Sleep paralysis and nightmares are common nocturnal experiences. Desperate people write to me saying they are too frightened to sleep because they get pinned down by demons or attacked by brutal nightmares. Their fearful nocturnal experience dominates their lives to the point that it not only prevents them from sleeping, it also affects their daily interactions and relationships. They end up living a smaller life than they deserve… and all because of fear.
When we release fear in all areas of our lives, we set ourselves free and anything seems possible as we move into our larger potential.
In this 30 minute audio talk, I describe how we can release fear, freeing up powerful creative energy with which we can embrace our lives with joy and wonder. I offer tips for how to shift from terror in sleep paralysis into a beautiful lucid dream, and I discuss the value of nightmares as healing gifts that help us to live a clearer, more authentic life.
[This interview is part of The Dreamwork Summit, a free online event featuring visionary speakers who illuminate the healing and transformative powers of your dreams. For more information, please visit thedreamworksummit.com. This recording is a copyright of The Shift Network. All rights reserved.]
I used to struggle and fight in sleep paralysis in my early twenties, until I figured out a way to relax, breathe, and visualise wonderful scenes…
Soon I managed to perfect the art of wake-induced lucid dreaming (WILD) and have long, stable lucid dreams at will. Since then I have had many thousands of awesome lucid dreams and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon…
Based on the ancient meditation practice of yoga nidra (which means all you have to do is lie down and relax!), my new video & audio courses draw on my best tips from those turbulent times. Yoga Nidra for Lucid Dreaming, Healing, & Blissful Sleep has seven videos and six one-hour lucid audio journeys. The course teaches you how to have lucid dreams whenever you like, using WILD and other techniques. Dream Yoga dives into out of body experiences, conscious reality creation, lucid dreaming, and how to manifest your heart’s desire.
It’s a beautiful reality creation practice, to turn a potentially scary sleep experience into a fabulous lucid dream.
Sleep paralysis can be seen as effortless lucidity – a golden gateway into new adventures of the spirit.
I used to have many sleep paralysis nights, it was always terrifying. I first always sensed someone else as an enemy in the room with me and I could never get my voice. I would always say help over and over but the words always came out as an awful wailing I was told afterward if there was someone else in the house. I only knew that I could not wake up and was trapped. I did not know this was sleep paralysis and anyone who heard me always assumed it was a nightmare.
I eventually came across the term and it was explained that your spirit wakes up before the body and the sense of someone else in the room was yourself, this was such a relief and it stopped soon after this and has not returned for several years. It would be interesting to know if this is the correct explanation. Blessings Christine.
Hi Christine, many people report realising the heavy breathing or sense of presence they experience in sleep paralysis is actually themselves. SP is associated with transitional stages of sleep, so we experience the weirdness of feeling trapped in our physical body unable to move, due to the muscular paralysis. It’s always a relief for people to understand the physiological aspect of SP. I wish you pleasant dreams!
Thank you so much for clarifying this for me.
I experienced sleep paralysis in 1987 after returning from a trip to Germany (and back to the UK). I had been working with a theatre group and we worked physically longer hours than I was normally used to. On my first night home, I was in bed, ready to sleep, but I was physically worn out but mentally very alert.
I became aware that I was slipping into an altered state of awareness, but must emphasise that throughout my experience I was completely conscious and not sleeping or dreaming. As I ‘fell inside myself’ I could hear the presence of a sinister person at the end of the bed near the door. I realised I was not only unable to move any part of my body physically, but I wasn’t able to wake my girlfriend, sleeping next to me, by calling out, since it was an enormous effort to get a sound from my voice. I continued to go deeper, feeling compression on my stomach, hearing the ‘person’ getting closer, and also a humming noise getting louder in my ears, to the point of starting to hurt. I found myself in a cave with a crystalline roundabout structure and a figure made of similar material standing on top – like a Mirlin character. I simply recited mt own protection mantra and gradually resurfaced. I eventually managed to wake my girlfriend and came around more fully moments later, to tell her what had happened.
For a number of weeks after this experience, I deliberately tried (at different times of the day and night) to recreate the experience to discover more about it. However, despite getting to the first level of altered state, I never managed to experience the full paralysis and falling inside sensation.
A number of months later, I happened to attend a talk which included mention of ‘raising the kundalini’ energy – the coiled serpent at the base of the spine. The speaker read a passage from a book and it described perfectly, my experience. It was only months later that I came across the term ‘sleep paralysis’ and realised this was how science had decided to interpret the kundalini experience.
Here are a couple of definitions from the Internet:
“Kundalini is described as a sleeping, dormant potential force in the human organism. It is one of the components of an esoteric description of the “subtle body”, which consists of nadis (energy channels), chakras (psychic centres), prana (subtle energy), and bindu (drops of essence).”
“In Hinduism, Kundalini is a form of divine feminine energy believed to be located at the base of the spine, in the muladhara. It is an important concept in Śhaiva Tantra, where it is believed to be a force or power associated with the divine feminine or the formless aspect of the Goddess.”
So from my perspective, I’m not sure that ‘sleep paralysis’ really covers the whole experience. Yes, you are certainly paralysed, but really, there is more going on.