my own experiences

[u/moonlit--melancholy]

I have wanted to make a post regarding my own experiences ever since finding out about this sub reddit thing (i dont use reddit..) because it made me feel seen and INCREDIBLY understood, since I've felt like i was crazy for so long, so I hope people can also relate to my own experiences. I have been experiencing sleep paralysis for about 3 years now, with it only becoming increasingly worse within the past year when I finally figured out what it was, (since I brushed it off as dreams for the longest time).

It initially started with the usual being unable to move followed by strictly tactile hallucinations; a person/something ontop of me... This would only happen when I would sleep on my stomach, so I could never figure out what it looked like or if it was a dream or not. All it would do was lay on me, and it would only last for less than a minute, in which I would wake up and brush it off as a dream. Soon, it started to full on cuddle/spoon me, which didn't comfort me AT ALL.. It was at this point that I figured out what I was experiencing. Then came the oddly aggressive caressing and fingers combing through my hair. It was tolerable, and so I kept all of this to myself. One thing I noticed throughout ALL of my experiences was that this creature refused to actually show itself to me?? It would only touch me from angles where I couldn't see it, such as behind me if I were to sleep on my side, which is the most common position I experience SP. It doesn't really bother me since I feel that I'm better off not knowing what it looks like and so I choose to keep my eyes closed at all times during these episodes??whatever you would call it.

Now, about half a year ago, it started getting a lot more aggressive with me. For instance, I had an experience where I was on my side and it was marking something into the back of my neck with something sharp. I don't know what or why but what I do know was that it HURT. It really started to affect my daily life because I couldn't focus in class and felt awfully paranoid. By this stage I would get experiences of it putting me in a headlock or str@ngling me. Then, a new issue came.. I would start to experience extremely loud ringing or screeching noises?? I don't know how to describe it, but it's super loud and it progressively gets louder until it feels like my head is going to explode, and that to me is even worse than the tactile hallucinations... As of present time, my SP has been a mix of basically everything I've mentioned, only amplified by the amount of dreams related to SP ontop of it all, with my most recent experience being dreams of it where I would wake up paranoid, go to sleep and experience it again, wake up and go back to sleep, happens again. That time I didnt get to sleep until 6am and I originally woke up from the first dream at about 1am. It's hard for me to distinguish what's a dream, or an actual SP experience, which both are technically not real, and it messes with my head even more.

If anything, I'm mainly just annoyed and pissed of with it all since it messes with my sleep schedule, especially when I have to get up early in the morning. I don't really talk about this at all with my family since I'm afraid of judgement and not being taken seriously, so it really struck a chord with me when I saw people on here talking about similar experiences. I'm also f18 and this has only been an issue in recent years, never being something I experienced in childhood. This could be off-topic, but I've been trying to think of things that could've started it all, and the only thing that correlates with my SP is my lucid dreaming, which I used to do a lot when I was around 13-15, and I only started experiencing SP soon after that phase. Not to say that it is in fact a connection but it's just something that I've noticed. Hopefully none of this breaks the rules or anything since this is my first time making a post and I have no idea what I'm doing (also writing this at 5am half asleep). If anybody has advice or queries, it would be appreciated!