hectorrouge said:
I've been having illusions as though animals or objects are in my room, its been happening over years of my life. When it started I was very young and it scared me, but as I grew older it disappeared. Now its almost the same, but the only difference is it actually is doing me damage. When I was 7 I woke up and attempted to go get some water, when I began to sit up out of bed I was knocked back down; it felt as though a dog had just attacked me, it continued like this, me hiding and hearing barks and feeling things hitting me until I finally yelled.
Though just yesterday I had another one, this one managed to even traumatize me, I don't want to go back to bed, I can't take it, I think it may be insomnia but I don't know. Yesterday as I was trying to go to bed when I saw a pitch black figure move across my bed it quickly became a black snake. I could reason I was being irrational, swinging my blankets and even my pillow at it; I soon regained my head and leapt off my bed and intot he hall way, then turned the lights on to my room, but there was nothing there. Its 3:00 AM in Texas now and I can't bring myself to go to bed, it scares me to much, please help!
It really matters if you were asleep or not when these things happened. The first thing you mentioned seemed to happen in the middle of sleep. The second thing you say happened as you were going to bed: were you on your way to bed, or were you in bed trying to fall asleep? You say that you swung your blankets and pillows at it, did you actually do it, or did you hallucinate doing it? If you actually did it, then was the hallucination of the snake still there, or did it disappear when you swung at it?
The first incident sounds like sleep paralysis. If you weren't asleep for the second one, then it can't be sleep paralysis. You say you could reason that it wasn't real, so it's unlikely to be a psychological disorder. Unlike in the movies, if you're crazy, you're generally unable to just 'figure out' that it's not real. There are reasons that you can hallucinate without being crazy though, particularly if you've had any brain infections, such as encephalitis, or other brain-related badness.
But my second theory is that this happened just before you fell asleep, in which case, it's hypnogogia. This is a state that you can go in to, before you're asleep, when you can experience hallucinations. It's often just bright lights, or people talking, but it can form complex objects that you can see and interact with. You're also completely aware that what you're seeing isn't real. The only thing is that from my experience, the hypnogogic state is pretty relaxing, but maybe with your previous bad experience with hallucination, it went a bit nasty. I'm pretty sure the hallucination would have stopped as soon as you tried to do something physical about it, though. So if you weren't falling asleep, or if the hallucination persisted after you physically moved, then it's not that.
A caveat: I'm not a doctor, I'm just a guy who sees things which aren't there and reads a lot of Wikipedia about it. Which is no substitute for the real thing. If you know that the hallucinations aren't real, then the doctor isn't going to think you're crazy, particularly since they're only happening late at night. So if it's worrying you, go see the doctor, and I'm ninety-five percent sure that he'll be able to explain it to you there and then; and I'm one-hundred percent sure the solution won't involve straitjackets.
Lexodus said:
I hear voices most nights. They talk around me, as if I don't exist. Sometimes I can't tell what they're saying, as if they're a long way off, and on those nights I make sure that my family is asleep and the TV's off downstairs (My dog did actually turn it on once during her prowling, so it could happen). I've seen things too, but mostly it's the voices. It's probably due to clinical paranoia and insomnia, and my hazy brain conjures them up due to lack of sleep and therefore lack of solid definition between the real and the unreal.
Not all pills work.
That's definitely Hypnogogia. It's great that you have such a clear recollection of it. Most people (but not all) go through it, but most of them forget all about it. How do you feel about it? I really enjoy mine, I look forward to it more than sleep. It feels like my brain relaxing, and just seeing or hearing what it wants to, rather than what's actually there. The only time I don't like it, is if it's been a particularly busy night at work (I'm a bartender) then I can still hear the customers ordering drinks when I'm going to sleep. If I discuss it after work, half my co-workers will just shrug and say 'that happens to everyone', while the other half will look at us like we're crazy.
Anyway, glad that you can remember yours too, I find it a really interesting state to be in.
