Some good info in there mate! My wife suffers from it... also something she refers to as "night terrors" - similar to nightmares but, accoring to her, infinately worse. I wondered if, when she refers to terrors, she means the experience of sleep paralysis and the frightening side of it all!
My dad suffers from sleep apnea... though it's to do with him being quite a "large" gentleman... his doctor gave him a machine (like a pump with a breathing mask) that "forces" oxygen though his airways, so he doesn't stop breathing.
From what I am aware - and I may be wrong - night terrors, I have experienced with my son when he was little, from what I can gather (read up about it when it happened) its when the child has a bad nightmare, but APPEARS awake but is in a total panic and seems unaware you are there, sort of push you away but scream for you to come back kind of thing, its like they...........well in a way it is a bit like the opposite of how we say the sleep paralysis feels, we APPEAR asleep but we are awake, and yet the night terrors you appear awake but seemingly you are still asleep in your nightmare.
The sleep paralysis - I experience
The sleep apnea = don't even want to think about
The lucid dreams - how weird, but no, I dont think I am ever aware that I am actually asleep and dreaming, I dream the most weird dreams and in the dream it seems perfectly normal, I never feel that something isnt right, yet on waking its like "are you having a laugh"
I have to say about 90% of my dreams I am being chased, and I am running through houses and buildings and up through attics and into the next house to get away from whoever is chasing me. My dreams are pretty much always about being hunted.......so maybe thats why I tend to experience this stuff - talking/walking/paralysis.
BTW I looked at the painting, one of those wiki links showed it, funnily enough, when I am in the sleep paralysis I always do feel someone(thing) is present - MAYBE thats the weight that we feel dragging us down giving me that sensation.
Whoever mentioned getting your wife to wake you (sorry cant get back through the messages) but yeah, like I said earlier like wading through tar...isnt it like that when you so desperately feel like you are hitting out at them to wake you, or trying to call out but your voice seems so muted...its like my mouth is clamped shut and I am sort of muffled, its only the last 2 times I have been able to cry out, the first time apparently was like some unearthly wail that scared the crap out of my hubby, and the 2nd time I was shouting my dad and that alerted him, dunno why I was shouting my dad though? Maybe that was part of the dream I was leaving, but I didnt remember the dream in the a.m just the paralysis.
