Probably a weird topic- but hey its random.

Just curious if anyone else here may experience sleep paralysis and want to share any tips for calming yourself through it? I have sleep paralysis every so often for the past 2 years. It only happens if it's dark and quiet, because of this I ALWAYS sleep with the TV on and have never had a problem sleeping this way. But sometimes I take a nap and fall asleep too long upstairs where I have no tv. Whenever it does happen it doesn't necessarily ruin my day, but it does start with me waking up very stressed and terrified and I stay that way for roughly 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

I mean after the first few times it happened I figured out it was sleep paralysis fairly quickly, and thought "oh okay its harmless and all I have to do is chill out until i wake up". I've even read some people can train their mind from having sleep paralysis to a lucid dream. But nope. I freak out every single time it happens even if I know exactly what going on, then finally wake up like "ahhh I'm alive". When I have sleep paralysis I can see the room exactly as it would be if I was awake; and sometimes think I already woke up, but can hear extremely loud vivid sounds and every once in a while see things so I try to force my eyes shut  the whole time as seeing stuff is more frightening to me than hearing things. Mostly I hear loud buzzing, sometimes snarls and snorts. Sometimes it sounds like a pair of work boots slowly walking towards me until the sound is right next to me. And of course I'm paralyzed so I cant move a muscle, and when I try to talk/holler to my boyfriend in the next room for help no sound comes out. So yeah- a stressful experience each time

Bump

I've only dealt with this one time years ago. Wasn't pleasant.  No idea what caused it or why it only happened once. Hopefully with this bump someone will see this and will have advice. 

I used to get sleep paralysis nightly as a teenager, and it really is terrifying. At least you know what's happening, which is a really good thing! 

I at least was lucky I was a stomach sleeper, so I never really saw anything, it would just feel like someone was touching my back which was pretty frightening. 

What I used to do was I would focus really hard on wiggling my toes /feet. I don't know if it really helped bring me out of it quicker since five minutes of it would feel like an eternity, but it did help keep me calm and focused on something other then the experience itself.