what do you Belive?

[JDBar]

I don't know. I used to suffer from sleep paralysis until I was about 7 or 8... then when I was 9 I figured out an easy way to get out of it. (I would constantly try to rock back and forth as hard I could until eventually my legs would slightly move, and then I could move eventually)

I found this on Wikipedia:

In addition, the paralysis state may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations (hypnopompic or hypnagogic) and an acute sense of danger.[11] Sleep paralysis is particularly frightening to the individual because of the vividness of such hallucinations.[7] The hallucinatory element to sleep paralysis makes it even more likely that someone will interpret the experience as a dream, since completely fanciful, or dream-like, objects may appear in the room alongside one's normal vision. Some scientists have proposed this condition as an explanation for alien abductions and ghostly encounters.[12] A study by Susan Blackmore and Marcus Cox (the Blackmore-Cox study) of the University of the West of England supports the suggestion that reports of alien abductions are related to sleep paralysis rather than to temporal lobe lability.[13]

I think this is absolutely true. I ALWAYS saw extremely crazy things when I was paralyzed (which was almost every other night). I recall thinking: I've been picked up, flipped, and dropped; my bed being replaced by a giant mushroom; my window blinds floating erect and then shooting across the room and into the wall; the plants outside my window coming to life and trying to get into my room; my ceiling fan blades stretching and coming towards me; a face appearing in my ceiling and screaming; a gigantic Bionicle in my room charging at me with a spear; my toy robot dog Tekno climbing on walls; and probably more I don't remember anymore.

It was so bad that eventually I was afraid to sleep. I dreaded bed time. I would try to stay up all night and never fall asleep. And I think it's left an effect on me, because I have butterflies in my stomach just remembering this stuff...

EDIT: I just remembered how they stopped. Around when I was 10 or 11, I remember I prayed to God for about half an hour begging him to take the dreams away. (I don't know whether or not they were dreams, or whether or not this was an entirely mental thing) I didn't want to deal with being afraid of sleeping anymore, and ever since then I really haven't had any dreams. There's still occasional paralysis, and of course the normal nightmares, but I haven't had any hallucinations since then. When I was 13 I started practicing lucid dreaming, and I got pretty good until I just forgot about it. Nothing else interesting since then.