what is happening when you're awake and cant move, its like something is holding you down?

Question

Some times when I wake up I cant move. I feel extreme fear, and terror. its like being held down by something I cant see. I have a hair riasing feeling something is looking at me. This can occure for hours or minuites.What is this?

Answer 1

Sleep paralysis. I used to experience it frequently. It can be bought on by stress. I was NOT asleep as I could hear precisely everything that was happening around me. It seemed like a long time, but it never went on for hours. I learned to focus on taking one good deep breath. Then I was able to move. If someone touched me I also gained movement.
Reduce your stress levels as much as you can and try not to oversleep. That worked for me.

Answer 2

Sleep paralysis.

Sleep paralysis is most often associated with narcolepsy, a neurological condition in which the person has uncontrollable naps. However, there are many people who experience sleep paralysis without having signs of narcolepsy. Sometimes it runs in families. There is no known explanation why some people experience this paralysis. It is not harmful, although most people report feeling very afraid because they do not know what is happening, and within minutes they gradually or abruptly are able to move again; the episode is often terminated by a sound or a touch on the body.

In some cases, when hypnogogic hallucinations are present, people feel that someone is in the room with them, some experience the feeling that someone or something is sitting on their chest and they feel impending death and suffocation. That has been called the “Hag Phenomena” and has been happening to people over the centuries. These things cause people much anxiety and terror, but there is no physical harm.

Answer 3

This happens to me too, i thought i was the only one. I've been having that feeling along with in and out dream-like symptoms and teeth clenching and that other thing when you open and close your mouth real fast since i was 10. I'm 22 now. Most times i tell myself to count to 3 and wake up, i always take a deep breath right before 3 and try as hard as i can to move my head as sharply as i can to the other side and usually i wake up, but when it happens i always feel extremely physically tired like i just ran a freakin marathon or something. Other times i just have to tell myself it's just dream and it'll be over soon.

Answer 4

I use to get the same thing, particularly in summer.

There is a part of you brain that turns off motor function of the body so you don't move around and hurt yourself when you are sleeping.

My handling at the time was to imagine a computer keyboard and press ESC, CTRL and DEL. Give me a break it was the 80s and I was learning about computers at the time.

It just went away with me.

I noted the other answers suggesting drugs, God, and stress.

This jogged my memory it stopped in me when I started using Dianetics and Scientology.

Answer 5

I have it all the time, since I was 9 years old, and it can be genetic, my dad has it also, but it happens to him in a different form. I hate it....and notices that going to bed on a full stomach sometimes brings it on easier...therefore my last meal is at 6:30-7

Answer 6

Sounds like an oppressing spirit of fear. The Bible can tell you how to get rid of him.

Answer 7

That usually means that your spirit is coming back into your body... it's nothing to be afraid of once ya know.

Answer 8

sleep paralysis
http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/paralysis.html

"How can I stop the sleep paralysis?
---In severe cases, where episodes take place at least once a week for 6 months, medication may be used. "

Article: "Sleep paralysis is normal"
http://www.aufora.org/discuss/messages/6465.html

Answer 9

I have friends that this happens to and they're having the DT's

Answer 10

i was going to say that it sounds like a demonic attack... but after reading the other responses...man that makes me sound like a freak!!!!!