i have started sleepwalking
 

on a regular basis and i have no idea why. i go to bed as normal and wake up in the kitchen, on the couch, in chairs. its starting to make me feel really weird and my wife is making sure that i dont try and go outside or something. anyone else do this? i did it a few times when i was younger and sometimes through my teens and twenties but never like this.

maybe i should film it but i am scared it will look like something out of the 4th kind.

Actually I sleep walk every now and then. I have fallen asleep in my room and woken up in the living room.

If I were you I'd definitely tape the "event" (both audio and video).
Perhaps it could help understanding what for/when/how the thing triggers.
I won't ask you to up the vids on youtube.
I promise.
I'd be shitless scared of my actions if I knew I'd been sleepwalking.

now you ask your wife to youtube it and you might get a few well paid tv interviews.

i think generally people sleepwalk more when they are tense.

only when I've taken too many pills

one time i woke up under the bridge in the trees beside the motorway, topless, in the foetal position clutching an empty bottle, with no memory of how i got there. does that count?

BLack Out

i would hope so, altho i can't distinctly remember any alcohol, which is rather worrying.

the bottle was just one of those sprite bottles you get in bars, not booze.

anyway, jonboy it's just you have a demon inside you who can only take over control of your nervous system when you are asleep and defenseless, we need to do an exorcism. or you could try sitting in a darkened room listening to every melvins album consecutively, that would scare it away.

Roofies?

if only

You gotta becareful that's really scary

I once woke up in the kitchen, when I was younger...

I have this thing, it's like you're dreaming, and you wake up, and you open your eyes, but you cannot move at all.. is like part of yourself is still in the dream.

^ is that like when you wake up instantly from a lucid dream?

that's called sleep paralysis. almost everyone gets it, but most of the time you don't remember it. i went thru a period were it happened almost nightly with auditory hallucinations and things in the room.

some people have ones were there is a person or light or something in the room with them or sitting on their chest. in the middle ages it was at times attributed to succubi, and more recently has been suggested as the real cause of some people's claims about alien abductions.

back when i was getting extreme bouts of it it could happen maybe 5-6 times in one night, but eventually i'd be able to break free of it by slowly forcing myself to move a finger, and then another until i got back up and broke out of it, but as soon as i would lay down again it would happen.

what i find fascinating is that such freaky shit like this happens to so many of us but we don't even talk about it to each other.

i only sleep murder, i wake up with my hands covered in blood and semen...

There have been a few occasions when I've had waking dreams but never with paralysis.

I woke up last Sunday to discover that either a) someone had broken into my flat, eaten half a peshwari naan and the remains of box of chocolates and then pissed in my laundry basket, or b) I had done all of the above whilst asleep.

Curious. It's really not my usual style.

excellent case-study. high marks for detailed account.

sleep paralysis is an extreme form of more common hypnagogic hallucinations. it has only recently been linked to a condition where certain reuptake systems fail, causing the normal body-paralysis that is experienced during REM to continue, despite waking.

were you taking opiates or prescribed SSRIs at the time?

please enjoy faux-rep. my first attempt failed.

I actually have had sleep paralysis, but it only had happened after the intake of MDMA.

i can remember a few when i was on ssri's but it only got extreme after i was off them. no opitates altho alcohol, weed, lsd and very dodgy ecstacy where all being taken at the time.

i don't have anyway to describe the utter intensity that these reached towards the end. there were some were i would literally be submerged in an orchestra of screaming noises, voices and sounds from every inch of the room around me, as if there were about 25 speakers placed around my head each playing something different. of course when it happens it's difficult to remember it afterwards, and while it is happening you are in a state so close to sleep that it can be difficult, if not impossible to be fully concioussly aware of it, as soon as you do you tend to break out of it.

i know of k heads who report having it, so i'm assuming it can be brought on drug use.

i have not had any since then and have been off drugs which seems to have put a stop to it.

Yeah, I get that too, but only in spring/summer.

Ni'k, funny that you mention people waking up with people sitting on their chest, because usually there is a distinct heavyness in my chest when that happens that half the time makes me think that I've stopped breathing and that I've died. Those times are the scariest. It accompanies a falling feeling, or of being pulled against my will down and down. I try to thrash around and get up, but of course, I cant even open my eyes.

When it's not scary like that, and I'm not fighting, it can be quite pleasant. My mind just drifts off, images fluttering through my eyes until I gently go one way or the other - back to sleep or wide awake.

yeah the moving about thing! one of the greatest experiences of my life was when that happened, sleep paralysis only with the sensation (i actually beleived) i was being dragged up and down and across the walls of the room, along the floor and ceiling in different directions! it was absolutely AMAZING.

there was another time where i had the sensation that my body was literally miles long, as if i was immensely tall. it did feel like i was about 90feet in length.

Wow! That does sound exactly like K actually.

I've never been pulled along walls etc, but I do recall amazing things happening to sound like you mentioned earlier. Haha, after last summer I started to get concerned about it happening so much, but now that it hasnt happened in so long I want it back!!

Sort of, not really. The scary parts are too scary.

what you two are discussing are hypnagogic hallucinations, and as I mentioned, they are actually quite common.

they are also highly-related to sleep paralysis in that they are both caused by lag in the brain's expectation of sleep and the complex break-down of hormones released upon sleep.

hypnagogic hallucinations occur slightly before REM and just after the brain synthesizes tryptophan into serotonin. upon release of serotonin, blood pressure increases and the brain begins to hallucinate.

serotonin then makes it's way toward the gut where it is again broken-down to become melatonin.

melatonin enhances REM and controls yr circadian rhythm (ie: when it's time to wake up/sleep).

so, with hypnagogic hallucinations there is a lag between when serotonin pops off and when it's finally synthesized (telling yr brain to "go deeper"), while sleep paralysis most likely results from decreased melatonin production during the night.



A POTENTIAL NON-PHARMACEUTICAL SOLUTION:

get a light box. make sure that it's natural-light spectrum and bask in it for as long as you can in the morning. this will stimulate yr skin cells to request that more melatonin be made.

studies were done on transatlantic "red-eye" flights. 30 minutes of a light applied to the back of the knee significantly lowered jetlag (a circadian rhythm disorder).



I'll admit to asking a trick question in order to troubleshoot for histrionics (it's not you, it's everybody).

SSRIs block the ability of cells to reuptake serotonin (thereby keeping more available as a precursor to melatonin). SSRIs mean more serotonin (which means more melatonin and less sleep paralysis).

please enjoy large text.

wow. i am going to be hassling you in future for a lot more information in regards to this and similar subjects.

will any old light box do? there are some i see for around £40, i'd ideally like to spend the least possible on one of these.

be careful of the maker you choose and make sure you trust that it's in the natural-spectrum band.

other than that, the box doesn't matter.

feel free to pm anytime.

I can get you published literature on just about anything you want to know about (especially sleep related).

Ah, I love when you talk like that.

Next, can you fix my computer ?

few things on the net are stimulating enough to warrant it.

and assuming yr problem is hardware related, "yes, most likely".

pm details if you want.

On occassion I experience hypnagogic hallucinations. Usually it's auditory. I'll hear someone call my name, either from a distance or seemingly inches from my ear. In a few instances I've seen something crawling in the bed with me, like a large spider or cockroach. Last night I had my most severe hallucination yet. I suddenly awoke to see a woman floating just past the foot of my bed. Her eyes were locked on mine. She was there for at least five or six seconds, and remained there even after I blinked and looked away. Then I watched her fade into the moonlight. The silver lining is that she was a blonde.

i speak fluent spanish in my sleep

allegedly

I woke up with a book under my pillow. It was a Princeton study of Anglo-Irish lit. by Moynahan. Why did I pick this book? How can I read in my sleep? (Kidding around)