Hadn't heard of this at all until just today when I was searching something on Google so watched it thinking and hoping it was promising.
Firstly I'm a lifelong lucid dreamer and have been plagued by nightmares, night terrors and sleep walking since being a very young child. The dreams and nightmares are typically anxiety based and tend to follow a theme of being on aircraft that's plummeting to the Earth, alien abduction or frantically searching for or trying to do the most simple task urgently (like dialling a telephone number to get help I can never punch in the numbers in right order)
Over time I sort of figured out how to suss that it's a dream and became a lucid dreamer, manipulating and changing something terrifying into whatever I wanted or, when it's really scary, shouting myself awake again. The first experience of sleep paralysis in the sense that's it discussed here came later on in life but follows a near identical and pretty eerie word for word one as many others. Unable to move / frozen / trying desperately to scream and having large dark shadows looming over the side of my bed sometimes "lifting" me off the mattress accompanied by weird buzzing or fuzzy sounds etc.
Some of the descriptions in this were literally identical including the guy who willed himself to roll over and onto his girlfriend so she'd wake up and then waking up. The tall dark looming shadows, sudden horrifically loud screams and people rapidly shooting over from the far side of the bedroom right 2cm from my face - often with screams and faces morphing horribly.
I can test and outsmart some of the scariest dreams an example being when I was dreaming about riding a roller coaster with my husband and the train derailing at speed. Whilst hurtling and in mid air in sheer panic, it suddenly dawned on me this wasn't real and I turned to my husband and said "We're dreaming this - we're not crashing at all it's just a dream"
"WHAT?? WTF are you talking about????"
"Nah mate honest. We're just dreaming and I know cos we went to the theme park today, got home and I fell asleep on the sofa which is where I am right now we're not here"
"You sure?"
"I'm positive - trust me we're gonna wake up any second now"
Poof! Eyes open, wide awake and sure enough I was on the sofa having dozed off after a busy day at said theme park .
I was prescribed sleeping tablets by the doctor once which I tried out to see if they helped with nightmares but it turned out they made things even worse because I tend to have nightmares almost every night without fail but when I fell into one, the sleeping tablets were keeping my brain on the down and preventing me from shouting myself awake. I knew I was dreaming, knew the meds were in my system keeping me asleep and knew I had no choice but to ride it out for however long it took them to wear off which just exacerbated the sheer primal fear to no end.
In the last year or so my adult daughter has left home and moved in with her boyfriend and being a freaky sleep walker and having mad bouts of shouting and turning things upside down in my sleep, I've gone and slept in her room now and then so I don't disturb others.
Odd thing is whenever I go in there recently, I have the most horrible dreams and hallucinations of random people rapidly zooming over and getting all up in my face which jolts me clean out of sleep with a gasp.
Knowing SP is more common when laying on your back I made a conscious effort to sleep on my side or propped up which definitely helped but when I'm in my daughter's room, it doesn't matter when, how and which way I sleep or what I try doing to prevent having another jump scare nightmare.
Whenever she comes home to stay, she has been having the same and people coming in her room running over to her and has been having similar dreams in her own bed this last year too (coincidentally when I have)
Interestingly I only have these fast people showing up and bothering me when I'm in her bedroom and we've lived in this house over 20yrs it's bizarre. Even more bizarre is it nearly always happens between 3 and 4am which made my daughter go "Oh my God I keep bolting out of sleep with the same thing at that time!!!!!"
I ended up digging out some of my old books and reading up because this new experience is trickier than the lifelong nightmares and lucid dreams in that being so fast and furious, my brain doesn't have chance to figure out it's a dream and do anything about it. I don't like that I seemingly have little control over this one so can't find a way around it - hence why I started reading up again and was intrigued that people often report having the same experiences in a specific room or place.
This documentary really fell short in terms of pointing out this type of similarity, delving into the most common and sometimes inexplicable experiences shared by people and it really went down the route of more spiritual and paranormal which I don't think helps anyone least of all those who daren't tell anyone what they are experiencing for fear of being seen as barmy.
One of two people seemed to have got stuck on their SP experience as being something of a real, demonic entity that's actually, physically visiting and harming them and some seem to have found a way of coping or learning to manipulate and overcome it through a belief that Jesus banished the demons and is keeping them dreaming of sunshine sprinkles and rainbows.
It doesn't matter how or in what way someone finds a way to cope or overcome this very real, utterly terrifying and even debilitating condition but sadly, this film seems to lean too much towards supporting that angle for the sake of making good entertainment.
For that reason it fell short and let itself down badly because it's just given more weight to the belief many people have that SP is just the odd scary dream and the personal accounts and experiences elaborated to the point of being outrageous.
As I say, for me it was figuring out that sleeping flat on my back seemed to induce it (and taking steps to make sure I didn't roll over into that position wherever possible) and then figuring out that medication to help me sleep actually made things far worse than without.
I noticed if I sleep in a totally darkened and silent room, I'm more prone to having bouts of SP and nightmares so sleep with the TV either on mute or music playing quietly helps as does a few drops of lavender oils and tea light candles.
I just found it so interesting how recently I've had this new thing of people suddenly rushing and running over to me whenever I sleep in my daughter's room, it happens the same sort of time early hours and then discovering my daughter has been having similar and when she's back home, nearly always has the same with some random man sprinting over and shouting her name at the top of his voice.
It is still not well researched, studied or fully understood so there would be limited if not generic views and info from medical professional and sleep disorder experts but it would certainly help to get a better overall and more balanced understanding rather than painting it out to be made up and bits added on.
The guy that remarked how he finds ways to ward off bouts on a short term temporary basis but it somehow adapts and finds its way back again I could relate to 100% but the way it was put over and edited made him sound like he wasn't a full set.
We still understand so little about the complexities of the brain with Charles Bonnet Syndrome one of the most fascinating yet relatively unknown and all too often misdiagnosed in older people as being some sort of cognitive impairment / dementia (CBS is a phenomenon that causes visual hallucinations predominantly experienced by people with impaired sight and in some cases in those who are completely blind)
Allowing it 6/10 purely because of the personal accounts and descriptions being eerily similar to people the world over, from all walks of life and different cultures but can't rate any higher just because it lacked some actual information and details about what we DO understand.
Firstly I'm a lifelong lucid dreamer and have been plagued by nightmares, night terrors and sleep walking since being a very young child. The dreams and nightmares are typically anxiety based and tend to follow a theme of being on aircraft that's plummeting to the Earth, alien abduction or frantically searching for or trying to do the most simple task urgently (like dialling a telephone number to get help I can never punch in the numbers in right order)
Over time I sort of figured out how to suss that it's a dream and became a lucid dreamer, manipulating and changing something terrifying into whatever I wanted or, when it's really scary, shouting myself awake again. The first experience of sleep paralysis in the sense that's it discussed here came later on in life but follows a near identical and pretty eerie word for word one as many others. Unable to move / frozen / trying desperately to scream and having large dark shadows looming over the side of my bed sometimes "lifting" me off the mattress accompanied by weird buzzing or fuzzy sounds etc.
Some of the descriptions in this were literally identical including the guy who willed himself to roll over and onto his girlfriend so she'd wake up and then waking up. The tall dark looming shadows, sudden horrifically loud screams and people rapidly shooting over from the far side of the bedroom right 2cm from my face - often with screams and faces morphing horribly.
I can test and outsmart some of the scariest dreams an example being when I was dreaming about riding a roller coaster with my husband and the train derailing at speed. Whilst hurtling and in mid air in sheer panic, it suddenly dawned on me this wasn't real and I turned to my husband and said "We're dreaming this - we're not crashing at all it's just a dream"
"WHAT?? WTF are you talking about????"
"Nah mate honest. We're just dreaming and I know cos we went to the theme park today, got home and I fell asleep on the sofa which is where I am right now we're not here"
"You sure?"
"I'm positive - trust me we're gonna wake up any second now"
Poof! Eyes open, wide awake and sure enough I was on the sofa having dozed off after a busy day at said theme park .
I was prescribed sleeping tablets by the doctor once which I tried out to see if they helped with nightmares but it turned out they made things even worse because I tend to have nightmares almost every night without fail but when I fell into one, the sleeping tablets were keeping my brain on the down and preventing me from shouting myself awake. I knew I was dreaming, knew the meds were in my system keeping me asleep and knew I had no choice but to ride it out for however long it took them to wear off which just exacerbated the sheer primal fear to no end.
In the last year or so my adult daughter has left home and moved in with her boyfriend and being a freaky sleep walker and having mad bouts of shouting and turning things upside down in my sleep, I've gone and slept in her room now and then so I don't disturb others.
Odd thing is whenever I go in there recently, I have the most horrible dreams and hallucinations of random people rapidly zooming over and getting all up in my face which jolts me clean out of sleep with a gasp.
Knowing SP is more common when laying on your back I made a conscious effort to sleep on my side or propped up which definitely helped but when I'm in my daughter's room, it doesn't matter when, how and which way I sleep or what I try doing to prevent having another jump scare nightmare.
Whenever she comes home to stay, she has been having the same and people coming in her room running over to her and has been having similar dreams in her own bed this last year too (coincidentally when I have)
Interestingly I only have these fast people showing up and bothering me when I'm in her bedroom and we've lived in this house over 20yrs it's bizarre. Even more bizarre is it nearly always happens between 3 and 4am which made my daughter go "Oh my God I keep bolting out of sleep with the same thing at that time!!!!!"
I ended up digging out some of my old books and reading up because this new experience is trickier than the lifelong nightmares and lucid dreams in that being so fast and furious, my brain doesn't have chance to figure out it's a dream and do anything about it. I don't like that I seemingly have little control over this one so can't find a way around it - hence why I started reading up again and was intrigued that people often report having the same experiences in a specific room or place.
This documentary really fell short in terms of pointing out this type of similarity, delving into the most common and sometimes inexplicable experiences shared by people and it really went down the route of more spiritual and paranormal which I don't think helps anyone least of all those who daren't tell anyone what they are experiencing for fear of being seen as barmy.
One of two people seemed to have got stuck on their SP experience as being something of a real, demonic entity that's actually, physically visiting and harming them and some seem to have found a way of coping or learning to manipulate and overcome it through a belief that Jesus banished the demons and is keeping them dreaming of sunshine sprinkles and rainbows.
It doesn't matter how or in what way someone finds a way to cope or overcome this very real, utterly terrifying and even debilitating condition but sadly, this film seems to lean too much towards supporting that angle for the sake of making good entertainment.
For that reason it fell short and let itself down badly because it's just given more weight to the belief many people have that SP is just the odd scary dream and the personal accounts and experiences elaborated to the point of being outrageous.
As I say, for me it was figuring out that sleeping flat on my back seemed to induce it (and taking steps to make sure I didn't roll over into that position wherever possible) and then figuring out that medication to help me sleep actually made things far worse than without.
I noticed if I sleep in a totally darkened and silent room, I'm more prone to having bouts of SP and nightmares so sleep with the TV either on mute or music playing quietly helps as does a few drops of lavender oils and tea light candles.
I just found it so interesting how recently I've had this new thing of people suddenly rushing and running over to me whenever I sleep in my daughter's room, it happens the same sort of time early hours and then discovering my daughter has been having similar and when she's back home, nearly always has the same with some random man sprinting over and shouting her name at the top of his voice.
It is still not well researched, studied or fully understood so there would be limited if not generic views and info from medical professional and sleep disorder experts but it would certainly help to get a better overall and more balanced understanding rather than painting it out to be made up and bits added on.
The guy that remarked how he finds ways to ward off bouts on a short term temporary basis but it somehow adapts and finds its way back again I could relate to 100% but the way it was put over and edited made him sound like he wasn't a full set.
We still understand so little about the complexities of the brain with Charles Bonnet Syndrome one of the most fascinating yet relatively unknown and all too often misdiagnosed in older people as being some sort of cognitive impairment / dementia (CBS is a phenomenon that causes visual hallucinations predominantly experienced by people with impaired sight and in some cases in those who are completely blind)
Allowing it 6/10 purely because of the personal accounts and descriptions being eerily similar to people the world over, from all walks of life and different cultures but can't rate any higher just because it lacked some actual information and details about what we DO understand.