My body's been acting weird lately when i sleep at night.?

Question

it happened about four times this month
its kinda hard to explain and sounds weird.
When i get into bed after about ten minutes or so, i start dreaming in first person, in other words about myself in a situation like some people attacking me in a Western movie then i start shooting back and while im in this fight i get shot, my body feels numb, but during this dream im still conscious and i struggle to regain consciousness but my body is paralyzed from my neck down. i start shaking my head until i regain control of my body.
i would describe the experience as the feeling of being possessed or i feel as if i become the person in my dream in real life.
Can someone explain what's happening to me?

Answer 1

You are having lucid dreams. A lot of people have these types of dreams & they can be quite fun. But yours doesn't sound like too much fun. Lucid dreams are very vivid dreams in which the dreamer has some/total control of what is happening in the dream. That you are experiencing the sensations so strongly & that you are actively doing something (shaking your head) to achieve a goal (regaining control of your body) is what makes me believe these are lucid dreams.

There are actually 2 things you can work on: 1) Before you go to sleep, tell yourself you are not going to have this dream, just keep telling yourself that & say it in your head like you really mean it (part of making this work is believing that you can indeed control your dreams), also couple this with some deep, slow breathing. (I'm a lucid dreamer; I hate to have nightmares, so every night before I fall asleep, I tell myself: "No scary dreams." This usually always works, sigh.) It's called 'auto-suggestion.' So for you, work on achieving a very relaxed state with the deep breathing & tell yourself 'no gunfights tonight.'

If this doesn't work & you have the dream again, then the second thing you can do is try to change what is happening in your dream. You can trying putting the gun down & see what happens. Or maybe, see if you can just walk (or crawl) away from the gunfight. Or you can try to yell "Fire!", that usually grabs people attention, see what happens.

The mind processes information accumulated during the day while we sleep. Not just facts, but also emotional responses. There are lots of theories about what dreams are, or if they serve any function at all. Personally, I believe we 'work stuff out' in our dreams - that dreams are an attempt to make sense of unresolved issues. Your dream suggests there is something going on in your life that is a struggle for you. It may be something you're not really aware of, but it's bugging you on some level. That you get shot, suggests that someone/something has hurt you - metaphorically, not physically. It may be something you have actually tried to do something about (because you are actively in a gunfight, not just observing), but were unsuccessful & it's still bothering you. That you are paralyzed in your dream suggests that you may feel unable to do anything further about this situation, or that you gave up because your attempts were unsuccessful. I think that once you acknowledge this, whatever it is that's bothering you, the dreams will go away. I think the dream may be prodding you to examine what's going on in your life

I understand why you say you feel possessed. It's because you (most likely) have never been physically paralyzed in real life, so it is an unreal situation for you, as it would be for most people. Yeah, I don't quite know how to explain it, but I know what you mean.

So, one other thing, I was wondering what the significance of Westerns is to you. Are you a fan of this genre? Just wondering why your brain is choosing this scenario. What kinds of stuff do you associate with Westerns when you think of them? Overall, it's a pretty violent venue. Then again, it may not even be all that symbolic - do you personally know anyone who was shot? Because that can't help but leave a person feeling powerless. Just some thought for directions for you to pursue.

Good luck !

Answer 2

Have you ever heard the saying that what happens to the brain happens to the rest of the body? I used to get into physical and magical duels with a wizard in my dreams for a months. Any bruises I picked up in my dreams, I woke up with. One night, I partially woke up and realized that in my brain, I was fighting, so my limbs were moving the way my brain told them too. Unfortunately, I had a head board with shelving that I would whack with my arms, hence the bruising, and my brain translated it into getting hit. In your dreams, you're doing these things and your in a deep enough sleep, your brain partially believes them and responds accordingly until you're out of the dream.

Answer 3

Do a web search for sleep paralysis or old hag syndrome, and see if the info you find matches up with your experiences....

Answer 4

that is weird but i think that happened to me once...

Answer 5

Its the LSD, lay off just a little.