Question: I was in bed last week and very cozy and warm. My two boys were playing in their room and I had fallen back asleep. All of a sudden I woke up but found I could not move my arms, in fact I could not move a muscle or speak. I could hear the boys playing in the background and I knew I was not dreaming. I was frightened for a couple of seconds as I felt a weird pressure on my chest, like someone was sitting on me, it was not pain just a strange heavy weight on me.
It didn’t last very long and I woke up feeling like I wanted to go back there! I had a funny thing happen to me before but it was scary and there was someone evil in my room, (only a dream I’m sure) but this time it was just me in the room and a nice feeling, even though I could not move I was not frightened. I would love to know why it happened to me. Maybe it’s very normal and happens to every one. Anyway that’s my story. :-)First of all, thanks for sharing with us! It sounds like you’ve experienced a few episodes of sleep paralysis (and you’re right in thinking that it’s very common!). In a nutshell, this happens because during sleep your body is paralyzed to keep you from acting out your dreams and this paralysis can trickle into the first few moments of wakefulness. Hallucinations that appear during sleep paralysis are completely related to that–meaning that you’re essentially still seeing dream images although you’re awake.Sleep paralysis is an extremely interesting phenomenon and above is a very brief explanation. If you’d like to learn in a little more detail, you can follow these links for information on the causes of sleep paralysis and hallucinations associated with sleep paralysis.Please let us know if you have any more questions or curiosities.Warmly,JordanEYSD Editor