Have You Woken Up Unable To Move? Here’s 8 Strange Scary and Intriguing Things You Should Know About Sleep Paralysis.
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The average person sleeps for around eight hours a day. Over a lifetime this amounts to spending about one third of life asleep. It’s common knowledge that a good nights rest is vitally important for maintaining health and balance, both mentally and physically. Giving yourself a chance to rest, rejuvenate, replenish and have a deep sleep comes easy for some. However, for some people a good night’s sleep is hard to come by, or it ends up being ruined, by a strange phenomenon that is called sleep paralysis.
It happens when your mind wakes up before your body ever gets a chance to. You can breathe normally, you can see and understand everything around you, but you can’t move a muscle no matter how hard you try. The feelings that run through your mind when sleep paralysis occurs are overwhelming and the whole experience can be summed up as terrifying.
Many people report that right before waking they hear a loud bang or waves crashing in their head which suddenly jars them awake. Others report that they do in fact have difficulty breathing and that it feels as if someone were choking them. These moments can last from a few seconds to several minutes or longer and most commonly show up initially during one’s teenage years.
The sensation of waking up and not being able to move is thought to affect less than 8% of the general population. There are no serious risks attributed to sleep paralysis on its own, medically speaking, rather the mental and physical damage may occur in the long run.
While there may be genetic factors that contribute to it, the main causes are thought to be a lack of sleep, schedule changes, and sleeping on ones back. Back in earlier times it used to be thought that demons or evil forces were behind the strange phenomenon and it’s easy to see why. Here are 8 terrifying facts about it:
1) No one knows for sure what causes it- Science and researchers have yet to find a definitive cause or explanation as to what may trigger it. It has been a mystery for thousands of years and to this day it remains one.
2) It feels like you’re dead- Many people equate the experience of waking up and being unable to move, while fully mentally awake, to feeling like they’re dead. Basically, it’s a type of out of body experience that you never want to experience.
3) It can happen when you’re trying to fall asleep- It doesn’t only occur when you wake up. It can occur at two points in the sleep cycle when your body transitions between going into, and coming out of, the REM (deep sleep) stage.
4) If you suffer from a lack of sleep it’s more likely to happen to you- Studies have indicated that individuals who suffer from chronic sleep issues, and who routinely don’t get enough sleep, are more likely to have an episode of sleep paralysis than their well-rested counterparts.
5) Your nightmare may continue- A lot of people have reported that they feel like they’re in a living nightmare even after they wake up because they open their eyes and see hallucinations. They are mentally alert and know they are awake, but their minds and eyes see things that aren’t there, and it’s all too freakishly real.
6) It can feel like a demon is sitting on your chest- A common description given of what it feels like is that there is something heavy and bothersome weighing on your chest. Yikes!
7) There is no way to wake your body up- You literally have to wait for your body to snap out if it. No cough or blink will wake you, contrary to some beliefs.
8) It can happen to anybody- You may have already experienced it at some point in your life, not everyone is aware that it happened, and practically everyone will go through it at least once over the course of their lifetime.
Watch the video below for the full story:
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This Brilliant Kitty Was Being Chased By a Dog So She Did THIS!
Meet Didga the most phenomenal cat on the internet. Didga has quickly become a Youtube sensation with her incredible cat tricks. You may remember Didga from the video where she rolls over like a dog. Didga not only rolls over but can also ride skateboards. But in the following video Didga steps it up BIG time. I’m pretty sure this is the most talented cat possibly in the world today. I have pretty much never seen a cat do a single trick let alone an entire compilation of awesomeness!
She scours the internet for the best dog tricks on Youtube. She then decides to attempt each trick and overshadow her fellow furry companions. Be ready to be blown away by this cat’s toolbox of tricks. Just when you think you’ve seen it all Didga takes it to the next level. Each move Didga makes propels her into legendary internet status!
Move over Grumpy Cat there is a new kitty in town who is quickly taking over the internet! Watch and enjoy the video below. Have you ever seen a cat do anything like this? Can your cat do any tricks? Let us know.
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The 9 Most Common Dream Symbols You Should Pay Close Attention To. Don’t Ignore These Dreams.
Dreaming is something that we all do each night, for 90 minutes to 2 hours; scientifically it is known as REM sleep. Whether we remember our dreams or not, we all have them. Freud brought dream interpretation to the fore, and saw it as a window into the unconscious. While his interpretations may not be held as doctrine by modern psychology, the fascination with common themes in dreams and what they mean, persists today.
The appearance of certain actions or things in our dreams are commonly found in many people. While each individual who remembers their dreams need to examine them through the lens of their particular conscious life, these SYMBOLS can act as a guide for self-examination of issues you need to pay attention to.
THESE ARE 9 COMMON DREAM SYMBOLS THAT SHOULD NOT BE IGNORED:
1. TEETH FALLING OUT
If you have ever had this dream, you are not alone. In the dream you feel your teeth loosen, and usually feel horrified as they fall into your hand, as you try to save them. LOSS OF TEETH while dreaming usually represents a LOSS of CONFIDENCE, CONTROL or POWER somewhere in one’s life. It can be occurring in a relationship at work or in one’s personal life. The dream signifies your anxiety about this development, and bears looking at, to help resolve the issue when you are conscious.
2. FALLING
This again is indicative of a loss of control in one’s waking life; in this circumstance it can be showing a fear of loss. Examining whether it is something or someone that you fear losing, when you are awake, may help you to resolve the issue.
3. WEARING NO CLOTHES IN PUBLIC
This generally is pointing you to examination of a lack of confidence, or a fear of being exposed in one’s life. Are you being yourself in your interactions with others, or are you people-pleasing to fit in? Are you lying and feeling anxious that the truth will come out? Only you being truly honest with yourself, when you awake from such a dream, will reveal what aspect of your life you are afraid will be UNMASKED.
4. FLYING
Flying in a dream can be a truly exhilarating experience. If you are soaring up high it can denote a feeling of freedom…perhaps you are feeling liberated from something that has plagued you. If you are flying lower to the ground, perhaps nearly missing obstacles like cars, or wires, or other people, this can be more troubling. Are things getting in your way in your life, that are frustrating or upsetting, that you want to resolve?
5. DEATH
While dreaming about death can be upsetting, it strangely may be symbolic of positive endings in your waking life. Perhaps you have moved on from a situation or person that was having a negative impact. It generally is symbolic of change, which is a part of life that is ongoing, and some of us have more difficulty being in transition than others.
6. HOUSES
This commonly appears in dreams, and is an overall representation of the SELF. Is it a house from our past or present? Is it intact or is it falling apart from a flood or fire? Are there animals in the house making you feel in danger? What goes on in a dream about a house indicates how generally secure or insecure you are feeling.
7. BEING CHASED
The common dream experience where you are being chased and you either can’t move very quickly, or seem to not being moving at all as you try to run, is a common ANXIETY dream. Looking at what you are running away from in your waking life, and facing it, will help to relieve this anxiety.
8. MISSING AN EXAM
This common anxiety dream represents a fear of being unprepared. Perhaps you are procrastinating about certain things in your life; this dream may be alerting you that ignoring or putting things off are causing you unwanted stress.
9. WATER
Last but not least is the symbol of water that commonly appears in our dreams. What is important in analyzing what it is telling you, is the form it comes in. Water is the ultimate expression of the unconscious mind expressing your true emotions. Is it a giant wave coming at you that will suck you under? Is it a calm relaxing pool or lake? Is it a waterfall that gently cleanses you, or a torrent of water where you feel like you are drowning? Looking at how water comes to you in your dream, is a generalized indicator of the degree of ease or uncomfortability in your life.
As you can see, there is a lot to be learned by trying to remember and interpreting our dreams, so that we can make changes or adjustments that will lead to a more peaceful life.
All this being said, there has been a lot of scientific research around sleep and dreams. Recently, there have been some extraordinary breakthroughs, done by a team at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratory in Japan. We watch our dreams, just as we watch things in our waking life; this research that revealed scans that can actually re-form an object a person sees while awake, could lead to identification of visual imagery occurring in our dreams. Eventually we may be able, according to these researchers, to watch our dreams the way we watch waking events!
Let us know which of the above dream symbols have occurred in YOUR DREAMS, and what they have meant to you.
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