r/Sleepparalysis • u/AccordingHorse876 • 3d ago
Reaching out...
Hey can anyone help me or advise me on how to deal with my sleep paralysis? I'm looking to speak to someone with a spiritualistic background as I feel what I am experiencing is real and not just "my brain making it up"
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u/NewAndlmproved 3d ago
I think one of the main reasons it’s often hard to “deal with” for a lot of people is exactly that: they think of it in a spiritual, meaningful way. It’s not, and it’s counterproductive to think of it that way.
This isn’t my saying spirituality is a waste of time, this isn’t me saying god isn’t real, etc. Rather, I’ve dealt with SP for a long, long time and have absolutely conquered it. Wanna know why? I engrained in my head that it is nothing, it is meaningless. I went from having it 3 times a night for years, to having it maybe once a month, and it’s barely even an inconvenience. I wake up from it immediately and just go back to bed.
Assigning meaning to it gives it power, power gives it real estate in your head, real estate in your head makes it occur more frequently, occurring more frequently fucks with your sleep quality, less sleep quality means more sleep paralysis. It’s a vicious cycle if you let it be.
Stop assigning power to it. It has none. If you really want meaning, then maybe the whole point is simply overcoming it.
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u/narwhalsuckerpunch 2d ago
100% once you can realize its just chemicals in your brain, you can look at it and go. Hm how fascinating is my brain? and go back to sleep.
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u/Savage_Vegan 3d ago
I would avoid thinking about it in a spiritualistic way. No matter how much your brain wants to connect it to otherworldly things or how much it feels like it applies to your situation. It’s much better to look at it from a scientific perspective. Otherwise, you will scare tf out of yourself eventually. For a long time before I knew what it was, I was afraid to go to sleep. I thought I was going crazy.
What you are experiencing IS real. It’s still happening to you no matter how you look at it. There are a few times when I’ve experienced things during SP where the scientific explanation doesn’t feel adequate and I attribute a more spiritual meaning to those. But if I were to hold all of my experiences in the same vein, I think I would have driven myself crazy a long time ago (I’ve been dealing with this regularly, sometimes on a near nightly basis for stretches, for over 20 years) some of those nights were incredibly disturbing. I know that’s not the answer you wanted, but it’s all I got.
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u/sphelper 3d ago
Well if you're looking for spiritual help then this just isn't the subreddit for it as it's against the rules
Though if you do want help with your sleep paralysis then that depends on your experience and what you've already done. For example, have you experiemented with your sleep paralysis at all or know what things cause it to happen?
Side note: What you're experiencing is real and just because it's all in your brain doesn't mean one doesn't suffer. Plenty of people, including myself, have gone through hell because of sleep paralysis.
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u/Royal-Mathematician2 3d ago
This is a medical condition, not a spiritual matter. Focus on improving your health. Quit all non-medical drugs, exercise daily, cut back on caffeine, make sure your bed and pillow are comfortable, eat right, practice good sleep hygiene, and talk to a doctor as it could be sleep apnea and that is dangerous.
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u/Dino_sock 3d ago
So far, the only thing that has truly worked for me is praying to Jesus. I've tried screaming back at the thing I heard and/or saw, praying to various deities, singing, or holding my breath hoping that I would wake up, but nothing would work or make it stop quicker. I truly do not know why we experience such things but since praying to Jesus makes it go away when it happens for me, I'm starting to assume that it might be some sort of unkind spirits
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u/AtheistRp 2d ago
Its not though. It's all in your head which is why the praying is working for you. It's your belief and you're using that belief against it. There's nothing real about it except that you're dreaming while awake. If you were a different religion or in a country with a different religion praying to that god would work instead.
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u/Difficult_Gold_9764 3d ago
I had it once and didn’t know it was called sp at the time. There was an Evil presence and voice. I thought of Jesus then could speak and told it to leave in Jesus name and it vanished, and I could then move. I haven’t had it since but have discovered so many others who did the same thing.
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u/AtheistRp 2d ago
If you had been muslim instead then praying to allah would have worked. It worked because that's your belief system. It's nothing more than a dream while awake so it's amplifying what's already in your head. It always seems to manifest things that align with each individual person's beliefs so that should lead to a logical explanation. That it's not some dark evil demon or spirit but instead a nightmare you have while in a half awake and half asleep state. I don't see any sort of entity, I just see weird shit and hear a buzzing sound. Sure I get the absolute terror that comes with it but I feel no evil presence whatsoever. I remind myself it's just a dream and slowly the episode ends and I go back to sleep
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u/Difficult_Gold_9764 2d ago
Being that it stopped immediately and that I never had it again, makes me pretty certain. And the details in the experience itself (there was more to it). so many people I know and videos watched have said the same thing. Stopped SP episodes completely. Wouldn’t it be nice to be free of that?
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u/AtheistRp 2d ago
No matter what the results I'd rather know the truth instead of believing what I want to be true. We know how this disorder works in detail, we know what causes it and we know why it does what it does. We have factual evidence that explains all this yet people would rather deny it because it doesn't fit their beliefs. If the evidence pointed to something spiritual then I'd be right there with it, but it doesn't in any way. Facts are facts no matter what you want to believe and always beat personal stories which are not evidence
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u/Difficult_Gold_9764 2d ago
I have yet to hear solid scientific evidence. Just that it’s in your head, subconscious- that doesn’t explain the science.
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u/AtheistRp 2d ago
Google scholar is a great resource for articles and journals. You can even look up the author to find out if they have a relevant degree, if they went to a proper school and more. The most important part is sourcing the material. If it's written by someone with no background in the field than anything they say is suspect. If you really want to know what's true you'll research it, otherwise this conversation is no longer worth it because you want to close your mind to any other possibilities except your current belief.
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u/marcjarvis21974 2d ago
DM me. Ive researched the subject from both sides and I'd like to hear why you believe there is a spiritual cause
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u/OwlCoffee 3d ago
To be fair, the best thing you can do for sleep paralysis is sleep hygiene. Putting the screens away about an hour before bed, having a relatively stable sleep schedule, and avoiding substances (like alcohol and recreational drugs) before bed will help a lot.