep paralysis experiencer himself, so his narrative is grounded in his first-hand knowledge of what it feels like to be held down while you sleep by various unsavory entities. This is the classic sleep paralysis encounter, recounted by millions around the world in many cultures as the old hag, the incubus effect, and being ridden by the witch. Proud uses his experience as a touchstone as he reviews the connecting threads of SP with the fortean literature.

The Secret History of Sleep Paralysis

Strieber's visitors came to him after he was lying in bed, paralyzed.

Our Western culture, it has always seemed to me, is unique because there is no extant cultural expression of SP.  Most people who have the experience have no clue what’s happening to them, leading to a religious interpretation. Fewer know that sleep paralysis has biological correlates related to sleep hygiene and REM dreaming. On this point, sleep parlysis expert and medical anthropologist David Hufford commented in the documentary Your Worst Nightmare, “We have erased knowledge of these experiences from the cultural repertoire while these experiences are continuing to happen. That’s dramatic. That’s a level of social control that’s very impressive.”

Louis suggests that the SP narratives actually are highly represented in the literature of the West, but they have been marginalized from scientific inquiry. SP encounters can be seen spanning the centuries, from Swedenborg’s works, to 19th century spiritualist texts, to the voluminous writings of Chico Xavier, and most recently Whitley Streiber’s harrowing account of night visitors in Communion. Louis methodically reviews this literature, pointing out trends and similarities, as well as theorizing how sleep paralysis visions may be one of the authentic ways to contact spirits—or be terrorized by them.

Discarnate Entities, Psi and Quantum Psychics

Here is where I initially parted company from Proud, in his assistance that fearful SP encounters with demons, hags and aliens are proof positive of the existence of autonomous discarnate entities: spirits, in other words, who feed on the living and lead the way to madness. After all, I know from my own personal experience that entities can change form and become helpful when the sleep paralysis sufferer controls for his fear and sets strong boundaries or rules for contact. Expectation plays a major role in this phenomenon, just as it does with other altered states such as lucid dreaming and entheogenic reverie.

However, I began to see that Proud’s thesis is more complex, as he does not argue that all sleep paralysis encounters are the products of spirits. But a crucial and terrifying minority may be, he argues, especially those that yield information that could not have been known, information that is later verified from 3rd party sources.

Our current scientific paradigm ignores this sort of data, even though many studies using accepted controls have yielded statistical results. (For a great review of the status of the scientific enterprise of psi research, see Charles Tart’s The End of Materialism.)

Are poltergeists responsible for entity intrusions?

Yet I also think that there are other ways of receiving “uncanny” information through dreams and visions besides through the theorized action of malevolent spirits, including telepathy, remote viewing and other anomalies as theorized by the work of Carl Jung, Rupert Sheldrake and the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. In these matters, it’s difficult to know where clairvoyance ends and telepathy begins, much less to distinguish between archetypal energies, the structure of the space/time continuum and the souls of the departed. Not that these perspectives are unknown to Proud — he cites specially the work of Stan Gooch — but he leans towards the spirit hypothesis at the end of the day.

In any case, I definitely agree with Proud in general that these sorts of encounters are more than the projected fears of a dreamer during REM intrusion, which is the “flatland” perspective espoused by mainstream materialism. My own work with sleep paralysis, informed by transpersonal psychology and anthropology, has focused on how dreamers can lessen their fears and transform negatively construed encounters with spirits, but this emphasis does not preclude the influence of other sources of influence during SP nightmares that may lay outside the personal psyche. Rather, accounting for our fears and biases allows us to view the “autonomous entity”—whatever its origin may be—more clearly.

The Shadow of Western Science

Dark Intrusions wades into some pretty weird and fascinating waters, including ghost rape, phantom voices, poltergeists and energy vampirism, but he always brings the material back to the experiences of sleep paralysis sufferers. There’s some particularly fascinating accounts of consensual spirit sex. Proud’s central thesis is that some sleep paralysis experiences are “attempts at possession by discarnate entities” that occur when one’s psychic guard is down. This is certainly a powerful meme that deserves review as its historical root are deep and influential, running parallel with western science as a kind of shadow culture for the last 200 years.

Science as an enterprise, we must remember, bracketed out first-person experiences long ago, so no amount of evidence from personal narratives will ever convince materialist skeptics of the veracity of these powerful internal visions and their hand in shaping the culture and folklore of spirits, ghosts and goblins.

Proud writes in his conclusion that the research of this haunting topic actually transformed his largely negative perception of sleep paralysis to a larger spectrum. “SP is a doorway to many possibilities,” he suggests, “some terrifying, some interesting and delightful, others simply weird and baffling. Over all I think the condition is a gift—a tool, which, when used properly, can be immensely rewarding.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Sleep paralysis is the terrifying feeling of being held down after just waking up or going to sleep. You can’t move or scream, and sometimes this paralysis is accompanied with the certainty that someone –or something — is in the room. Quite simply, sleep paralysis is one of the most horrifying experiences in life, because we know we’re awake but can’t believe what appears to be happening to us.

The truth is, sleep paralysis is a biological event and it can be often prevented by attending to lifestyle choices, but making new habits can take time.  So how do you wake up from sleep paralysis tonight? There’s not a lot of information available.  Below I compiled 9 ways to get out now, adapted from my ebook Sleep Paralysis: A Dreamer’s Guide.

Note: Because this is such a personal thing, some of these tactics will work for you, and others won’t. Choose the ones that make the most sense to you intuitively.  Think of these strategies as tools in a toolbox to bring out when the conditions are right.

1. Don’t Fight

If you feel like you are being held down and you can’t move, do not fight back.  This actually will intensify the experience.   Not only is fighting back likely to increase the feelings of being held down (so much that it may seem like you are being crushed), but fighting back will also increase the fear, thus triggering the emotional centers of the brain and strengthening this lucid nightmare. Controlling fear is the most important skill during these moments.

2. Surrender and Go with the Flow

Instead, try to relax when you notice SP starting to happen.  Prepare an affirmation like “This is SP and I am okay.”   If you feel pressure on your chest, see if you can “go with” the pressure rather than against it.  It’s like winning a fight by having no resistance. For example, for me, I often feel like I’m being pushed into the mattress when I have SP.  I let myself go, and mentally “pull” in the direction I am being pushed.  What happens is I then “pop” into a full-on dream, or I can wake up directly.

3. Wiggle your Toe

Another excellent tactic that works for many people is to try to move an extremity, such as a finger or a toe.  Most of the feelings of paralysis are in the belly, chest, and throat.  So focus all you attention on the toe and try to move it back and forth.  In many cases, this will break the paralysis.

4. Clench your Fist

This is a variation of the toe wiggle method.  Clench and unclench your fist.

5. Focus on your Breath

An easy way to stop these nightmares is to do some controlled breathing.  Controlled breathing does several things at once.  For starters, it lessens the feelings of chest pain that sometimes accompany SP. Breathing is autonomic like the heart’s beating or digestion, so it’s not paralyzed like the big muscles in our arms, chest and legs.  But breath can be controlled with attention or be affected by severe fear, which may be why SP sufferers “forget” to breathe when under attack.   If you can control your breath, you can control your fear.  Simply draw your breath in at a normal rate, and exhale fully, using all of your lung capacity.  Notice that you can breathe fully without obstruction. This technique will keep you calm as the SP runs its course and then you will wake up without any trouble.  A few moments of focused breathing with a strong intention to wake up is effective.

6. Lean into Love to Find Courage

Now is also the time to lean into unconditional love.  For many, the surest path is in religious or spiritual beliefs.  Regardless, focus on a figure that you admire and love. Think of someone who calms you down—someone who you associate with peace, love and safety.  This could be Jesus, the Dali Lama, or someone you know personally. In my first SP nightmare when I was fourteen years old, I thought about the love and respect I had for a girl in my class. Embarrassing but true!  It worked: the feelings of oppression and evil dissipated immediately. In this case, true love really does conquer all.

7. Getting Help from your Sleep Partner

If someone shares your bed, you can tell them about your SP attacks and what to look for when you are having a nightmare.  For example, my wife used to shake me awake whenever I began to breath heavily and irregularly in my sleep.  As it turns out, she was waking me up each and every time from an intense SP nightmare.  Now when this happens, I tell her not to wake me up, because I actually use SP to go into a lucid dream.

You could also have your partner respond to a verbal request.  This only works some of the time, because some people cannot speak in paralysis.  But some can.  Choose a short word that is easy to say.  “Help” is a good choice.  When you’re in paralysis, focus your attention on your throat and say “Help.”  Don’t try to say it as loud as you can; what may happen is that your imagination will take over and you will only say the word in your dream.  Instead, say it forcefully but without screaming.

8. Coughing for Help

A variation of using your voice is to try to cough into wakefulness.  Like breathing, coughing can be autonomic or consciously regulated.  By coughing on purpose, you can jar yourself awake.

9. Write out the Plan

The suggestions above all have helped hundreds of people get out of SP and get some sleep.  Not every tactic will work with you.  But having too many tactics in your mind can actually be counterproductive.  So it is important to make a plan, almost like the fire escape plan you may have for evacuating your family home in case of emergency. Write it out; this will cement the plan in your mind and make it easier to remember when the paralysis comes on strong.

10. The Ultimate Method I know — I said 9 ways, but this is the single best way to wake up from sleep paralysis and it’s really in a class of it’s own. When you realize you are in SP, scrunch up your face. In other words, make a face like you just smelled something bad. Snarl and squint. Do this two or three times in a row and the paralysis will break IMMEDIATELY. I’m not sure why it is so effective, but unlike the pinky wiggle, this method is foolproof.

After you wake up, get out of bed immediately and turn on a light. Wash your face with cold water. If you just stay in bed, the chance of sliding right back into sleep paralysis is pretty high.

For more information about preventing sleep paralysis from occurring in the first place, as well as how to get over the fear of SP, check out my ebook. This $12 ebook also covers the science, psychology, and history of SP, as well as methods for using SP to have lucid dreams and other extraordinary experiences.

CC Image credit: Ornoth @ Flicker.

Image by nima (cc)

The following is an excerpt from my soon-to-be published ebook,  Sleep Paralysis: A Dreamer’s Guide.  This section illustrates how sleep paralysis is a complex set of experiences that includes body paralysis, waking hallucinations, and the fear that connects these two strands together, reinforcing the nightmarish aspects of the condition.

Separating the Components of the Experience

It’s important to separate sleep paralysis from hypnagogic hallucinations (HH), because understanding these components will help you gain familiarity and mastery of this fascinating mental state.

1. The physical sensation of paralysis.  You can’t move.  You can’t scream.  You can’t do anything as the feeling of weight presses down on your chest and throat.

2. Next, there is a conscious reaction of fear, dread, and terror as your sense of helplessness escalates.  For some the fear of being attacked is so intense it is called “death anxiety.”

3. The scariest part of all–– Hypnagogic visions which can be visual, auditory, tactile and even odoriferous. HH includes the hooded apparition who shows up on the side of the bed, or the invisible presence who lays a cold hand on your helpless body.

Together, these symptoms of SP/HH can reinforce each other by our participation, whether the reaction is fear, anticipation, or passionate surrender.  What we bring to these encounters helps determine the outcome because dreaming is a co-creative mental act, not a given.  The path is not set: we are surrounded by choices and possibilities in every moment.

The Expectation Effect

Psychologically, what happens when the fear spirals into a nightmare is a feedback loop known as the expectation effect. The fear caused by the paralysis leads us to bring up past experiences that are similar to this sensation.  Often, these are experiences or stories of being oppressed by another person, of being held down, and, especially for women, of being sexually violated. In a world where 1 out of 6 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, these fears are all too common.

Once the subconscious connections have been made between the present sensations and memories or fears, the brain begins to interpret the experience according to these narratives.  If the paralysis is followed by hypnagogic hallucinations (HH), then these visions will typically include a sinister agent who wants to do us harm.  We end up manifesting our worst nightmare without realizing it.

Sleep Paralysis and Inner Crisis

If you have never experienced iSP before, and are suddenly having multiple encounters a night, something other than diet and sleep habits may be involved.  In some cases, SP may be a symptom of a larger crisis that involves your sense of meaning, faith, or spirituality.  Conversely, if you are exploring lucid dreaming for the first time, disturbing paralysis nightmares may come with the package.  In both cases, it is appropriate to look at your deepest beliefs so we can ward off the manifestation of our worst fears.

The greatest ally here is the power of our core beliefs.  This is the sense of order and balance we have about how the world works.  Even if you are not religious, or even spiritually minded, you still have a belief system that operates daily, guiding your thoughts, actions, and governing your sense of justice.  It may be the belief that God is Love, or it could be a reliance in rationalism and the power of the mind.  The key is to tap into these core beliefs and lean against them in times of need.

The reason this is so important is that the hypnagogic visions that follow paralysis are already working on this deep level, but they can work against us.  They are tapping into the negative side of our beliefs when we experience fear.  These fears manifest as personal visions of chaos, death, and true evil.   That’s why psychologists list paralysis nightmares as one possible indication of a spiritual emergency.

This is no new-age mumbo jumbo: spiritual emergency is a psychological condition that is listed in the DSM IV, the latest edition of the American psychiatric diagnostic manual. While a spiritual emergency is broadly defined, it is often characterized by disturbing visions and experiences that can be linked to a serious crisis about the meaning of life and existence.  The crisis often happens at times of transition into adulthood, into parenthood, and into mid-life, for example.

Because paralysis nightmares are often cited as one symptom of a spiritual emergency, the question to ask is, “Why am I having these experiences now, at this time of my life?”

Seen in this light, SP can serve as a metaphor for the fact that our old defenses are no longer functioning as well as before.  It’s also an indicator that life stress is becoming overwhelming, or that we are having trouble coping with major life changes such as a death in the family, or trouble on the job front.  When this stress manifests as SP, the body is paralyzed, the mind is in fight or flight, and there’s nowhere to run.

So, instead, we must take a stand.

For some, this looks like courage.  For others, it is faith.  I cannot speak for you, and I certainly am not advocating a particular religion or spiritual viewpoint in this book.  That said, if you can tread in these deep waters, you will learn how to turn the fear on its side and break free of these disturbing nightmares.

(c) 2010 Ryan Hurd

Hope you enjoy!  I have been working hard behind the scenes to make this ebook available as soon as possible.

Update: Sleep Paralysis: A Dreamer’s Guide is now available. Click here to learn more.