sh1ft.org : sleeping... beauty?

Friday 21 January 2005
sleeping... beauty?

do you have problems sleeping? well, i should ask, do you have problems with weird sleeping mannerisms?

whenever i'm stressed or tired throughout my waking day/week - i tend to sleep talk, sleep laugh, even sleep wave (like waving hello to someone). Regan usually awakes to find me laughing hysterically, different to my 'normal' laugh. he'll find me waving at someone who's not there, and often carrying out a one-sided conversation with god knows who. i can't confirm that i knew what i was doing, apart from feeling drained the next morning like i didn't get a good nights sleep.

when i was a kid, my parents would think the house was haunted because they kept seeing a 'white' figure walking around the house at night. one night, it came into their room and they switched on the lights. it was me. in my white nightgown! so no ghost, but now we all knew that i sleptwalked.

i've had a few strange strange cases of sleep paralysis in the past, where i've felt like i've been encased in concrete where i laid. the first time it happened, i thought it was dying or being beamed up by aliens :P i was lying on my sisters bedroom floor and was feeling sleepy. i didn't feel like i was asleep though, and tried to get up to talk to my sister - but couldn't! arms, legs, body and even my mouth felt frozen shut, and i remember trying to scream out to my sister to do something, but nothing worked. (while i'm at it, my tip to get through it : don't panic, try to breathe and relax.)

i've probably written about this before, but wanted to post something up again because it's been happening (sleep talking) all this week. i guess it's going back to work that's doing it! what i've experienced is far from a sleep disorder (i think anyway), so we're not worried. it's just another weird thing i do ...

do you have stories about sleep talking, walking or anything like it?

Replies: messages (9)

Oh wow, Sleep paralysis, that's what it's called??? I believe I experienced this about 10 years ago, and maybe two or three nights in a row. I was lying in my bed, in my room, everything exactly as it was, no dream-alteration of any sorts to the room. And I felt extremely terrified, as if a sinister being was right beside me. But I couldn't move, couldn't scream. Nothing. It hasn't happened since. But oh man, was that such a horrible feeling.

I shudder just thinking about it.

Posted by Amy @ 21 january 2005 01:50 PM AEST

oh my gosh! YES!! i suffer from sleep paralysis too. mine is biannual, it happens every February and every August. in fact...February is coming up so i'm prepping myself. it's better to know beforehand so you don't panic. but i agree, usually when it happens i just relax and go back to sleep. sometimes i'm just frozen which isn't so bad. other times i see red dots, weird colors, black figures, and a deep heaviness on my chest. another time i heard someone whisper in my ear. at first i was scared out of my wits. now it's really not too bad. i guess i'm used to it now~

Posted by liz @ 21 january 2005 02:02 PM AEST

my boyfriend sometimes talks in his sleep but it's more like a mumble-jumble of words (his native language is hebrew and he also speaks english fluently but nobody can ever tell what he's talking about). he also tosses and turns a lot when he's doing this, but for some reason he doesn't remember what he just dreamt about. for my part i'm just amused ;)

Posted by anne @ 21 january 2005 04:23 PM AEST

I suffer from sleep paralysis with ''out fo body experience''. It seems that you are walking around the room, and when you look at your bed, you discover that you are lying there! It's terrific experience!

Posted by Roberto @ 21 january 2005 08:16 PM AEST

argh
the concrete thing sounds familiar tracey!
i have weird weirdness. i used to get this thing as a kid where id be half sleeping half awake and id think that i was being suffocted but not by anytthing. my heart would race and my breathing was tight and i felt like i was being squished. but i never knew what by. i have never been able to explain it.
im as kooky as you.

Posted by amanda @ 22 january 2005 01:26 AM AEST

Sleep paralysis sounds familiar though I didn't have name for it before reading this. It's scary but I've tried to think "mind over matter" and try to move a limb just to tell me that I'm OK. Or I force myself to wake up which is really hard to do. Thankfully, I haven't had this lately.

Posted by Marie @ 22 january 2005 02:59 AM AEST

I used to sleepwalk as a child. The fun stories at Christmas are how I used to sleepwalk into the hallway closet: my mother said I would be walking down the main hallway, apparently awake (but not), walk directly to the closet, open the door, and close it behind me, returning to my lie-down slumber on the bed of old jackets in the always-messy closet.

I don't know whether to believe the family members who swear they witnessed this act or not. They also tell me I used to walk into walls while sleepwalking. Hmph.

Posted by julie @ 22 january 2005 11:37 AM AEST

Oh yes. I've frequently had full-scale conversations (with, apparently, an assortment of people) in my sleep. And they weren't always real people either; my roommates in college claimed that I frequently carried out lengthy monologues.

Posted by Sin @ 23 january 2005 06:19 PM AEST

I have whats called lucid dreaming...sometimes good, sometimes bad. Basically it comes down to the opposite of what you had. Instead of my body being paralyzed during sleep, I would do everything I dreamed. Which includes walking, talking, running a marathon, fencing, and just about anything else you can dream up. Ive had several injuries from this...

Posted by The Eskimo @ 26 january 2005 02:47 PM AEST