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So I finally had my first case of sleep paralysis and it was freaking awesome. Sure... horrifying... but awesome.
I've only ever heard people talk about it and always thought that it was just a meme but no, the way people describe it is pretty much spot on. Demon crawling up to you, not being able to move, yadaya, all the good stuff.
I always thought I couldn't experience sleep paralysis because I'm a side sleeper and this makes it even less likely.
To say "I don't scare easily." would be an understatement. Sure I get startled sometimes, but that's just instict taking over. I don't think I have experienced true irrational horror since I was a child. I'd say horror in general is just not part of our daily lives anymore. As someone who is into movie making, even horror movies don't really cut it for me, because I'm always thinking about the behind the scenes of each shot instead of actually being scared.
That's why I am so appreciative of a good nightmare. Its horror from the deepest darkest places of your mind, specifically tailored to you. It's the best private horror show you'll ever going to get. And for someone who's never really scared, that is worth a lot.
I'm only kinda disapointed of how my paralysis demon looks. I was hoping it would be some cute ghost lady, but it's more like a shadowy humanoid tentacle alien. Kinda like the mindflayer from Stranger Things but without any discernable features, just a shadow silouette.
Its kinda like finding out your Patronus is a crosseyed possum, I mean it gets the job done sure... but it's kinda not what I was hoping for.
Also it made a weird tribal "galagalagala" sound while approaching, which gotta say, not exactly the spookiest thing.
All in all 7/10 experience. Wouldn't recommend it every day, but every once in a while it shirley is fun.
Sleep paralysis isn’t related to nightmares though? It’s just an inability to move
In my experience, it’s fucking annoying. It’s only happened to me a couple of times but waking up and being unable to move is an inconvenience.
I’m not really clear what this post is about. You enjoy nightmares or you enjoy sleep paralysis? The nightmares thing kind of makes sense if you like recovering from fear
A lot of people as part of sleep paralysis, experience a sort of hallucination of usually a vaguely humanoid demon lurking over you or sitting on your chest. They're a different experience but there's some connection between dreams/nightmares and sleep paralysis, and lucid dreamers are somewhat more likely to experience it than most people.
I'm very much in the same boat as OP as a nightmare-enjoyer, I don't scare easily and kind of enjoy the adrenaline rush when it happens. When I have a nightmare
I've only experienced sleep paralysis once, saw my sleep paralysis demon just kind of lurking in the shadows in the corner of the room. Didn't really scare me, I knew what was going on, I just kind of sat there (not that I had much choice in that I suppose) and enjoyed the experience for what it was. Then as my ability to move returned and the demon just kind of faded into the shadows I pretty much just thought (that was cool) rolled over and went back to sleep.
My demon was also kind of boring, just a vaguely human-shaped patch of shadows that kind of stood out from the rest of the shadows in the room, and it pretty much just stood there watching me.
My last actual nightmare was maybe a month ago. I don't remember the full extent of the dream but what triggered the nightmare scenario for me was some character on a monitor from a TV or videogame (don't remember exactly) turning their head unnaturaly and starting directly at me as if aware of my presence through the screen. Their natural human eyes instantly turned into big white circles with small black dots as pupils surrounded by growing darkness.
My blood pressure instantly went through the roof but I usually don't wake up immediately.
It was around 6 am so when I did finaly wake up there was already some light coming trough the blinds.
The weird thing is, after I calmed down. I closed my eyes and in a half sleep state I tried "re-dreaming" the same scenario again and my body almost instantly reacted the same way. And then again, and again. But with each time the effect diminshed.
But I wasn't dreaming in the half asleep state. I was literally just forcefully putting the same image of that character staring at me into my head. And still I got a fright response each time from fairly simple imagery.
Of course now it doesn't work anymore, I guess because I "exhausted" that source of horror.
Brains are crazy.