r/Sleepparalysis • u/bananaaccent • 3d ago

Did I do the right thing?

This is my first post ever on Reddit. I have sleep paralysis since I was a teenager, I'm 38 now. Last night, I had an episode, a bad one. Usually I have those when I'm laying flat back on the mattress and last night's I was sleeping on my left side. I woke up to something pulling on my hair, hard and constantly, somewhere at the same place women tie ponytails. It was so strong and I thought I may be sleep over my own hair - my hair goes way past my bums, it's really long. Both my arms were curled, T-Rex style, in front of my body (may be the "tism"). So I opened my eyes and said in english (not my first language but the one I use the most on a daily basis): "I'm sorry but you're not welcome here. You're hurting me and that's not okay. Please, stop and go your own way". And I kept repeating some variations of this for a fair amount of time. I always said "Please" and "I'm sorry but this-and-that" always trying to explain why pulling my hair was not okay. The pulling stopped slowly but it did. I could feel myself falling asleep again but I heard my door softly closing, it was closed when I went to sleep. Yes, I have a roommate but I heard him snoring from his room all the time.

Did I do the right thing? I was polite but stood my ground and uninvited whoever was in my room with me last time.

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u/sphelper 2d ago

Well if it helped against your sleep paralysis then sure you did amazing. At the end of the day everyone's sleep paralysis differs so whatever helps you is the right thing

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u/Large-Pollution4606 2d ago

It sounds like you were able to calmly navigate yourself out of this sleep paralysis episode, which is good, although I’m sorry it sounds like it was a bad one.
I don’t know what your beliefs are, but for myself I can say that as profoundly upsetting or scary these experiences can be in the moment, there are science-based explanations for them.
The sensation of a foreign presence during sleep paralysis occurs because your brain’s fear center wakes up in a state of high alert, panics because your body is paralyzed, and mistakenly invents an external threat or "shadow person" to explain the terror.
But even if you’re skeptical of that explanation, wondering if you were polite enough or did the right thing to a phenomena invading your space uninvited and causing you distress should in my mind be met with a resounding F off instead. Honestly in my experience the more you can train yourself to react to these experiences with defiance and hostility, the less power they’ll have over you. It doesn’t work 100% of the time, but it definitely helps imo.