Do you see dead people? (Night terrors, sleep paralysis, hallucinations etc)

when you have the hallucinations are your eyes open or are you just imagining your surroundings?

Eyes open, so I'm looking right at someone. It's clearly just my dream brain juices making shapes out of shadows while I'm waking up, but at the time I really see people there

have you tried sleeping with a eye mask?

No, but I don't think it'll help as I'll just lift it off and see the same things.

My ex has these but it seemed to be different depending on where she was sleeping. At her parents house it was an old woman staring at her from the corner, at our house it as always a young girl either at the foot of the bed or stood next to her. She'd sometimes talk to 'her' too. I think the only consistent from place to place was when she saw giant spiders

Victor Mildew wrote:Eyes open, so I'm looking right at someone. It's clearly just my dream brain juices making shapes out of shadows while I'm waking up, but at the time I really see people there

I've only ever heard of people having sleep paralysis and not being able to move, the fact you can move and try to interact with them is terrifying.

I don't see anything resembling a human when I get sleep related hallucinations, usually its when I'm waking up I'll see something that looks vaguely like a spider crawling up the wall for a few seconds before fading out of view. It once looked like a big purple butterfly but that was slightly less alarming than the spider thing.

Victor Mildew wrote:Eyes open, so I'm looking right at someone. It's clearly just my dream brain juices making shapes out of shadows while I'm waking up, but at the time I really see people there

Do you reckon you think too much about things generally? I don't mean that in a bad way, perhaps you're just bright, have a creative mind and struggle to switch off even when asleep.

Are you ever aware that you're asleep and ever just try to get over the fear of it and try to talk to these characters?

I once read that in deep sleep, your mind is laying down memories about your day. If there are characters staring directly in your eyes, perhaps there are things you just need to address, not that I'm sure about any of what I've just said.

My mind is always really active, I'm always thinking about something. I write songs in my head while out walking the dog for example.

I don't have time to talk to them, it's open eyes, argh strawberry float someone is there, ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK, they're gone

I'm objectively a pretty creative guy and have very lucid dreams. I think it comes with the territory. After all, if you can't envision something as if it were real, how are you ever going to make it?

Appropriate to quote Clive Sinclair, if someone thinks something will fail, they can't imagine it. Or something close to that anyway.

I literally write parts of symphonies in my brain most days. Most people don't have the time, patience or ability to execute on their ideas. Humans are inherently creative, but for people who exercise those skills probably from a young age by focusing on what they see or hear in their mind, it can get pretty frustrating and maybe that leads to dreams and apperitions like this.

I have aphantasia so I have literally no visual imagination

This makes the terrors twice as intense

Would be lying to say I’m not into it

False wrote:I have aphantasia so I have literally no visual imagination

This makes the terrors twice as intense

Would be lying to say I’m not into it

That's really interesting because you do a lot of creative stuff. How else do you manifest your ideas mentally say for example if someone is blind what do they see?

It's a subject that really fascinates me especially as I have to work with a lot of different people.

So for example someone might feel an impression of space in their brain or hear the sound of how something works or have a conceptual understanding of it in maths or something, it's hard for me to consider because I think of stuff in gooseberry fool loads of words, images and sound all at the same time.

And smell and feel too. Like if I think of something made with a certain process I also smell it. It's kind of synaesthesia.

I use the phrase envision but what I really mean is an image, which doesn't necessarily mean visual. It's just a construction of something that isn't real in most senses. Being unable to imagine pictures or what most people refer to as "images" doesn't mean you have no imagination, far from it, it's a fundamentally human thing to imagine stuff because it's a default result of being conscious and being able to at least roughly predict outcomes.

For example an ultrasound image is made up of sonar signals but just represented as a picture of physical density or space.

I can also remember smells, not actually smell them but it's like if someone was describing it to you and you're remembering it in real time if that makes sense.

I was imagining pulsing lights on the landing last night, which was probably the smoke alarm led and my eyesight adjusting up and down as I stared. Enough to sketch me out though as per usual.

That is absolutely horrifying.

About 10 years ago I was lying in bed trying to sleep (had only been trying for 20 minutes) and was struggling, feeling totally awake. I normally had no issue falling asleep, but this night was possibly going to be an issue.

I state that because of how not sleepy I felt, because when I looked to the end of the bed there was a shadow of a person wearing a top hat, illuminated by the lights outside.

It was pretty clear to me at the time but it was gone almost as fast as I saw it.

Bumping to describe a particularly nasty bout of this I has last night:

Woke up to see the landing bathed in light, which is mostly just the smoke alarm LED but also the guy next door insists on having his entire garden floodlit to stadium standard 24/7, so that was shining in with the landing window open.

I see someone walking up the stairs, but only briefly. Then nothing. Fall asleep, then wake again to see something move, then fall back to sleep. Then wake up to see a mid 30s ish guy in a tracksuit sat on the end of the bed. I sit up and stare at him, he doesn't dissapear like normal. I shout strawberry float off, he reacts and backs up a little. It's now that I realise there's really someone there this time and proceed to kick at him from a sitting position. Kicks all miss, he gets up and backs out of the door, I get up and shout at him. He vanishes. By now my Mrs is trying to calm me down, I walk out to the landing to look for him, then realise it's not real. My heart is beating like a strawberry floated clock. Absolutely terrified.

Eventually went back to sleep :dread:

I occasionally have lesser versions of night terrors, I think they're called waking dreams. Not as terrifying, but still alarming. Getting up, putting the light on, throwing the duvet off the bed because you can see something there. Only for it to fade as you wake from your sleep.

The mind is crazy the way it can splice the real and unreal. You can see why so many "ghost sightings" happen at night in and around sleep.

Victor Mildew wrote:Bumping to describe a particularly nasty bout of this I has last night:

Woke up to see the landing bathed in light, which is mostly just the smoke alarm LED but also the guy next door insists on having his entire garden floodlit to stadium standard 24/7, so that was shining in with the landing window open.

I see someone walking up the stairs, but only briefly. Then nothing. Fall asleep, then wake again to see something move, then fall back to sleep. Then wake up to see a mid 30s ish guy in a tracksuit sat on the end of the bed. I sit up and stare at him, he doesn't dissapear like normal. I shout strawberry float off, he reacts and backs up a little. It's now that I realise there's really someone there this time and proceed to kick at him from a sitting position. Kicks all miss, he gets up and backs out of the door, I get up and shout at him. He vanishes. By now my Mrs is trying to calm me down, I walk out to the landing to look for him, then realise it's not real. My heart is beating like a strawberry floated clock. Absolutely terrified.

Eventually went back to sleep

strawberry float that mate! I was terrified by just reading that! I thought you were going to say that there was genuinely someone there!

That sounds terrifying Ad :shock:

If I’d seen that, I don’t think I’d have gone back to sleep :lol:

I’m quite lucky, never experienced anything of the sort, used to be a really heavy sleeper but not so much these days.

Imrahil wrote:I occasionally have lesser versions of night terrors, I think they're called waking dreams. Not as terrifying, but still alarming. Getting up, putting the light on, throwing the duvet off the bed because you can see something there. Only for it to fade as you wake from your sleep.

The mind is crazy the way it can splice the real and unreal. You can see why so many "ghost sightings" happen at night in and around sleep.

Yep, it’s more than just a coincidence that most ghost sightings are at night, when people are knackered and possibly lapsing between sleep and being awake.

Do you see dead people? (Night terrors, sleep paralysis, hallucinations etc)

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