Do strange images of geometric shapes, people or animals appear out of nowhere as you lie in bed at night? Perhaps you’ve heard voices or noises which can’t possibly be real?
If so, it could be that you’ve experienced what’s known as sleep hallucinations.
Despite leading to the occasional leap out of bed in sheer terror, they are usually harmless. And many people experience them at some point in their lives – including me.
My nocturnal flying geometric manifestations
As a child, multicolored geometric shapes would regularly swoop across my bedroom, just as I was drifting off to sleep. I remember simultaneously marveling at them and wishing them away so I could sleep in peace.
It doesn’t happen so often nowadays, but once in a while, I’m still prone to my mathematical manifestations.
Perhaps I should be grateful for my geeky hallucinations – especially compared to the disturbing experiences some people have.
What are sleep hallucinations?
Sleep hallucinations are imaginary experiences that happen during the transition between being awake and asleep, and can feel confusingly real.
They are also referred to as hypnagogic hallucinations if they occur while you’re falling asleep, or hypnopompic hallucinations if they happen while waking up.
The hallucinations are usually visual, such as seeing shapes or figures in the dark. But they can also involve your other senses.
The hallucinations can be vivid and frightening in some cases. If you see a giant creature in your room or hear a scary voice, it’s understandable that some people will jump out of bed and turn the light on to check what’s going on!
How many people have sleep hallucinations?
A commonly quoted statistic in medical articles comes from research conducted in 1996. The team interviewed 4972 people in the United Kingdom by telephone. They found that 37% had experienced hypnagogic hallucinations. And 12.5% had experienced hypnopompic hallucinations.
In 2000, another team of researchers surveyed 13,057 people and found that 38.7% had experienced hallucinations at some point during the day or night. 24.8% of the sample had experienced hallucinations at sleep onset, and 6.6% upon waking.
A sign of Narcolepsy
For some people, sleep hallucinations can be a sign of narcolepsy. Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder which involves sudden daytime episodes of:
- Unexpectedly falling asleep
- Sleep paralysis
- Hypnagogic hallucinations
If you have these symptoms, it’s important to seek medical advice.
Symptoms
The main symptom is seeing or hearing things while falling asleep or waking up that aren’t real.
Researchers believe that the most common type of hallucination is visual. However, it’s possible to experience hallucinations that correspond to any of your senses:
- Visual – such as geometric patterns, shapes or light flashing. Sometimes complex forms like animals or people.
- Auditory – voices talking, phone or doorbell ringing, music, hissing, humming or whistling.
- Olfactory – pleasant or unpleasant smells.
- Tactile – insects crawling on the skin, rubbing, stroking, tapping or tickling sensations. Perhaps also feeling weightless, distortions in the body, flying.
Not the same as nightmares
Telling the difference between dreaming and hallucinating isn’t always obvious in the moment. But sleep hallucinations are not the same as nightmares.
When you wake up from a nightmare, you’ll know you were asleep (even if it takes a little while to come back to reality).
Sleep hallucinations, however, can feel like they are really happening. You know you’re awake, but you’re not convinced it’s merely your imagination playing tricks on you.
Coexisting with sleep paralysis
Sleep hallucinations sometimes happen during an episode of sleep paralysis.
During sleep paralysis, you might be unable to move your body in bed, which in itself is often frightening.
The hallucinations that accompany it can range from seeing a presence in the room to seeing and feeling a creature sitting on you.
Causes
The International Classification of Sleep Disorders manual suggests two causes related to brain function, though also states that more research is needed:
- An intrusion of dream imagery onto wakefulness.
- A lack of stimulus leading to the visual cortex in the brain creating images.
Health websites, such as healthline.com, suggest that sleep hallucinations can be caused by other conditions, such as:
- Sleep disorders like narcolepsy or sleep paralysis
- A medical condition or medication use
- A mental health disorder, such as schizophrenia
- Substance abuse
Risk factors
According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, they are more common in children and young adults. Women might experience them slightly more often than men.
Some factors are thought to increase the likelihood or severity of the hallucinations, including:
- Drug or alcohol use
- Anxiety or stress
- Mood disorders like bipolar disorder or depression
- Insomnia
- Epileptic seizures
Research shows that fragmented sleep is associated with more hallucinations
In 2021, a team of researchers published an interesting study of sleep hallucinations (you can read it in full on nature.com).
Based on an online survey of 10,299 people, they found that poor sleep is associated with the occurrence of hallucinations – a point already confirmed by previous studies.
However, they further showed that fragmented sleep, i.e. regular wakings, is related to hallucinations. And that fragmented sleep is also related to the content, frequency, duration, and associated distress.
Interestingly then, people who had better sleep had less negative and less disruptive hallucinations when they did have them.
So the more you have them, the worse they might be. It seems to me to be a good motivation to tackle any factors you know that make you wake up more often in the night.
Treatment
Do you need to see a doctor?
If you’re experiencing anxiety or losing sleep because of regular sleep hallucinations, it’s a good idea to speak to a doctor or sleep specialist.
They would ask you about your hallucinations and look at your medical history and other factors like medication and lifestyle. They might decide that an overnight sleep study is needed to find out more.
They would also look at the possibility of another condition causing the episodes. And if they find one, give you the appropriate treatment.
Worried about your mental health?
If you suddenly start having hallucinations, it’s understandable that you might question your mental health. This is a point I’ve seen raised in the comments below many times, so you wouldn’t be alone in thinking something was ‘wrong’ with you.
It’s worth noting that if it only ever happens when you’re in bed trying to sleep, there’s a good chance it’s harmless sleep hallucinations. Perhaps it’s a sign you’re under a lot of stress lately, for example, but it might not be an indicator that something is wrong beyond that.
Having said that, if you have hallucinations during the day, or other symptoms that are making you feel anxious or confused about your mental health, then it’s a good idea to talk to your doctor. And if you’re still not convinced the nighttime hallucinations are benign, talk to your doctor to get a professional opinion.
If this line of thinking feels relevant to you, there’s a good article on psychologytoday.com in which a clinical psychologist talks a patient having sleep problems rather than a schizophrenic illness.
What can you do to help reduce them?
Here are some ideas which might help keep the hallucinations at bay:
- Get an adequate amount of sleep every night. Try to stick to a regular sleep schedule and don’t allow yourself to become sleep deprived.
- Avoid recreational drugs.
- Eat a healthy diet and drink plenty of water.
- Try to reduce your stress levels.
- Try using a soft night light in the bedroom. This might help fill the space that your brain uses as a blank canvas.
- If you tend to have auditory hallucinations, listening to music, radio or a podcast in bed might help.
- If you find yourself focusing on visual hallucinations, try to re-focus your mind on something else. Breathing exercises or muscle relaxation can keep your brain occupied.
- If it’s overwhelming, turn on a light and get up for a while, do an activity you find relaxing, and then try to sleep again after 10-15 minutes.
- Several readers have said in the comments below that wearing a sleep mask helps them.
Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are a normal part of life for many people. Once you’ve ruled out any serious illness or disorder, you’re left to deal with the experience in two ways.
First, try to adapt your lifestyle to make sure you do everything possible to sleep well. Second, relax and try not to worry about things that go bump in the night.
Your thoughts
Do you ever experience hallucinations when falling asleep or waking up? What form do they take?
Feel free to describe your experience in the comments below and share any ideas you have about dealing with them.
I get them as often as twice a week, or as far apart as a couple months. But they are almost always about spiders. Either a spider is creeping toward me from the ceiling right above my bed, or there are hundreds of smaller ones all over the walls. Sometimes the hallucination will be of a figure standing near my doorway, but this one hardly ever happens. I can move during them, I almost always wake all the way up after running from my bedroom into my living room once I’ve turned on the lights. It takes me a couple minutes to realize what I just saw wasn’t real :( And I always have trouble getting back to sleep afterwards.
I always see spiders too. I just saw one and I swear it was real if I hadn’t watch it disappear into a shadow. But now the adrenalines kicked in and probably won’t sleep much tonight. It always happens at a period of high stress.
Me too.
I am not well. i feel see and hear things at night every night . Im convinced that someone is liveing under my bed . Its destroying my relationship with the love of my life i see and hear and feel the bed and her moving all night and im convinced that they are engaging in sexual acts while i sleep . Im so confused and scared. Iv attempted suicide on several occasions just to make it stop .everyone thinks im over reacting i dont know what to do anymore..
Hi Beaubeau
Thanks for your comment. I’m sorry to hear you’ve been having such a difficult time. I think this is something you need to speak to your primary care doctor about as soon as possible if you haven’t already. This isn’t a time to deal with how you feel alone – seek support and help from a professional, as well as your family and friends.
Regards
Ethan
So I’ve been waking up and seeing security cameras next to my bed. When I look at them the move away and then disappear after about ten seconds…I see the same cameras every time.
Some of you are lucky, seeing beautiful things, amazing things. I’m 13 and every single night I see shadows and figures and hear things. Footsteps, voices, even screaming.I feel things touching me or crawling on me and I feel a presence beside me. And I sleep in a room with no electricity meaning no light or TV, and this problem has affected me so much that I hardly sleep. Its horrible. My mom just thinks I’m over exaggerating but I’m not. I know what I see, I know what I hear and its driving me crazy. Its gotten so bad that I cry when it happens, sometimes I scream at it and my mom thinks its all an act. Does anyone know how I can get her to believe me so I can get some help or something? Anything? Please!
Hi, I can sense your fear and understand your problem. Try talking to your guidance counselor, social worker or school psychologist. In addition to having someone to share your experiences with they may be able to help you communicate to your mother what you are going through. Otherwise when you go to your doctor for a check up, be confident and explain to him/her what you are experiencing at night. I can assure you that your doctor will understand as it is not uncommon and they should be able to help you.
Since I was 6 I was experiencing this. I try to ignore the shapes I see when I’m going to sleep and it’s been a while since I’ve had sleep paralysis whilst waking up. Now they’re returning.. It happened twice this week. The first experience was when I saw some what of a dead person at the foot of my bed and it wasn’t a pleasing site. And the second one I felt like my neck was broken and I couldn’t breathe. I saw my cousin just right outside of my room and I tried calling her but she couldn’t Herman me. It was hard getting the voice out and I tried getting up and it literally felt like my soul was going to leave my body if I moved more.. And the thing is there was something ready to attack me and a boy beside me watching.
I don’t know who he is.
I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move and felt like my neck was broken.
I’m 17 btw
I have sleep hallucinations and have had then since I was 12. Now I’m 27 and in the last year they have gotten much worse. Now what your mentioning seems very specific and I believe may be spiritual. I have a lot of experience with what your going through. I don’t know what you believe in but faith in Jesus can help. I used to have awful things happen, worse than what I have learned to deal with now. Saying his name was the only thing that ended my worst encounters. I will say a prayer for you and remember one thing: fear gives darkness power. Jesus is stronger than the darkness, call on him when your frightened. Blessings:)
Every night for 18 years since we bought this house, I have experienced a presence in my bed. The thing is I can’t see it, but I feel someone moving around at the bottom of my bed, and it moves into my bed. I will raise my foot and it will press my foot back down. My husb never has felt anything moving in bed, only me. The thing that is bothering me is….no matter where I go this presence is there…but only when I go to bed do I feel this. Even when we went to Canada I had the same thing happen in bed.
Hello.
I tend to see the classic “Hat Man” or “Cloak man” when I sleep. It usually freaks me out. One of my friends told me “It’s probably a tree shadow” But the thing is My window is blocked up. I tend to also see wolfs and birds as well.
So, Am I going insane or just Hypnagogic hallucinations. Probably Hypnagogic Hallucinations but my friends will always say I’m going insane.
Hi! Ever since I was young, I have been having trouble sleeping. Before, it would be more of a dream rather than hallucinations. Now, I would see different creatures or people when I try to go to sleep. Every time I would close my eyes I would see the mysterious figure come closer to me to the point where they are in front of me, I would open my eyes and do anything else rather than sleeping like using my phone or wait till it is time to wake up. I talked to my mom about it but her experience was different than mine. Whenever I take a shower, I try to avoid closing my eyes and turning around since I am afraid of mysterious creatures lurking in my bathroom. I am afraid it is getting worse and I might need some advice.
I experience hallucinations that were described on a nightly basis. The most common is visual. It always occurs within the 1st hour of falling asleep. I’m 36 years old & a business owner. I’m assuming it’s due to stress but it can be a bit frustrating waking up nightly & waking my guy who it effects more bc he is fully awakened whereas I can typically go right back to sleep.
I have tried many things to try and fight this and there hasn’t been one thing in particular that helps.
Hi i have a problem. I have experienced servere hallucinations as a kid, I have seen some disturbing things that you would only see in horror movies. I am 16 right now and i experienced these hallucinations when i was 8-10 years old. And i am still sleeping with light on to this very day. And i can’t sleep without a person next to me. I am still sleeping with my dad.. I don’t know what to do. What i have seen makes me wonder my sanity sometimes….
I just woke up & I saw a blur of a stripped snake crawling under Neath my door it was leaving out …I got up quick to see if it was actually real
I’ve noticed for several months now that I awake abruptly only to see an image on the wall that I ‘m facing. I do not recall ever dreaming about the image or even being asleep for that matter! I’ve seen a spider, pink spoons, and last night I saw a beautiful flower. For the last several years I’ve had insomnia and when I do fall asleep it’s in 15 minute increments (so I’ve been told) for a total of about 2-3 hours of sleep per night.
I, in a regular basis have the feeling of sleep paralysis. I often feel presence of smthng or some shadows i cldnt recall now. But most terrfying is that i have often seen monsters instead of people who sleep beside me. Just a day ago i woke up to find a dark creature near me instead of my mother and when she saw my anxiety and called out for me, i screamed and ran out of the room. But once i got out of the bed and my mind relaxed, i felt the real surroundings. This is 4th time i see figures instead of people. I even talk to these figures, and often i feel i am not in sleep while doing so. But oncs i snap out of it, i feel perfectly sane and normal. I often experience fluttering of heart in day time while doing my chores. There was a time when i was afraid to go back to sleep as i was sure i will be hallucinating things. I have also experienced, in day time, a voice whispering or calling out my name a couple of times. I know i have sleep paralysis but about the hallucinations, its like people are switched to someone else, know or unknown to me. And daytime arrhythmia also frightens me.
I’ve been having the same issue with the monsters and the shadows moving towards me. The other night I woke up screaming and I saw these monsters chopping up me and my boyfriends legs blood everywhere then I snapped out of it and was fine. What is this issue I really want to get to the bottom of it. I wake up terrified and screaming full of panic scared to death, especially when I wake up and see these monsters or moving shadows in the room. Please let me know if you get any feedback as to what we should do.
I used to always see weird objects floating in the room that would usually last for 5 seconds or less. I seen an orange cat once. Spiders. When it all started, it gradually got worse. In the beginning, it was once a month and then it was almost every night. One night, it wasn’t like any of the visuals I’ve seen before … I was so terrified because I seen what looked like a person under neath a colourful quilt blanket hunched over, dragging their feet towards the end of my bed ( it sounded so real ) I pulled my blanket over my head so fast. Looked again and it was gone. I started taking sleep.eaze tablets to help me sleep through the whole night. It helped a lot.
Hi, I am asleep and woken quickly by a vision that seems very close to me (coming at me if you will) some times it’s a man tonight it is was a dog dressed in brown last night it was a man he had on green shirt with paint on it. These visions are quick and shock me, it has happened before where the objects have been flying but now it’s happening more often. I am a lady in my late 60s believe to be normal I have just suffered a very bad flue and under a huge strain with family. Please help I feel I am going nuts and scared to go to sleep.
Ok…just sent comment anonymously.. sorry! Not intentional. I never want to stop having hypnagogic experiences. Ever. They have been a gift to me. I once saw the friendliest face imaginable. He was a red-headed man with wavy hair and beard. Blue or green eyes. My problem is that when I try to focus on any image…it vanishes! I’ve tried to just go with the flow when images appear, but my curiosity gets the better of me and I try to see them more clearly. This is sooo annoying for me as I want to carry on in this state but involuntarily send them away! This happened when I saw that friendly face – and he seemed to know what I’d just done…he looked dissapointed, and so was I! All images I see seem random…but they’re all welcome!
I found all comments fascinating…as well as puzzling! I’ve experienced hyp nagogic images since childhood and, to be quite honest, the night I don’t see anything is more disturbing to me than any night I do! I couldn’t possibly imagine my life without them, seeing as they form a part of my normal sleep routine. Sure, there have been some images that were disturbing but, for the most part, they are beautiful! I’ve seen places I’ve never been to…faces of people I’ve never met…I’ve even “been” in other time periods and other realities! I LOVE my hypnagogic images, look forward to seeing what turns up next, and wish they’d last longer!!!
I woke up yesterday morning hearing my son talking at 5:19am. I went to his door and told him its too late to be awake and to go to sleep. He never responded after that. I felt it odd but went back to sleep. Come to find out he had gone up sleep much earlier. I was hearing him but he was sleeping. #1 I alittle while ago turned the light off put the fan on and closed my eyes. A few minutes later I opened my eyes and saw an image that looked like a big huge spider? Bat? Thing? Spinning. I jumped up so quickly . Wtf? I put the light on…nothing. Am I going crazy or maybe it was something.
I’m thirteen and I see, hear and/or feel things every night. It scares me so much that I either sit up in bed or hide under all my duvets just looking around my room. I don’t fall asleep for a while as I’m so terrified. I see shadows and faces, I hear footsteps and sometimes voices and I feel people touching me or insects on me when none of these are actually there. I also normally feel a presents with me while I’m trying to sleep. I get so paranoid at night so I searched it up and found this and I relate so much. Right now, I’m paranoid. I need help to stop panicking so much at night. Any advise? Please?
Take melatonin, or other sleeping aid to help you sleep through the whole night.
3 weeks ago I was laying awake in my bed trying to fall asleep. I closed my eyes few seconds, but then I heard somethings moving in the room so I opened my eyes. I saw some weird moving shadows in the corners of the room. I looked at the bedroom door to my right, I saw a big ring in the air! Inside the ring, I saw pictures moving so quickly as if there is someone recording a video and running with the camera and I’m watching through the ring. I saw skeletons of decayed and dead people as if the picture was running inside a grave. Some of the skeletons were sitting up and some were laid on muddy ground. I saw small skeletons of kids and skeletons of women with hair but decayed faces. I was in such shock I couldn’t even turn my head to the front cause I knew I wasn’t sleeping and I’m really seeing this inside my bedroom!! All of the sudden the moving picture just stopped and one of these skeletons stepped out of the ring towards me slowly. I couldn’t take it any more, I started to get scared rather than curious, so I turned to the left where my baby was sleeping in his beside crib, I hugged him and started reading Quran versus. Then I turned to the right again and everything was gone! So I grabbed my phone and wrote down every single detail of what happened cause I knew if I didnt do that I will wake up the next day thinking that was just a dream. I still have this note on my phone. At the end of it I wrote “I was not hallucinating I was not dreaming all of this happened to me when I was awake.”
So what do you think? Is this hypnagogic hallucinations? I have had similar experiences before but they were very brief and happened when I was waking up from sleep not when I was trying to.
I experienced sleep paralysis and hallucinations very often. I get visual and tactile hallucinations. It wasn’t just crawling sensation but I can feel they were poking and sometimes pulling me hard and it hurts. Is this also considered as something that everyone experienced like those of paralysis and hallucinations because it started to hurt me and is it not harmful?
i dont know what it was but i am a very heavy sleeper and for some reasoni ended up finding my self with the feeling of small spiders or insect crawing all over me.Some one please help because i do have a strong fear of spiders and that scared me to death. I am only 13
I’ve had visual and auditory night hallucinations all my life. At 71 I still have them. I am no longer afraid. I’ve had people talk to me among other things. After all these years and thousands of experience I now wonder if there is more to this than the medical definition. By the way I sleep well no insomnia.
My boyfriend has just begun experiencing this within the last week. He works on the road for weeks at a time and drives upwards of 15 hours sometimes to return home. The first occurrence he jolted into an upright position and mumbled about the dog escaping the bedroom. But when he came to his senses he realized the dog was asleep in her bed as she had been for several hours. Last night was the second occurrence, this time he jolted completely out of bed into a standing position and insisted I check the bed. He was visibly shaken so I asked what I was looking for and he said “I told you I saw a spider the size of a dinner plate” -which he did not say out loud, must’ve been part of the hallucination. We eventually climbed back in bed after I found no evidence of giant man eating spiders, and he was still very shaken and had to rest his head on me to relax. It’s extremely frightening!! Any advice??
Sometimes I wake up at night and see things when I was little I would wake up but not remember waking up at all and my arm would be raised holding a plastic see through cup and inside would be worms coming out and going onto my body. When I was 7-8 I would see spiders crawling al over my walls and every piece of furniture in my room… sometimes I see sisters and this big mosquito type of insect hovering above my head and I try to swat at it and it vanishes…and last night I woke up and saw a dolls face looking at me from my dresser in between some clothes I had there so I woke up text my Bf and then fell back asleep and then I woke up again and see this tire rolling on my bedroom floor fall on its side and I look at it for a couple seconds and then it disappears.. idk what’s going on but good to hear some people experience similar things
I have experienced waking up and seeing different people that I don’t know. It scares me so bad , I put my head under the covers.
I wake up seeing a man standing at the foot of my bed but lately it has been my children’s faces. Last night I woke up and thought my daughter was standing by the side of my bed staring at me and I said her name twice. I fully woke up at that point and saw that no one was there but it scared me. Every time this happens I get scared. I hate it and thought that maybe my house was haunted. Its comforting to know that it’s an actual thing.
Fascinating, reading what others have experienced! The colors and geometric shapes sound like a blast, but I never see those.
I’ve had hallucinations since my mother passed away in 2012, very sparse at first (once every couple months) but they’ve now shown twice a week.
They used to happen when I’d accidentally cut off circulation in a limb, like sleeping on an arm; or I’ve had sleep paralysis from folding my arms tightly over the chest. Nowadays, they’re drawn from excessive stress/worry during the day or dehydration, and I don’t have to cut circulation. They just happen, right as I wake up.
It’s primarily spiders crawling on top of me, causing me to bolt for the lights and rapidly search the bed! But I did have one experience of feeling some strange, unseen presence looming in the far corner of the bedroom… and then, another hallucination of a cobra slowly gripping onto my hand.
I’m pretty aware of what causes these vivid, disorienting things, yet I continuously dismiss picking up healthy habits. I’ve struggled with anxiety, sleep deprivation, and basic paranoia since early childhood, so change is kinda hard to swallow. But typing about the hallucinations has eased my nerves (just experienced another an hour ago)! I’m so relieved to find this online community. :)
I have been having “episodes” like this probably since I was 11 or 12. I feel like I am awake but always been told it is just an intense nightmare. But I will be awoken or so it seems to a spider (not even a big one) repelling down off the ceiling fan right at my face. Unable to move until it gets really close and then usually I jump out of bed screaming spider! Spider!
The spider practically vanishes when the light comes on. But usually I shaking and my heart is pounding and at the time I am so convinced I saw what I saw. I literally make my husband strip the bed of the linens looking for this magical vanishing spider because I know it has to be there somewhere. There are times he says I have actually kicked and punched him during one of these dreams just trying to get away from the spider.
It’s always a spider coming off the ceiling fan. For years I always chalked it up to be walking into the living room as a little kid and my family was watching Arachniphobia and perhaps I was a bit traumatized by what I saw. But now I don’t know.
Sometimes it can happen one or two times a night and other times I can go weeks, months, or years before it happens again.
Usually happens when I am extremely stressed out.
I am glad found this site. For the last year I have been seeing horrific creatures as I close my eyes. I am not asleep just closed eyes. They are all different but all aggressive and horrible faces. They are not static, they are jumping around in my eyes.
The first time it happened I was terrified I was going mad and turned to the internet to try and find something to explain what was happening. I couldn’t find anything at the time to explain it.
It doesn’t happen every night and if I shut my eyes really tight I can make it go away. This last year has been very stressful. My Mother was taken into hospital and from there into a care home and six months later died. So I am thinking maybe it is stress related. Never the less it is unpleasant.
Thank you for the explanation of this strange affliction.
Honestly this has never happened to me before tonight. I’ve been going out with friends the past few days and have hardly slept. I’m also stressed out about some personal things ( I see from other comments that stress plays a part in this).
I live in student housing, so for the summer my roommate, who lives across the hall from me, has been visiting home. She doesn’t sleep at night like a normal person, instead she’s always up watching movies or chatting with friends on her phone. I’ve been so used to the quietness of her being gone that I think during stage 3(or 2) sleep my brain picked up on the noise she was making and woke me up. I think that I fell asleep around 1am. It was early 2am that I woke up and saw a face hovering above mine which made me sit up… this scared me but the face wasn’t vivid enough for me to really be scared. I understood that it was my mind playing a trick on me and went right back to sleep. At around 2:40 it felt like I had been sleeping for a while, but I opened my eyes for some reason and right in front of my face, again, was the same face (a friend of mine) smiling down at me. This time it was very vivid. I sat up screaming and throwing my fists around. After reading these comments I’m really hoping that this is just a one time thing because I can’t deal with this again. I’ve had sleep paralysis twice before but have never seen shapes, faces, people. Nothing.
I see musical notes on walls…..ive fought this after being sectioned twice. thanks for your publication…it has saved my life…
I have had these for years. I go to sleep and awaken usually within 20-45 minutes, scream, leap out of bed, and run out of the room because I see someone standing or sometimes hovering there. It is totally terrifying, my heart is beating so hard that I feel like I am going to pass out. I have noticed that these episodes occur more frequently when I am exhausted and stressed. They happen way too often though; several times a week. It has gotten to the point where I am afraid to go to sleep and end up sleeping in a recliner in the living room. I am tired all of the time.
Hi, relieved to read this and can empathise- I have practically the same thing happening.
It’s been happening for many years and also appears to be linked to stress.
I see shadows that shoot across my eye sight so fast that I only know what direction its going in and I hear weird noises that I can’t describe whenever I close my eyes in the light I see something that I can’t explain and when I’m in the dark I get chills down my spine around my arms and legs and I get very paranoid whenever I see something that shouldn’t excise and I can’t go to sleep also whenever I go anywhere that even has a bit of darkness I see the darkness grow and whenever I talk about demons and how we could defeat them the room shakes and if I’m standing I almost fall And if I close my eyes long enough I feel a bad presence and I feel like I need to run and the same thing happens when I’m outside at night. If anyone can help me that would be great.
I’ve experienced I see something above me and I literally swat at it with my pillow. What the hell s it? Happens from time to time. I’m always wondering, do I really see this in a conscious state or a subconscious dream state and awake aright then and swat consciously. I’m baffled. Please someone explain.
I am very interested in the conversations that I have read I don’t know if I’m sleep but I think I’m awake I hear three knocks at my door and sometimes they’re very loud like somebody’s Banning for me to wake up and I’ll say I’m coming and when I go to the door nobody’s there what’s wrong with me why am I doing this I have been doing this for a long time the knocks or beginning to be louder and louder and my grandson said that I am answering somebody but nobody’s there and he tells me to go back to bed it bothers me because it happens I think when I’m awake I don’t know if I’m falling asleep or not but it’s all the time so I’m asking for help what’s going on with me
Wow this is interesting to read. I have only really just realised that there is a name to these experiences that I have and so many other people do too!!
I see silhouettes of people stood next to my bed, behind the curtains or in the reflection of my mirrored wardrobe so many times. I normally don’t react to the people as I’m terrified I just lay there and wait to wake up and when I do im normally sweating and my heart is beating SO fast.
I also get spiders crawling on me or imagine them on my pillow or in bed, I’ll sit up in shock and search for the spider until I eventually wake up or my partner wakes me up and I realise nothing is there.
A weird one, my dog sleeps in bed with us in a morning yet I always imagine that she falls out of bed. The moment she hits the floor I wake up, or I’ll imagine she’s trying to get into bed and I’ll go searching around the floor trying to find her. I wake up and she’s fast asleep in her own bed. I did that last night I imagined a different dog and my partner was awake watching me and he said I was talking to the dog and leaning over the bed trying to pick an imaginary puppy up.
I sometimes wake up and think I am somewhere else in the bed (like laid the wrong way around) and I’m not.
Everytime any of these happen I wake up and my heart is always beating out of my chest and I’m shaking. I’m wondering if there’s anything that can help me as they’re starting to really annoy me!
Unlike the most, i enjoy sleep hallucinations. Seeing pictures is pretty common to me but if ever get my sleep cycle disrupted, i experience auditory hallucinations. Hearing existing ( yet more twisted and powerful) or non existing tunes is quite awesome. Was i any good at writing music, i could easily use them to get famous!
I just had this experience…again and it bothered me so much that I grabbed my phone to find an answer at 530a.m. I’ve heard a man say my name before upon waking right in my ear and scared me to death. Other times, I feel a bird or a bat or something something with wings fluttering across the blankets or moving under the blankets and I feel like I must move the covers to let it go free. The sensation of its wings are so real to me that I can feel the wind of it. My eye sight is so bad without contacts that I couldn’t see a shape at night, I think that’s why I get more tactile and auditory hallucinations. Either way, they’re so real!!!!!
o get almost the same thing but like bugs crawling all over me and i kept swating them
I have had these since taking ‘Z’ sleeping pills for a number of years. When I stopped taking them, I got massive hallucinations (never had them before in my life); including spiders, huge creepy crawlies etc. and disorientation – no knowing which was I was facing in bed or which room I was in. This has gradually eased but some two months since stopping I having hypnagogic hallucinations (only found out a name for it today on here) – where pictures appear to slide down the wall; my grandson is apparently standing at the side of the bed; patterns on the walls. I stare at them until they gradually dematerialise. Hoping they will eventually disappear but wanted to put these down as withdrawal from sleeping pill symptoms and to warn people to keep them to short term use. Have to say it is a very interesting phenomenon though.