[Phresh]

I believe I have been experiencing both of the aforementioned occurrences for the past year or so. The latter happening is quite awesome and I'm glad it takes place. The former is slightly annoying and sometimes very scary.

A few experiences with sleep paralysis:

As a poker player without any schedule to follow, my sleep cycle occurs within very irregular hours. I'll frequently stay up for 18-24 hours in order to fix it for the time being, or to quickly slide into a fitting time slot when I actually do need to do something.

I bring this up because it is a common symptom for sleep paralysis.

Frequently, shortly after falling asleep, I will wake back up, but cannot move. I am totally conscious and aware that I am trying to move. This was very scary at first, but it has happened so many times that I'm pretty comfortable in dealing with the situation.

I think I can wiggle my toes during my struggle to move the rest of my body, but this might be something I am imagining (my mind plays several tricks on me as I will explain below). I have no clue as to how long I lay and struggle to move the rest of my body. After wiggling my toes for a while, my body will wake and I can sit up. On a few occasions I have went back to sleep immediately, only to repeat the entire process again and again throughout the night.

To my knowledge, this does not always occur while I am lucid dreaming. The last occurrence, however, did, and ended with an actual physical hallucination.

To save time, I won't go into great detail as to what happened in my dream, but I'll give a brief summary:

-The earliest I can remember controlling the dream, I was at a party, much like the party I was at the day before. When I started controlling the dream, I began stumbling around and couldn't walk properly. I felt very disoriented.

-I left and was running after someone. I stepped in some dirt while running and it went into my shoe in the dream. I remember the physical feeling of the dirt in my shoe. This is the first time I have actually physically felt something from my dream. I remember being blown away by this in my dream.

-I ended up coming to a school yard and throwing a ball around with a bunch of children at recess.

-I felt something in my mouth and realized I was chewing on something. I am pretty sure I started chewing in real life (and I felt whatever it was I was chewing on and believed it was occurring). My heart started beating incredibly fast. This has happened before and I always tried waking up at this time, but I decided to try and go through it because I wasn't scared about anything.

-I don't recall what happened in between (if anything) but I realized my bedroom light was on and I could hear a very distinct sound. It was the sound when Mario hits a box and receives a coin. I was talking about SNES with my friend the day before and deduced that he had come over and was playing it. This is obviously absurd as my friend wouldn't break into my house (only way to get in) and sit on my bed, playing video games while I'm asleep. But this is exactly what I heard and noticed with my eyes shut. I began wiggling my toes, desperately trying to move or say something, so I could let my friend know I was awake.

-I finally get up and notice that it is pitch black and nobody is in my room.

-I look straight ahead and something is hovering in front of me. It looks exactly like a Dorito bag. I get very scared. It lasts for about 3-4 seconds and fades away. I then realize all of it was another episode of my sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming. I turn on my light to make sure nothing is really there (was still in a weird state).

This was the most intense combination of sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming and hallucination that I have had. I've imagined people in my room before. I thought a friend was in my room, so I began trying to fight out of my sleep and get up to greet him. I then thought he left. After I finally broke out of my paralysis, I hopped out of bed and called his name and checked my living room. It was so real that I didn't even ask myself "Wait, I live in an apartment complex and my front door is locked and dead bolted. How did my friend get in here? Oh, and why is he coming into my house when I am sleeping?"

Another instance, the scariest, occurred in the same way that the Mario sequence did. I was trying to wake up, but couldn't and it happened before I could open my eyes and confirm/deny the occurrence. A very rapid and bright white light was pulsating right in front of my door. My heart began beating out of control and I tried waking up as soon as I could. When I did, I looked at my door and obviously found nothing. This doesn't sound scary at all, but I was terrified.

These are just a few experiences I've had and am curious as to how many others are experiencing this? It happens to me much more frequently when I've stayed up for long period of time. Please share any stories you have regarding the aforementioned topics. Sorry for the length.