I've has that paralysis twice, but never the hallucinations, thank god.
The paralysis is scary enough.

I, too, have had it. It is most unpleasant. I try to scream and only a wee small sound comes out. Sometimes I am lucky and my husband hears it and touches me. Only one touch and I am okay. I have also found that if I can just manage to jerk my head it stops. It takes a herculean effort to manage to jerk my head, though. Thank God I don't have hallucinations. I can open my eyes, and I can see everything around me, but I cannot move. UGH!

I'd think this also has much to do with those dreams where you can't run, or hit someone who's attacking you.

(Instead of the usual quasi-Freudian interpretation that something in your life is frustrating you.)

Once, back in Atlanta in the early '90s, my roommate and I were in one of those super-hippy new age shops in Little Five Points, and I smelled some really nice incense, and decided to buy it.

The guy who ran the place gave us this warning, saying "Be careful with this stuff. All their incense is blessed by a coven of witches on a full moon." (There's got to be a more-timely business model.)

We took it home, burned a couple of sticks while talking, and went to bed. I woke up to her screaming, having awoken with a weight on her chest, and then feeling she was being grabbed by the feet and pulled off the bed.

I ran downstairs to help, and we stayed up a while talking, during which I remembered the dream I'd had at the same time, which was about actually being at the blessing ceremony, as this circle of plainly-gorgeous, white-armed women performed their witchly ritual under moonlight.

I don't believe in witchcraft, and I usually hate ceremony, but it was one of the loveliest scenes I've ever imagined.

I've experienced all of the above... It happens continuously for about a week out of the month, full visual/auditory hallucinations. LAME!!!!!

I get these when I do not get enough sleep.

Just this week I worked a couple of day shifts and had trouble sleeping the nite before as I am used to staying up when I get home.

Saturday nite, after working a few day shifts, I crashed pretty hard.

I woke hubby up screaming. When I rolled over in bed, I thought I saw something rising up out of the bed in between us.

He tried to calm me down, but I don't remember him saying anything to me, I only remember what I saw.

When I worked nite shifts and my sleep was screwed up, I got them often.

I can't imagine it is very fun to wake up to screaming in your ear. I feel bad for hubby. He said he doesn't really mind and is used to it and pretty much knows when to expect it.

I used to get these all the time when I was younger, would try to move and scream for my mom but couldn't actually physically DO anything. I used to see the roadrunner blocking the door to my room for some reason, except he was always so f*ckin menacing looking!!!

And I'm still crazy to this day. ;)

i actually enjoy my sleep paralysis...(after the fact)...

i lay there, feeling awake... eyes closed.

and poof... body feels like it weighs a million tons.. but i can manage to move my pinky finger...

i try to count to 3 and then i think i can rollover and break the spell...

the last time, i heard whispering in my ear and i couldnt turn to see who it was...

so i started yelling...but it was only yelling in my head...

breathing gets hard and fast... my heart feels like its about to jump out of my body....

i can feel my eyes twitching...

i cant understand the whispering as it sounds almost alien to me...freaky...

then once it passes.... i shake myself loose.

and pull the covers right up to my neck in complete fear of what just happened.

then i kind of laugh becuase of how real it felt... fear makes me feel alive.

Same here. If my sleep schedule is totally odd or if I am in a strange place I experience this too. It usually involved seeing bugs, snakes, or spiders crawling in the bed!

Thank you for posting this...I've suffered from this for years. Apparently, sometimes I sleep with my eyes open (ex-bf has confirmed this and said it's really freaky). It's waned off in recent years because I've learned not to fall asleep on my back with the lights on.

But when it does happen, oh my god. Sometimes it's like I've had a stroke and can move, but not very well (it kind of comes in flashes, and all I can see is the floor, which incidently looks a lot like my ceiling). I imagine I've made it down the stairs to where Steve is or where my family is, but I can't look at them and they talk to me with very disgusted tones and suggest that I've overdosed on something.

The worst are the hallucinations, when I can hear people coming up my stairs talking about raping/torturing me and then they lean over the bed and I can just make out their figures out of the corners of my eyes. And sometimes, I can see the glints of shiny things, like knives and needles.

And then I think I wake up in a panic, but it's actually just a false wake and the whole cycle starts all over again. This can happen 10 to 15 times in a row before I wake up gasping and crying.

When I finally do wake up, it takes hours before I feel normal again. I'm usually exhausted and disoriented and still very panicked for several hours afterward.

Hahaha, I saw Decepticons. When I was younger, I actually got to the point where I could wake myself up (in the dream I'd close my eyes and say "Wake up" three times).

Kids' cartoons are more traumatizing then they intend to be, I think.

I have pretty terrifying nightmares and I've learned to tell myself that it's a dream and I will try to fight my way to consciousness. It's the weirdest sensation, to try to transport yourself somewhere mentally. Zombie dreams are my specialty.

I experienced this once. It was crazy and scary and for YEARS I didn't know what it was, then I heard about sleep paralysis.

I'm glad it only happened once, the struggle to move was unbelievable.

It happens to me about once a month on average.

Most of the time, it's just not being able to move at all while i feel lucid and awake. I've actually managed to wang my head on the drafting table beside my bed pulling myself out of the feeling of numbness.

Then there are a few other scenerios, water dripping on me, smothering myself(i sleep with a pillow over my head), hearing the smoke detectors beeping, the power going out, lightning out side my window... and all of this is not actually happening, although it feels like it is, and I cannot move a muscle to check to be sure.

Not really related, but I sometimes have these awake visions that I am sleeping in a room that is different than mine, but all my stuff is there, arranged differently, but the room in completely different, and not like others I have had.

I've perfected the ability to control my dreams to the point of not having nightmares, but these are uncontrollable as I feel like I am 100% awake. I'm mostly thinking about things i have to do that day.

"I, too, have had it. It is most unpleasant. I try to scream and only a wee small sound comes out. Sometimes I am lucky and my husband hears it and touches me. Only one touch and I am okay. I have also found that if I can just manage to jerk my head it stops. It takes a herculean effort to manage to jerk my head, though. Thank God I don't have hallucinations. I can open my eyes, and I can see everything around me, but I cannot move. UGH!"

Same here, except for your husband touching me.

I think a similar article came up a few months ago, and mentioned the hallucinations. I for one have never had the hallucinations until I read the article.

I get sleep paralysis infrequently. I don't get the weird hallucinations though. It's more being aware that I can't move, and sometimes also being aware that I'm asleep.

It was a bit different for my most recent one though, which happened last week, I kept on thinking I was awake and moving, only to be "reset" back to lying on the bed. It was Hey, I'm awake and I'm moving out of the bed now, and the next moment I'm back on the bed. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

For my previous ones, I don't get the illusion that I'm moving at all, and just know that I can't move and then I just try to fight to wake up/move.