- #36
Mk
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Insanity probably had to do with it. "You can't see the dots? What? They're right there! See?! They follow me around where ever I go."
See: The Visions of Hildegard, chapter 20 of Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat.EnumaElish said:I wonder to what kind of an influence many undiagnosed persons with this condition have attributed their visions throughout human history.
This is called awareness during sleep paralysis, I described it to the best of my ability a few posts above:Rabid said:This isn't as weird as some of the other experiences here, but it's something that freaks me out.
From time to time I will wake up in the middle of the night and I won't be able to move, it's like I'm paralized. I can open and move my eyes and hear, but that's it. I eventually shut my eyes and am able to fall back asleep. This is definitely not an enjoyable experience.
I seem to suffer of a different kind of sleep paralysis after reading more, others can move their eyelids and look around the room, and hear things. I can't do any of them.Mk said:Quote:
Sleep paralysis: During REM sleep the body is paralyzed by a mechanism in the brain, because otherwise the movements which occur in the dream would actually cause the body to move. However, it is possible for this mechanism to be triggered before, during, or after normal sleep while the brain awakens. This can lead to a state where a person is lying in their bed and they feel like they are frozen. Hallucinations may occur in this state, especially auditory ones. People also generally report feeling a crushing sensation on their chest (possibly because they try to consciously control their breathing). People trying to lucid dream sometimes try to trigger this state, or accidentally trigger this state, while using a waking induction of lucid dreaming (WILD) technique to enter a lucid dream directly when falling asleep.
This is absolutely the scariest thing I have ever experienced, I use my alternative MILD technique to stay away from it. I remember it almost every night I lay my head on the pillow. It happens almost only when I am lying face down in my pillow. You don't get as much air as you need because A) You're not sleeping you're awake! (at least partially) and B) You're trying to breath through a pillow. And I just discovered why I am completely incapable of opening my eyes! Because I'm in REM sleep! Its terrible. You are trying to breath but you can't after many many tries (you get a tiny breath of air in almost every try), you do you're best to muster up all of your body's energy into your right arm, while you are dying, but the thing is you have no energy. You are sleeping. But you don't know you're sleeping, you think you are awake, and suffocating, and its you're fault. I just can't decribe to you the torture.
Evo said:Have you ever heard of opthalmic or ocular migraine? I've had two of those. really bizarre, the second one was "classic", like this. The first was black and white and really fascinating. There is no headache, just designs.
Depersonalization
Depersonalization is a dissociative symptom in which the patient feels that his or her body is unreal, is changing, or is dissolving. Some patients experience depersonalization as being outside their bodies or watching a movie of themselves.
Derealization
Derealization is a dissociative symptom in which the external environment is perceived as unreal. The patient may see walls, buildings, or other objects as changing in shape, size, or color. In some cases, the patient may feel that other persons are machines or robots, though the patient is able to acknowledge the unreality of this feeling.
Yes, that could be a mild form. I actually would like to see another, since I know they are harmless and temporary. The first one I experienced was so incredible with the designs and the changing of direction and the spinning. I was under extreme stress at the time, which is probably what brought it on. It is so amazing what the brain can do.hypnagogue said:I experienced something like this this morning. At the time I had been sitting and reading at the computer for some time, was somewhat tired, and had a kind of heavy-headed feeling (not quite a headache, and not painful, but something along those lines). <snip>
hypnagogue said:Could you expand on your remark on life as a narrative a bit (if there even is any substantive expansion to do)?
You pretty much proved the basis of Cognitive Therapy: our thoughts cause our emotional state. The way we talk to ourselves, and what we talk to ourselves about, creates our moods.hypnagogue said:What is interesting here, in the context of this thread, is not this train of thought in itself. What is interesting is that upon having this last thought, it momentarily seemed convincing...
zoobyshoe said:You pretty much proved the basis of Cognitive Therapy: our thoughts cause our emotional state. The way we talk to ourselves, and what we talk to ourselves about, creates our moods.
You were already stressed out about the money issues so the thought was particularly potent at that time. The degree to which a thought affects our moods is a somewhat separate issue. Had some exceptionally pleasant thought occurred to you instead you would have have run just as far with that, but in the other direction. The depth of the reaction is different for different people, and different for the same person under different circumstances, depending on the general strength of your emotions at the time, their general volume. The thought itself steers the direction the emotions take, not necessarily the strength of those emotions.hypnagogue said:That is, the primary causal flow was probably from emotional stress to dissociation, with the particular thought I had merely facilitating that flow.
Dayle Record said:I once went to a Junior High assembly, a musical assembly at my daugther's school. I realized that I was slipping into a bad migraine headache, and there wasn't much I could do about it. Then the "orchestra" (all stringed instruments), was set to play a melody. There were only about a dozen players, and they were terribly out of tune. I have perfect pitch, and the sawing of the instruments in their out of tune state, gave me the effect of worms crawling on my scalp. It was the oddest thing, and that is the only way I can describe it. I was in so much pain I found it laughable, and then when the orchestra started up, it was as if my scalp wanted to leave the room.
Dayle Record said:I once went to a Junior High assembly, a musical assembly at my daugther's school. I realized that I was slipping into a bad migraine headache, and there wasn't much I could do about it. Then the "orchestra" (all stringed instruments), was set to play a melody. There were only about a dozen players, and they were terribly out of tune. I have perfect pitch, and the sawing of the instruments in their out of tune state, gave me the effect of worms crawling on my scalp. It was the oddest thing, and that is the only way I can describe it. I was in so much pain I found it laughable, and then when the orchestra started up, it was as if my scalp wanted to leave the room.
Thanks, cotarded, it is reassuring to hear of similar experiences, it makes it seem less wierd! I described mine as an hypnogigic hallucination because that seems most plausible. However, my gut feeling is I would have had an out of body experience had I let myself disengage my awareness of body, and the motion and lack of control was some attempt to shake that off. Afterwards, I had a feeling I'd been a bit of a failure, that I should have let go and felt more exhillerated, less frightened of smashing into something, and then something greater would have been achieved. So it is also reassuring that you don't mention feeling worried about bodily consequence, and that you were exhillerated, and that that still was the extent of the experience. Your post has made me feel less of a failure and more happy to believe it was an hypnogogic hallucination. You say you'd like to feel it again, personally I'd like to avoid it, but do you meditate? If not, perhaps that would help.cotarded said:I have had an identical experience, though it was coming out of sleep. I hinted at it in my post in the "stuck in rem sleep" thread, but didn't really do it justice. The story is long and convoluted and also includes other hypnopompic hallucinations, even ones that followed me into my waking state, but there was a stage where I tried to get out of bed and I simply fell out of my body and into an intense sort of discarnate rollercoaster that is very much in accord with your description here. I found mine a little disconcerting but mostly exhiliarating(sp) - I wish I could feel that sense of acceleration again, as well as the awesome, pervasive sense of wind resistance all over my body, like I was moving so rapidly through the air that the viscosity became that of water (at first it seems that this is a long-winded way of saying I felt like I was swimming, but air is dry, so it's actually a pretty ineffable sensation).
lates,
cotarded.
Sucess! After over a month of dreaming, I have finally achieved the goal of... having sex! YES! I win!If I learn how to do anything interesting, I'll update back!
Thank you once again to PF
Mk said:Ooops, I forgot to add that I had sex in a lucid dream, not that I have been dreaming of sex and have been trying to get laid.