So why isn't lucid dreaming super popular yet?

[hrugner]

yeah, that's a night terror with sleep paralysis. not lucid dreaming.

strangely, that's pretty much how every human experiences night terrors. it feels weird to me that so many people have such a similar experience with it. an overwhelming sense of impending doom, shadowy figures either in the room watching you or actually seeming to hold you down, entirely unable to do anything but scream.

to me... that feels like there's more to it than a simple dream. i don't really believe in the supernatural all that much, but such a consistently shared experience like this? that's weird. that's really weird. if it's not something weird happening, what happened to early humans that gave us this subconscious monster? something had to have imprinted this specific fear into our genetics.

The most common defining feature of sleep paralysis is an imagined cause of the paralysis such as something sitting on your chest. The mare is probably the most iconic myth of this type, but being sat upon, ridden, entangled in hair and so on all make a showing. Why we see humanoid monsters in these delusions probably has something to do with other mental phenomena like shadow people or prisoner's cinema. With shadow people we seek to rationalize emotional responses by generating a human cause so the random anxiety that one is being followed manifests as followers. With prisoner's cinema a person deprived of light for long enough seems to have some bleeding stimulus from other parts of the brain into visual processing, people translate this bleed into sounds, colors, patterns, and the human form.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I have them now and then, and I take them as they come. I have no reason to try and make every night a "lucid dreaming night".

Besides, sometimes my "lucid dreams" will turn into sleep paralyzis, if I lay on my back (never otherwise). Not something I enjoy, even though I'm aware during that stage, they're hella scary.

[Silver Forte]

Trying to trigger lucid dreaming instead triggers my sleep paralysis and I witness horrifying hallucinations.

[Nerdgasm]

Trying to trigger lucid dreaming instead triggers my sleep paralysis and I witness horrifying hallucinations.

Yeah, same happened to me.

It was fucking horrifying. Never again.

[Gref]

ermm am I the only one who enjoys sleep paralysis? first time it happened I was shocked and couldn't move at all when that darker than the room itself thing was pushing me down on my chest. 2nd time it happened I was prepared but it still beat me down. 3rd time however I was able stand.

afterwards I had it a few more times but no more something pushing me down but an intense sense of ... fear? worry? something like that. It is amazing I think.

[breadisfunny]

when i get sleep paralysis i get this horrible sensation that i'm going to be murdered or kidnapped or something bad is going to happen to me and my brain starts panicking and starts trying to wake me up.

[ItachiZaku]

I feel I can pull it off 40% of the time. I'm pretty decent at waking up and then diving right back in where I left off.

[Zoibert the Bear]

I tried a few times and failed. I think it was partially because of fear of self-induced sleep paralysis. I've had sleep paralysis episodes occur to me outside my attempts towards lucid dreams and it's never pretty.

I usually see this fucked up man standing beside me, looking me straight in the eye or heavy breathing/my name whispered to my ear. Feels like fucking hours and I end up waking of because my girlfriend hears me hyperventilating.