Is this normal?

Okay so I had a massively early night (boring I know, whatever) and therefore set my alarm for around 8:00 today.... It woke me up but I couldn't move.

I mean I literally could not move, I tried using every bit of strength I had to move any part of my body and I couldn't. After about an hour of seriously freaking the f*ck out, it took a MASSIVE effort to manage to roll myself off my bed, smacking my head on the way down. After I'd hit the floor I still felt a bit weak but was able to move again.

WTF? Do I need to see a doctor or is this something that happens when you get older? And no, I hadn't taken any drugs/alcohol.

What standard of 'normal' are we meant to compare with? Yours, or Earth's?

This has never happened before, I thought I was dying or something. I know I was awake and not half asleep because my alarm goes on for about 10 minutes if you don't turn it off, and if you don't turn it off within that 10 minutes then it starts going off again 10 minutes later. I was awake for all of that but couldn't move. I thought I'd broken my neck whilst sleeping or something.

Sounds like an out of body experience.

But I was in my body. I just couldn't move the f*cker.

I even tried screaming for help at one point and I couldn't even make a sound.

Doesn't sound right. A doctor is probably needed. But I wouldn't necessarily panic. Has there been any history of Sleep Paralysis in your family? When you sleep your brain goes into two states - NREM and REM. They cycle between each other. NREM is the cycle which means that you move about in your sleep, REM is when your dreams are at their most lucid but it also means that your sleeping self cannot move (non reciprocal flacid paralysis). So Sleep Paralysis comes from something in between those states, in some way the neurons and synapses get mixed up. Maybe ask your folks if there's any history, as it's apparently hereditary. Of course, this 'phenomena' has only relatively recently become diagnosable and I'm no doctor.

Might see a doctor then. Although I definately need to change my current doctor as she seems to use google rather than any medical knowledge she has.

vilkrang wrote:Might see a doctor then. Although I definately need to change my current doctor as she seems to use google rather than any medical knowledge she has.

Is she a member here?

That's Winnie for you - obtuse yokel doctors with no real mind for 'outside' concerns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

of course proper professional advice is what is needed

You could have slept in a position where you pinched or pressured a nerve. Happened to me a lot when I was younger and I would often wake up unable to move one or both arms at all for a few minutes. Scared the shit out of mt the first couple of times it happened.

Had some scans done and it turns out I have a some sort of nodule on one of my vertebrae that if I sleep in the wrong position it deadens some nerves.

Of course, the whole body thing may just mean you're critically I'll and didn't know it. I'm not a doctor...

It is relatively normal - at least I hope it is as I have experienced it a few times. If you were american (ie an idito) you would be claiming that a ghost was kneeling on your chest and pinning you down

And WTF are you thinking coming here to find out what is normal?

It's happened to me as well, although I was never 100% sure if I was asleep or awake. It may have been one of those moments where at the time I was certain I was awake, but in hindsight the next morning I realised I had been asleep. I would be unable to move, and I had to focus all of my energy to try and get my arms moving. Pretty scary.

It could be an abnormality of potassium metabolism. Has anyone in your family suffered symptoms (it's usually genetic), how old are you (most sufferers have their first attack before the age of 20, though it could happen later - rarely after the age of 45), and did you eat anything unusual or skip a meal you usually have the previous evening? Also, did you go to sleep unusually early because you were unusually tired?

I went to bed well early yeah, about half eight. I had a late lunch so skipped dinner as well.

Of course you could have just had an incubus sitting on you

Just a minute.

This "doctor" of yours, who googles for remedies.

You don't pay her by the hour, do you?

AS Danny has already said, it sounds like sleep paralysis - where the muscle paralysis normally only present in REM sleep extends into brain wakefulness. It is sometimes associated with 1) narcoleptic sleep; in simple terms where REM sleep intrudes into daytime function; and 2) cataplexy; where the muscle paralysis normally only present during sleep suddenly intrudes into daytime function, sometimes provoked by emotion eg ... anger or laughter.

Sleep paralysis does not normally go on for as long as an hour though, more commonly a few minutes, long enough to be uncomfortable and worrying if you don't know what's going on.

Sleep paralysis, like REM sleep muscle inactivity, does not involve the eye muscles or the diaphragm, so if someone is trying to get in to kill you at least you'll see them coming and you'll breathe normally until they do the deed.

And maybe you should lay off the mind-altering chemicals?

lardbucket wrote:AS Danny has already said, it sounds like sleep paralysis - where the muscle paralysis normally only present in REM sleep extends into brain wakefulness. It is sometimes associated with 1) narcoleptic sleep; in simple terms where REM sleep intrudes into daytime function; and 2) cataplexy; where the muscle paralysis normally only present during sleep suddenly intrudes into daytime function, sometimes provoked by emotion eg ... anger or laughter.

Sleep paralysis does not normally go on for as long as an hour though, more commonly a few minutes, long enough to be uncomfortable and worrying if you don't know what's going on.

Sleep paralysis, like REM sleep muscle inactivity, does not involve the eye muscles or the diaphragm, so if someone is trying to get in to kill you at least you'll see them coming and you'll breathe normally until they do the deed.

And maybe you should lay off the mind-altering chemicals?

Haven't the money to get any, and even if I did the nearest dealer I know lives in Brighton.

Well then, you've just have to lie back, paralysed, and think of England.

It's probably an easier way to get paralytic than spending lots on drink and drugs.

Cheaper for sure.

It would hardly be surprising if there were no connection between that paralysis and recent emotional events.

I am no expert on synthetics (or probably much else), but you have no doubt been overwrought psychologically, and by obvious link, tensed up physically in your sleep too?

Lardy knows much more of the physiology, I am just bringing up the obvious psychological attendant factors that might go with that, or exacerbate it.


As for remedies, nothing really to offer to add to the above (go easy on the abuse and seek an expert opinion) ...... except maybe don't pin EVERYTHING to a rebound shag or two! :o) Other sorts of flexing and de-creasing might help.

I doubt it's anything to do with ageing at your age - unless the cocktails you've described have had a Dracula-type potency. Or have come from the crypt.

G.Wood wrote:Of course you could have just had an incubus sitting on you

Woody always had the most logical explanation for strange happenstances.