If you suffer from sleep paralysis upon falling asleep, can we chat?

[dsmith]

I used to have quite a problem with sleep paralysis, and I only experienced it when falling asleep. This was often accompanied by a rushing/buzzing sound in my head, and my vision would often slide sideways or I would lose focus if they were open when it happened. If my eyes were closed I would see bright spots at times. I eventually managed to avoid sleep paralysis by strictly controlling my sleep. I was working very early morning hours and getting home at 1 PM, so I started splitting my sleep into two blocks of 2 - 4 hours, and this was when it started. After a few years of this, I started working later hours and not taking any naps, and only sleeping in one block, and this seemed to do the trick. 

 

Lately I've been very tired, even after sleeping 6 - 9 hours a night, with 7 1/2 hours being the norm. During the day for the last few weeks I have heard that rushing sound in my ears/head, and have experienced some of the vision sliding issues. This started after a short bout of vertigo. It feels exactly like what would happen before the sleep paralysis would hit me, and it's starting to freak me out!! Has anyone experienced something similar? Maybe it has nothing to do with the sleep paralysis but the sensations are so similar that I'm almost afraid I'm going to suddenly be paralyzed while standing up! The feeling hits me multiple times a day, perhaps 15 - 20 times, lasts a few seconds, and then I am able to reorient myself. Would a neurologist be warranted with these symptoms? Help! :sad:

[Zydruna]

Not exactly as you described, but I have had something sort of similar.  Starting in college, I would experience sleep paralysis accompanied by a very loud, vibrating buzzing in my head.  With me, this usually occurred only when I would attempt to take a nap during the day, or if I tried to sleep in too late into the late morning, never at night.  I associated with an antihistamine that I was on that later got recalled because it casued hallucinations among other things because I sometimes had hallucinations of someone being in the room with me when this happened but not always.  I stopped taking the medicine but the problem continued for many years. 

 

The only thing that ever seemed to help, and this may have just been psychological, was if I slept on my side instead of on my back.  I noticed that it usually happened when I slept on my back, and a few times when I was at long last able to break out of the paralysis and fully wake up, if I managed to get turned onto my side, the buzzing would stop.  To this day I try not to nap unless I am really exhausted, and I only fall asleep on my side just in case.  It is an awful, awful feeling! I hope you find a way to prevent it! :grouphug:

[dsmith]

Thanks for your input. I had been taking an antihistamine for the vertigo, but it made me so overtired that I stopped taking it after a week. I wonder if it's somehow affected my sleep and it's spilling over into the daytime... I am not getting the sleep paralysis at night, but I feel the same feeling before it used to happen, but during the day when I'm awake.

[gracesteacher]

sleep paralysis only happens in REM sleep. as your body naturally does that to allow your brains activity but not involve the body so it can rest. it would be quite interesting to watch your sleep (brainwaves) on a night/day where this was occurring

[IsabelC]

I used to suffer from sleep paralysis a bit, but only on waking up, never on going to sleep. I don't know whether the causes are different? It freaked me out every time, though, because whenever my mind woke up before my body I would forget what it was and panic and try to scream, not be able to scream, panic more, etc. Quite funny to remember but not at all funny when it happened!