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.

Image by Hamed Saber

Listening to Carrie Fisher’s encapsulated biography, “Wishful Drinking” on audiobook recently, I thought about how the Baby Boomers, and their Greatest Generation parents, had no choices when it came to depression, mental illness, homosexuality, or pain and grief.

Oh, I take that back – they could choose to keep quiet or get electroshock therapy.

Now, we find ourselves in a time where many, in the West at least, are presented with a lot more choices. We craved opportunities for growth, and they have been provided.  Problem is, sometimes there are too many from which to choose, mucking up our ability to know where exactly to begin.

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

Me? I got sick somewhere around 23. Well, it wasn’t “sick” in the traditional sense. Or maybe it was. All I knew was that it started with a sore throat, one that lasted. And lasted. It became an all day, every day occurrence of phlegm sitting deep around my Adam’s apple, with me attempting to clear it out.

Not that big of a deal, I initially thought. I had quit smoking several months before, and I thought my body was clearing itself out. I had also just become a full-fledged vegan after being vegetarian for a couple of years, and just knew from all my vegan propaganda reading that my system was just experiencing cleansing run-off, Herxheimer’s reaction, or whatever you would like to call it. This would all be over soon, and I’d be a fantastically healthy, gorgeous, well-adjusted person once I was, you know, detoxified.

Yep. Some serious expectation I had going on there.

It took me 5 long years of chronic fatigue/fibromyalgia/candida symptoms to realize being vegan wasn’t going to help me, and neither was just food or for that matter, electroshock therapy. I’m sure I would have tried it somewhere in there had it been readily available, maybe sandwiched in-between purchasing the $600 air filter that would remove all impurities from my immediate surroundings and the zapping device meant to kill all the bad little buggies supposedly wrecking havoc on my system.

I also tried taking about every supplement on the market, colonics and enemas galor, NAET allergy elimination, oxygen therapy and oh…the list goes on.

I’m not trying to imply that any of these health systems are bunk; in fact, I have no doubt that some, if not all, helped me in some way. But I was missing the key component to true health: spirituality. I don’t generally put spirituality above the other important aspects of health, such as the physical and the emotional, but in my case, I do.

Because I was looking everywhere but there.

The Missing Piece

To me, spirituality meant Christianity. Or Judaism. Or even Buddhism, Taoism. Some sort of -anity or -ism. I had been raised Catholic, spent eight years in schools that had “Religion” as one of their core classes, attended Sunday morning rituals that taught me that Christ and the Holy Spirit were good and sex and Madonna were evil.  My youth had been spent as the consummate “good girl,” undoubtedly due to the repercussions of wrath and fiery hell that awaited me otherwise. No, I was done with “spirituality,” “religion,” or whatever you wanted to call it.

Yet it was hard to ignore the fact that every single book I read during my Holistic Health education program said a spiritual practice was necessary for true health. I’d sigh, and try to come up with how I was spiritual, dammit.  After all, I was vegan, connected to animals and the Earth, working in social justice and handing over money most of the time when people asked, AND living by the word of do unto others (as much as possible).

And sure, these play into spirituality. But they ain’t the whole enchilada by far.  I wasn’t living, but rather staying in the mindset of the restricted physical–when my diet was perfect, so would be my health. I was dedicated to the idea of having strength through yoga and dance, getting and staying clean through detoxes and no-sugar diets and…well, no, that was pretty much it.

OK, I knew my emotions were all-out-of-whack, but that was also because of my diet, of course. They would settle down too.

But the more I attached to diet and exercise as the answer, the worse I got. I actually began to experience disordered eating and body hatred in a way I had never felt before, all due to this idea of perfection. The Perfect vegan diet. The Perfect Raw diet.  Perfect Atkins. Perfect yoga. Perfect meditation.

Perfect-anxiety-breakdown is more like it.

Only when I began to slowly let the idea of spirituality be something else, something simpler than “religions that kill in order to impart their messages,” or “just another way to oppress the hell out of women,” did things begin to turn around. I had been stuck in the doing, which didn’t allow for any receiving.

In a way, I had traded the restrictions of Catholicism for another religion – “perfect” eating. Our society needles, prods, and desperately presses for hardness – on others, on ourselves. I fell deep into the American way of finding something to subscribe to instead of sitting in the questions and wonder.

That hint of a spiritual sense did grow into something larger, and yes, even into an “organized” religion of sorts. But I refuse to tell most people what it is; thankfully, it is one that can be practiced on its own and does not press for evangelical conversion tactics.

But the basics are the sprouting seeds of every spiritual or religious practice:

• we are all connected – in fact, everything that we see, feel, hear, sense, and don’t sense, is connected;
• treat others the way you want to be treated;
• understand that there are karmic considerations to all decisions made, whether in this life, the next, or for those who only believe in one life, where your soul ends up after your body is done;
• and share love and goodness as much as possible.

Towards a Holistic Health

My health was then allowed not only to turn around, but suddenly, there was the possibility of it beginning to thrive. More, in fact, than it ever had in my life. This new-found spiritual place somewhere deep inside of this ole’ body gave me a stable ground from which to push ahead in my career, my body acceptance, and my love life–all places I had struggled with for longer then I care to count.

This is not to say everything was magically OK, that I never struggle with these areas at this point, but the occasional struggle has a different flavor to it now. It has the flavor of something outside of me, that it is not mine. The greatest gift you can give to your health is the knowledge that those struggles aren’t yours – they are simply life’s actions and lessons that are getting you closer and closer to well, you.

And then you can kick those electroshock therapy sessions to the curb.

About the Author:

Christine Garvin, MA, is a certified Nutrition Educator and holds a MA in Holistic Health Education. She is the founder/editor of Living Holistically…with a sense of humor, and co-editor of Brave New Traveler. When she is not out traveling the world, she is busy writing, doing yoga, and performing hip-hop.  Right now, the road is her home, which thankfully gives her a lot to write about.

Included in this promotion are video interviews from Deepak Chopra and other luminaries, as well as access to dozens of articles and audio broadcasts on subjects ranging from spirituality, the paranormal, the power of intention, meditation, sacred geometry, lucid dreaming, holistic education, bioenergetics…. and on and on.

Here’s the link for free access to IONS for the next two weeks.

Thanks to visionary and dreamer J.K. Norris for spreading the love.

I especially like her discussion about the role of psychological projection in everyday life as well as dreams:

When I dream about a powerful spiritual being that infuses me with love, I am that Bright Shadow as well. When someone praises me for something I have said or done, I try to receive it, but then let it go – because it is not really about me, it is about that person recognized a part of themselves and celebrating it. The same is also true when someone gets incredibly angry at me for something I”ve done – I listen and integrate the criticism in a way that is helpful to me, and then I let it go, because again, it is not just about me. My father often says, “projection doesn’t work unless there is a hook to hang it on.” It is a shared experience.

Tristy’s dad is Jeremy Taylor, who is also one of the fathers of the contemporary dream movement. Both Tristy and Jeremy regularly offer workshops in the San Francisco Bay area.