This day was my first time on Dreams group. I missed the last one. An inquiry was made by a member as to sleep paralysis. It appeared to me that his inquiry left the group feeling uncomfortable on the topic and no feedback was offered. The group moved on quickly to the topic the surfaced next.
I am commenting on three fronts regarding sleep paralysis:
A. The current science behind sleep paralysis. There are those who believe it is a sleep disorder and gave it a label–parasomnia. I disagree with this and favor that such events happen when there is an overlapp of REM sleep and wakefulness. The brief loss of muscle control is known as atonia. Basically, it is viewed as the brain is preventing the muscles in the lims from moving to protect one from acting dreams out and from hurting oneself. It tends o happen when one is regaining awareness going into or coming out of REM.
B. I have a Vietnamese Buddhist friend on Facebook who wrote me recently upon my sharing the recent death of my Brussels Griffon named Satto. She said she had dreamed about him and then shared a dream when her brother had passed away. His visitation was in a vivid dream in which she experienced sleep paralysis. She didn’t call it that. All she said was that she could not move her body.
C. I have had the experience about a handful of sleep paralysis over my 79 years of life. But in recent times, these experiences left me with the feeling that there was a disembodied being passing by. In all of those instances, to instantly regain movement in my body, I would call out a sacred name. In doing so, I felt a sudden lift of energy from my body.
Recently, the last two, which happened in December and January. The first one was so different in that, in my state of awareness, I sensed a menacing force approaching the lucid dream field. In invoked the sacred name; that was the end of that. As I recall, the approach was always my legs first.
The last one I experienced was a different approach. I felt an energy field taking over my rib cage area; and in my awareness, I swept it away with my hand; and it left instantly. I felt it. There, however, was no sense of paralysis to take hold. And as I was taught, I recited a sacred mantra taught by my guru who is no longer in this realm. He did say once that I should allow it to happen, perhaps as a teaching on aversion. I don’t know.
One never knows if there is a visitation or not.
Om Mani Peme Hung Shri
Pema Odsal (Armida to the group)