Friday, July 10, 2009
Sleep Paralysis
Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night completely paralyzed? During sleep paralysis, you wake up from your sleep, usually in the middle of the night, only to find yourself unable to move. Interestingly, the eyeballs are the only movable parts of the body. This aberration lasts for a period of 30-45 seconds on average -during which time the person may experience hallucinations. There is a heavy weight on the chest or the back of the person, depending on which way they sleep. Some people feel as if they are being choked. Many people, including myself, feel as if there is a dark and sinister presence in the room while this is happening. Others hear footsteps by their bedside or feel some creature pulling their feet from the edge of the bed while they are paralyzed. This is similar to a night terror, only you are awake. I've had this happen to me quite a few times. I'll be honest, this scared the shit out of me in the beginning. After a while I got used to it and actually started to enjoy trying to fight the demon or whatever off me by wiggling since I can't do anything else. And yes you can wiggle, although I'm not sure if it's my physical body or my astral body that's wiggling. I decided to write about this topic because sleep paralysis is believed to be the best portal to lucid dreaming. Since I don't know what causes sleep paralysis, it is hard for me to connect the two. But I would like to hear more about the link between the two.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Lucid Dreams
Welcome creatures.. this is my first blog. I hope you enjoy.
Lucid Dreaming: A concept many people have difficulty grasping. A lot of people deny the very existence of it.. Why is this you ask? I don't have a definite answer but my guess is that most people are not self-aware.
What is lucid dreaming? A lucid dream is a dream in which the sleeper is cognizant that he is in a dream and has partial or full control of what goes on in the dream. In other words the sleeper has Harry Potter powers and is aware of his powers.
Even though the Upanishads recorded accounts of lucid dreaming back in the day (before 1000 BCE), this phenomenon was not recognized until 1978 by the scientific community. The recent "discovery" of lucid dreams is shocking to me because I have been having these types of dreams all my life. Achieving a lucid dream is second nature to some people. The hardest part is prolonging the dream because the more aware you are, the more likely you are to wake-up.
There are many stages of awareness in lucid dreams. In the first level you are vaguely aware of the fact that you are in a dream but you know something is different. As you climb the levels, you become more and more aware. By the fifth level you are what i would describe as almost fully conscious but in a dream. This is the best level to have but the hardest to keep. I wake up from the fifth level all the time.. then I try desperately to go back to sleep because well.. lucid dreams are awesome.
ReeceJones87 from Youtube has a series of interesting lucid dream videos. Here is one for beginners:
Lucid Dreaming: A concept many people have difficulty grasping. A lot of people deny the very existence of it.. Why is this you ask? I don't have a definite answer but my guess is that most people are not self-aware.
What is lucid dreaming? A lucid dream is a dream in which the sleeper is cognizant that he is in a dream and has partial or full control of what goes on in the dream. In other words the sleeper has Harry Potter powers and is aware of his powers.
Even though the Upanishads recorded accounts of lucid dreaming back in the day (before 1000 BCE), this phenomenon was not recognized until 1978 by the scientific community. The recent "discovery" of lucid dreams is shocking to me because I have been having these types of dreams all my life. Achieving a lucid dream is second nature to some people. The hardest part is prolonging the dream because the more aware you are, the more likely you are to wake-up.
There are many stages of awareness in lucid dreams. In the first level you are vaguely aware of the fact that you are in a dream but you know something is different. As you climb the levels, you become more and more aware. By the fifth level you are what i would describe as almost fully conscious but in a dream. This is the best level to have but the hardest to keep. I wake up from the fifth level all the time.. then I try desperately to go back to sleep because well.. lucid dreams are awesome.
ReeceJones87 from Youtube has a series of interesting lucid dream videos. Here is one for beginners:
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