Sleep Paralysis Story - Scary Experience

A: Sleep paralysis experience..?
B: It's pretty awful. And sometimes it will happen pretty quick after falling asleep, sometimes it will happen when I wake up the next morning, and it's honestly quite terrifying.
You can't move and your body feels like it's frozen and then all of a sudden you just kinda flail around and motion comes back to your body. The worst is when you're trying to cry out for help and you can't get anyone to help you because you can't move. It's pretty terrible. But it's normal for me now.

A: I had it once and I didn't know it was sleep paralysis at the time. It actually took me years before I had a word for it. What happened was I woke up in like the middle of the night, and I saw like this dark figure standing over me. And I didn't try to move, I just stared at it until it faded away, and then I sat there for a while just being like "ok, I am awake right now, that wasn't a dream." And it didn't really freaked me out that much, which is surprising cause that's the kind of thing I would be very scared of. But I just went like maybe two years without knowing what had happened, and then a friend of mine explained that sleep paralysis can sometimes also cause you to see like shadow figures in your room, and so then I was like "okay that is probably what that was."

B: But I didn't experience the paralysis part at all, which is interesting. But I didn't try to move, so... You see, I experience it every time normally. Sometimes it feels like its lasting for a long time, but it's really not. It's really onlylasting a few moments.
But it feels like it's forever. It's really strange.

A: So can you open your eyes during that or can you not move your eyelids either?
B: You know, I don't know. I don't know if I've imagined having my eyes open, or if I've actually been able to have my eyes open for it, or if they're not open. I really don't know. All of these memories, even though they happen all the time--I mean I had sleep paralysis like two days ago. Like seriously. I had it two days ago. And it... that one was... If I remember correctly, that was more like waking up and having my eyes closed, but being aware that I was awake. Which is weird.

A: Have you had this like your whole life?
B: I feel like the first time I experienced it I was very young. But recently it's been happening more and more. Since my senior year of high school, so the last three years it's been going on.

A: Did you not know what it was at first?
B: Oh, no, I knew. I've know about it for a long time.

A: Okay, that's good. That's better than having that happen and being completely clueless about what's going on.
B: Yeah, think I was in elementary school the first time it happened, because I can very vividly remember it just being weird. It didn't really freak me out, but it was just bizarre. Thinking "wow, what was that?" It's bizarre. That's all I can say. If you've ever experienced sleep paralysis contact your doctor.

Thanks for reading.
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