Incubus - Self Hypnosis - Pain & Stress
Incubus
A disorder called the night-mare, in which the patient cannot stir himself but with the utmost difficulty, seized with a nmbness, sense of weight with a dread of suffocation from some body which seems to fall suddenly upon him. It consists of an inflation of the membranes of the stomach, which hinders the motion of the diaphragm. Daniel Fleming’s Royal English Dictionary 1775
In my early childhood, I experienced many very painful events. Some were due to poor access to dental examinations, resulting in drilling and filling 26 cavities. Some were the result of an alcoholic father and a very controlling mother who denied me normal social participation with my peers.
It was, however the pain of drilling in the dentist’s office that allowed me to develop a kind of self-hypnosis in which I could remove myself from the feeling of the pain by virtually stepping outside my body — taking my mind to another place in my psyche. Over the years this became a wonderful and powerful ability in the face of pain, stress and fear. I merely would relax all muscles and begin to fall into a deep sleep. Every muscle becoming numb and immobile.
With the passage of decades, this self- hypnosis technique became very useful as I experienced the pain of rheumatoid arthritis. Then the stress of teaching in an inner-city high school overwhelmed with violence, drugs and constant change in the everyday routine. Guns, knives, drugs, pimps and assaults became an every day routine as Judge Curtin began a social experiment. Bussing students from very different neighborhoods to our high school with nothing more than trying to attain a percentage of integration based on race only resulted in attacks on students and teachers. The everyday violent occurrences and fire alarms dozens of times per day while students were forced to jump from second-story windows. I was personally attacked with a knife in hand. Heart attacks and extreme bodily pain became the change that disabled me producing a life-threatening condition denying me the right to return to teaching. That is an aside, but it was a challenge I accepted and led to my researching many alternatives to the love of teaching. Doctors are now accepting and adopting many of the methods I have developed to treat their patients without pills. That was the real reason behind my physician’s insistence on writing the book, "Make Eating A Lifestyle Change."
Sleep paralysis (SP) is most often associated with: narcolepsy a neurological condition in which the person has uncontrollable naps. However, there are many people who experience sleep paralysis without having signs of narcolepsy. Sometimes it runs in families. There is no known explanation why some people experience this paralysis. It is not harmful, although most people report feeling very afraid because they do not know what is happening, and within minutes they gradually or abruptly are able to move again; the episode is often terminated by a sound or a touch on the body.
In some cases, when hypnogogic hallucinations are present, people feel that someone is in the room with them, some experience the feeling that someone or something is sitting on their chest and they feel impending death and suffocation. That has been called the "Hag Phenomena" and has been happening to people over the centuries. These things cause people much anxiety and terror, but there is no physical harm.
What else is there about sleep paralysis?
Some people with disrupted sleep schedules or circadian rhythm disturbances experience sleep paralysis
A study found that 35% of subjects with isolated sleep paralysis also reported a history of wake panic attacks unrelated to the experience of paralysis
Sixteen percent of these persons with isolated sleep paralysis met the criteria for panic disorder
You may be able to minimize the episodes by following:
1. good sleep hygiene2. getting enough sleep 3. reduced stress 4. exercise regularly (but not too close to bedtime) 5. keep a regular sleep schedule
What is Sleep Paralysis or Isolated Sleep Paralysis?
(From "Relationship Between Isolated Sleep Paralysis and Geomagnetic Influences: A case study" -Perceptual and Motor Skills, 80, 1263-1273)
"The isolated sleep paralysis event occurs most often at sleep onset. An individual, even though aware and maintains that he is awake, is atonic, and has great difficulty moving. This atonic state is similar to the atonia experienced during REM sleep. This experience also may produce great anxiety and fear, while the individual struggles to "wake up". Individuals who experience sleep paralysis often report concurrent hypnagogic hallucinations. A commonly reported hallucination is the feeling of a presence or entity in the room in which the individual sleeps. At times this presence may seem threatening and evil giving rise to the folklore belief of the "night-mare," the "old hag," and the "incubi".
Events likely to trigger SP in susceptible individuals:
Fatigue, anxiety, intensive meditational practices, radical changes in daily routine (vacations, moving, job changes, etc.) and abrupt changes in the ambient geomagnetic field.
Dealing and coping with the SP experience and associated events
Whether SP is an occasional or frequent sleep experience, overcoming the tremendous and overwhelming fear associated with atonia (paralysis) may be a real obstacle to using SP as a 'launching pad' to LD. Some of this fear can be appeased by the knowledge, the conviction, that one always wakes up! Breathing in a calm, relaxed fashion and willing movement of small body parts such as the eyelids and/or toes and fingers usually helps the dreamer to awake. Sometimes an SP person can arrange with his/her sleeping partner that in the event the partner hears muffled cries or senses body movements, he/she can awaken the dreamer, thus jolting him/her from the paralytic state. Since repeated occurrences are the norm within a relatively short, nighttime period, changing sleeping positions ( for example, from laying on one's back to a belly down or sideways posture ) often allows the SP person to return to normal REM sleep, to less conscious REM sleep.
Personal note
Whether one wishes to employ the techniques mentioned above or not, the SP event can be a prelude to controlled LD and a richer dream experince. Personally, I am equally interested and marveled by the subjective experiences gained by these states of consciousness as I am intrigued by their pragmatic/scientific potential and value. I have been an SP (and LD) person since my early teens and I must say that in time, one learns to overcome most if not all of the anxiety associated with the paralysis and is able to enter a new dimension of dream experience - richer and more creative than that of the average dreamer. It is a contradiction that a dream paralytic state can open the door to so much freedom. In the words of Erich Fromm, ( during dreaming ): "We are helpless - but we are also free." If you are lucky (and persistent, courageous and calm) the creative elements of your dream experiences will guide you through these journeys with insightful and practical advice.
"So the sleep existence, it seems, is only the extreme case of a purely contemplative experience, which can be established by the waking person if he (she) focuses on his (her) inner experience....In sleep, no longer exposed to the noise of culture, we become awake to what we really feel and think. The genuine self can talk: it is often more intelligent and more decent than the pseudo self which seems to be "we" when we are awake."
Erich Fromm, from The Nature of Dreams
A disorder called the night-mare, in which the patient cannot stir himself but with the utmost difficulty, seized with a nmbness, sense of weight with a dread of suffocation from some body which seems to fall suddenly upon him. It consists of an inflation of the membranes of the stomach, which hinders the motion of the diaphragm. Daniel Fleming’s Royal English Dictionary 1775
In my early childhood, I experienced many very painful events. Some were due to poor access to dental examinations, resulting in drilling and filling 26 cavities. Some were the result of an alcoholic father and a very controlling mother who denied me normal social participation with my peers.
It was, however the pain of drilling in the dentist’s office that allowed me to develop a kind of self-hypnosis in which I could remove myself from the feeling of the pain by virtually stepping outside my body — taking my mind to another place in my psyche. Over the years this became a wonderful and powerful ability in the face of pain, stress and fear. I merely would relax all muscles and begin to fall into a deep sleep. Every muscle becoming numb and immobile.
With the passage of decades, this self- hypnosis technique became very useful as I experienced the pain of rheumatoid arthritis. Then the stress of teaching in an inner-city high school overwhelmed with violence, drugs and constant change in the everyday routine. Guns, knives, drugs, pimps and assaults became an every day routine as Judge Curtin began a social experiment. Bussing students from very different neighborhoods to our high school with nothing more than trying to attain a percentage of integration based on race only resulted in attacks on students and teachers. The everyday violent occurrences and fire alarms dozens of times per day while students were forced to jump from second-story windows. I was personally attacked with a knife in hand. Heart attacks and extreme bodily pain became the change that disabled me producing a life-threatening condition denying me the right to return to teaching. That is an aside, but it was a challenge I accepted and led to my researching many alternatives to the love of teaching. Doctors are now accepting and adopting many of the methods I have developed to treat their patients without pills. That was the real reason behind my physician’s insistence on writing the book, "Make Eating A Lifestyle Change."
Sleep paralysis (SP) is most often associated with: narcolepsy a neurological condition in which the person has uncontrollable naps. However, there are many people who experience sleep paralysis without having signs of narcolepsy. Sometimes it runs in families. There is no known explanation why some people experience this paralysis. It is not harmful, although most people report feeling very afraid because they do not know what is happening, and within minutes they gradually or abruptly are able to move again; the episode is often terminated by a sound or a touch on the body.
In some cases, when hypnogogic hallucinations are present, people feel that someone is in the room with them, some experience the feeling that someone or something is sitting on their chest and they feel impending death and suffocation. That has been called the "Hag Phenomena" and has been happening to people over the centuries. These things cause people much anxiety and terror, but there is no physical harm.
What else is there about sleep paralysis?
Some people with disrupted sleep schedules or circadian rhythm disturbances experience sleep paralysis
A study found that 35% of subjects with isolated sleep paralysis also reported a history of wake panic attacks unrelated to the experience of paralysis
Sixteen percent of these persons with isolated sleep paralysis met the criteria for panic disorder
You may be able to minimize the episodes by following:
1. good sleep hygiene2. getting enough sleep 3. reduced stress 4. exercise regularly (but not too close to bedtime) 5. keep a regular sleep schedule
What is Sleep Paralysis or Isolated Sleep Paralysis?
(From "Relationship Between Isolated Sleep Paralysis and Geomagnetic Influences: A case study" -Perceptual and Motor Skills, 80, 1263-1273)
"The isolated sleep paralysis event occurs most often at sleep onset. An individual, even though aware and maintains that he is awake, is atonic, and has great difficulty moving. This atonic state is similar to the atonia experienced during REM sleep. This experience also may produce great anxiety and fear, while the individual struggles to "wake up". Individuals who experience sleep paralysis often report concurrent hypnagogic hallucinations. A commonly reported hallucination is the feeling of a presence or entity in the room in which the individual sleeps. At times this presence may seem threatening and evil giving rise to the folklore belief of the "night-mare," the "old hag," and the "incubi".
Events likely to trigger SP in susceptible individuals:
Fatigue, anxiety, intensive meditational practices, radical changes in daily routine (vacations, moving, job changes, etc.) and abrupt changes in the ambient geomagnetic field.
Dealing and coping with the SP experience and associated events
Whether SP is an occasional or frequent sleep experience, overcoming the tremendous and overwhelming fear associated with atonia (paralysis) may be a real obstacle to using SP as a 'launching pad' to LD. Some of this fear can be appeased by the knowledge, the conviction, that one always wakes up! Breathing in a calm, relaxed fashion and willing movement of small body parts such as the eyelids and/or toes and fingers usually helps the dreamer to awake. Sometimes an SP person can arrange with his/her sleeping partner that in the event the partner hears muffled cries or senses body movements, he/she can awaken the dreamer, thus jolting him/her from the paralytic state. Since repeated occurrences are the norm within a relatively short, nighttime period, changing sleeping positions ( for example, from laying on one's back to a belly down or sideways posture ) often allows the SP person to return to normal REM sleep, to less conscious REM sleep.
Personal note
Whether one wishes to employ the techniques mentioned above or not, the SP event can be a prelude to controlled LD and a richer dream experince. Personally, I am equally interested and marveled by the subjective experiences gained by these states of consciousness as I am intrigued by their pragmatic/scientific potential and value. I have been an SP (and LD) person since my early teens and I must say that in time, one learns to overcome most if not all of the anxiety associated with the paralysis and is able to enter a new dimension of dream experience - richer and more creative than that of the average dreamer. It is a contradiction that a dream paralytic state can open the door to so much freedom. In the words of Erich Fromm, ( during dreaming ): "We are helpless - but we are also free." If you are lucky (and persistent, courageous and calm) the creative elements of your dream experiences will guide you through these journeys with insightful and practical advice.
"So the sleep existence, it seems, is only the extreme case of a purely contemplative experience, which can be established by the waking person if he (she) focuses on his (her) inner experience....In sleep, no longer exposed to the noise of culture, we become awake to what we really feel and think. The genuine self can talk: it is often more intelligent and more decent than the pseudo self which seems to be "we" when we are awake."
Erich Fromm, from The Nature of Dreams
posted by Stan Kent at
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