Plant Induced Sleep Paralysis

[MeanGreen]

Since the past 5 or 6 months I have been experiencing extremely frequent sleep paralysis, sometimes more than 5 times in a single day. And at least 3 or 4 times a week.

 

I am almost certain kratom plays a big part in that, and on dreaming in general. I have been using kratom daily for over a year, following 8 years of heroin then methadone addictions.

 

I am also a very heavy cannabis user, and prior to using kratom I absolutely never ever would remember any of my dreams. 

When I began using kratom I started having extremely vivid dreams several times a night and was able to recall them very well when I woke up. I even kept a journal for a while.

 

About 6 months ago is when I was at the peak of my daily intake, at around 35g a day. I have since managed to taper down to about half that.

This was when the sleep paralysis started happening.

I also had a shitty sleep schedule at the time and had one of the best batches of sedative kratom I ever found, a red "Bentuangie".

 

Most of the time it happens while I'm nodding/falling asleep, and always while on my back.

I get this sort of electrical surge throughout my body sort of akin to extreme fear/startlement but not really, a buzzing sound in the ears which amplifies and amplifies, and this feeling of falling a bit similar to nitrous oxide. It is extremely powerful.

 

I am completely unable to move, appart from slight finger movement when trying to move my arms, opening my eyes and gasping/breathing loudly when trying to produce any kind of sound. I can clearly hear myself gasping and I feel very much awake and conscious when this happens. It usually lasts about 15-30sec if I try very hard to make it stop.

 

At first it would last only a split second and the adrenalin from not knowing what was happening woke me up immediately, but I would get it like 5 times in a row when trying to fall asleep, spaced by a few minutes.

This was completely new to me at first and I was very worried it was some sort of neurological issue until I identified what it was.

 

I do not get the paranoid hallucinations that some people report, like feeling a presence in the room or feeling someone is pinning you down and choking you. 

 

The interesting thing though, is that I have been able to do slight decorporations/astral projections/whatever you want to call it while in that state, if I try to not wake myself up and let the experience happen.

Which is pretty difficult because the experience is so strong and overwhelming and really makes you panic no matter what.

 

But for example, I clearly remember feeling like I was being pulled by my right leg in an upwards diagonal direction, and definitely feeling my whole body slide along with it. I also had my eyes open and the room was exactly my room.

At this point I was too overwhelmed and "woke up", and I manifestly had not moved at all or I would have been on the floor and dropped from about 1m in the air.

 

Another time I remember trying to let it happen, and when it got to the point I chicken out I tried lifting my chest to get in a sitted position and it worked.

I had my eyes open and my vision shifted perspective just like it normally would when going from laying down to sitting up, but it also sort of felt like my chest and arms were emerging of my actual body that was still laying down, like a ghostly double of my upper body. Woke up shortly afterwards.

 

What is very weird is that although I feel completely awake and conscious when this happens, and my eyes and ears perceive things the way they actually are, there is still some sort of waking-up process, everything stops abruptly and even if my eyes were open a second ago it feels like I'm opening another layer of my eyes if that makes any sense.

 

I really feel like there is something there, and I'm somewhat happy to be able to experience this state and facet of my psyche.

 

Any of you guys are familiar with sleep paralysis? Let's hear your stories!

[Crop]

Hi MeanGreen, I experienced sleep paralysis as a child. I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder at 11 and think this was related to that, not plant use, but the symptoms were similar to yours. For me the most terrifying part was laying there, fully awake in my head, but not being able to open my eyes. It doesn't happen much anymore and sometimes I might even miss it. Try reading Carlos Castaneda's 'The Art of Dreaming' This fella is probably full of shit, but there's no doubt, even if I still can't clap in my sleep, sleep paralysis gives you an advantage in some of his techniques.

[ThunderIdeal]

Get proper sleep if you want it to stop.

 

Your paralyses are very frequent indeed.  Several in a night isnt unusual, you are merely passing into and back out of the same state on your journey to sleep until you eventually make it through, but every other day seems like a lot.

 

I very much enjoyed reading your post and hope you do updates.  its a very novel experience.

 

I too tried to pass into a trance state or such, whenever the panic wasnt too much i'd try to relax into the experience.  I always wanted to astral project since i was 14.  When it seemed to actually happen during a paralysis i was mortified and got out of there.  Nothing happened, i didnt see anything, the feeling and the sound and the facts of the matter just immediately felt too alien.  I couldn't handle it.

[MeanGreen]

Thank you, it's good to know I'm not the only one this happens to. I will definitely post some updates whenever it happens, I had one this morning waking-up which is what prompted me to create this thread.

 

I do get somewhat proper sleep, at least in terms of hours, but sleep on opioids in general is not as restful. Since I work from home I often take naps and I feel like this might contribute to the paralysis, like it messes-up my circadian rhythm or something.

 

Either way I honestly do not want it to stop at all, I hope to take advantage of the situation by grabbing my balls with both hands and train myself to resist the urge of waking up.

 

First off there's this sound, that goes up and up and louder and louder, it has to reach some sort of climax at one point I feel like. What happens then? Probably my head imploding, but you never know haha.

 

And then there's this astral projection thing which is really interesting to me. I literally just found out about Robert Monroe, and it's freaky how much his accounts of sleep paralysis and OOBE match what I experience: http://www.lucid-mind-center.com/robert-monroe-out-of-body.html

 

I'm very intrigued by this state, and hey, who doesn't like free, natural, endogenous and surprise psychedelic experiences that you're able to snap out of at will?

[ThunderIdeal]

Well if you read robert monroe the sleep paralysis state corresponds to the initial goal of putting the body to sleep, but without having gone through the mental preparation, without training in meditation.

 

Once you are already there, things happen quickly, like a couple of seconds of meditation has explosive results, but theres something to be said for the notion that you have taken a sleazy shortcut.  Im not making that judgement, just putting it out there.  Consider the ramifications:  this state is usually achieved through diligent practise but in our case through abusable drugs and lack of rest.  instead of entering with intent we find ourselves there disoriented and have to select our response on the fly.

 

Ive had the tone, which corresponded to my vibration.  I was moving it up and down at will.  Cant remember the story but its one that i documented here, i think.  I believe if you can handle the vibration (i find it overwhelming in a literal sense) and increase the tone you will pop out of your body.

 

 

[MeanGreen]

That's a very fair point about this being a shortcut, and I think it's also why it's so scary for the people who have this happen spontaneously without working towards it.

I mean if you worked for month to try and achieve sleep paralysis, when you finally succeed the feeling would probably be more of joy and astonishment than fear.

 

That's why I intend on learning more about this, I bypassed the first step but I'm willing to work for the next one.

[Smiling]

I get this quite often, especially when I have to take opioid painkillers, so its not a surprise that kratom may cause it too.   I usually wake up, cant move and then there is someone in the room with me walking towards me very ominously like they are going to cause me harm.  And then I wake up drenched in sweat heart pounding.  This will repeat many times in a night until I eventually stop trying to sleep.

I found the best way to get through it is to put a movie on my phone and put in ear plugs.  I usually watch a narnia film because its on youtube and is a very calm movie.   

Do you also sleep walk?  I do this quite often too.  People have seen me open the back door and go for walks at night, its so weird.  The worst thing I do is piss on things.  Ill wake up and go piss on a tv or something, so embarrassing.  One time I was at a party and fell asleep, i woke up to this guy yelling at me.  I'd walked into his room and started pissing on his bed/him.  

[MeanGreen]

Thanks for sharing. I've never sleepwalked as far as I know.

That pisswalking problem sounds aweful, and hilarious at the same time, not gonna lie haha. Do you remember any of it when you wake up, or qny of the dreams you had while this happened?

 

I read many similar reports about seeing someone in the room who is supposedly there to harm you, fortunately this hasn't happened to me.

I almost always fall asleep with a youtube video on, I often put on any random Terence McKenna talk just for that purpose, I find his voice and tone sort of hypnotic. And when I get sleep paralysis I can clearly hear the talk, this has allowed me to roughly time the duration of my paralysis by remembering the first sentence I hear when in SP and rewinding when I snap out of it.

 

I have used and abused many prescription and illicit opiates but this had never happened to me before kratom, I really think one of the many minor alkaloids in it acts on sleep in a weird way.

[Siggor]

On 2/17/2018 at 1:33 PM, MeanGreen said:

 

I read many similar reports about seeing someone in the room who is supposedly there to harm you, fortunately this hasn't happened to me.

 

 

I've had those experiences mostly in the form of spiritesque/alien/demon beings that were constantly trying to rip me out of my physical body. I think the intensity of those experiences have created an inability to OOBE/lucid dream anymore as I was once an avid explorer and miss it somewhat.

[nmethyl]

Ugh haven't had this for a while, not a big fan but have finally realised what's going on so it's no longer a threat feeling.