Sleep paralysis is a medical condition defined as being conscious or awake but unable to speak or even move. Many people fear sleep paralysis. They see it as a loss of control over their body, due to the fact that they feel like their active mind is trapped inside their sleeping body.
While their body is frozen, people report that their mind begins creating frightening images and projecting these hallucinations into their surroundings, making them appear as real as the world around them.
Some individuals also say that they hear frightening noises, but cannot see what it is that’s disturbing them. It can be argued that these aren’t hallucinations and are in fact your mind slipping into the astral realm.
After all, these hallucinations don’t normally comprise of famous celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt sat on the end of your bed. Most often, they’re rather unique looking creatures – much like the entities that you’d expect to meet on the astral plane.
Being powerless over your body due to sleep paralysis leads people to think of it as a curse and they become very scared when it happens. However, it can also be a gift.
Why? Because sleep paralysis is the perfect time to astral project. The normal practice of learning how to astral project involves meditation and bringing your body to a calm state.
This is done so that your astral body is able to easily detach from your physical form. When your body is already immobile thanks to sleep paralysis, this stage is a lot easier and so you speed up the process and use less effort to astral project.
Inducing sleep paralysis
Because sleep paralysis is a good gateway to astral projection, it may be handy to learn how to bring on sleep paralysis. Here are some ways to induce sleep paralysis:
1: Creating the right environment
There are two situations that are ideal for your attempts to induce paralysis. The first is after sleeping between 4 and 6 hours, when you’re still a bit sleepy but aren’t exhausted. This will create the perfect conditions because you’ll be able to hold onto your consciousness as you drift off to sleep.
The second environment that many people recommend is to have an afternoon nap. If you’re able to nap easily, then this is a good alternative to disturbing your night’s sleep. Whichever you try, it’s recommended that you lie on your back, because this is the position most often leads to sleep paralysis.
2: Relax
Once you’ve picked your time slot, make sure your body is completely and utterly comfortable. Your body needs to go limp. This can be achieved by breathing in a calm rhythm, and imagining your body letting go of tension one body part at a time, beginning at the feet and working your way up your body.
You don’t want to relax your mind to the same degree as you’ll just fall asleep. Perhaps you could keep your mind busy by visualising repetitive scenes, listening to the ambient sounds, or simply looking at the darkness on your eyelids and watching the colours and patterns that appear.
3: Don’t panic!
Once you have your body and mind in the right state, you will drift into the hypnagogic state. This is the bridge between wakefulness and sleep and is likely to be accompanied by a buzzing or throbbing sound. Once you reach this stage, you may realise what is happening and startle yourself back awake. Make sure to remain calm, and don’t be disappointed if it takes a couple of attempts to master the transition from waking to this state.
After you have made your way to the hypnagogic state, your body will next enter a dreamlike state where you are in bed unable to move. During this stage, you’re likely to encounter the ‘hallucinations’, and feel a heavy pressure on your chest. Perhaps try to move your body.
If you’re unable to do so then congratulations, you’ve just induced your own sleep paralysis! However, if it doesn’t work, keep working through the steps, or perhaps give yourself a break and return to trying to bring on sleep paralysis when your body and mind are better prepared. Now that you’ve induced your sleep paralysis, it’s time to begin separating your body and mind for an out of body experience.
How to wake up from sleep paralysis without astral projecting
If you find yourself paralysed and don’t want to move on to astral projecting then you just need to be patient and wait for the sleep paralysis to pass. Remember to take deep breaths while you’re waiting as this will alleviate some of the heaviness on your chest, and will also stop you from having a panic attack if you’re starting to get scared.
If you’d like to speed up the process of waking your body up from sleep paralysis, you can a wiggle your fingers and toes or even try scrunching up your face. These tactics usually work because the paralysis is often weaker in your extremities. Alternatively, why not try and cough? Because this is an autonomic process like breathing, you should be able to do it. The coughing will then jar your body awake.
There is nothing to fear!
There’s nothing to fear about sleep paralysis. This is a normal state that your body enters every night when you go to sleep, to stop you from acting out your dreams. Sleep paralysis occurs when the chemical that awakens your body has a delayed response, so your mind wakes up before your body.
If you would like to practice inducing sleep paralysis so that you can astral project, but are feeling apprehensive, perhaps try inducing the paralysis a couple of times without then attempting to have an OBE. Work yourself up to it and before long, you’ll feel in perfect control!
