The Unexplained > The Dead and the Un-dead

The Grim Reaper

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NewOrleans:
Hello Scarlett, I've that experience too, more than once but no more. My take on that phenomenon is less spooky, and more commonplace than one would think - but just as fascinating. I have no support data to back me up, just personal observation. This could all be my flaky self speaking:

Starting with the premise that the body is a machine: I think that when the body does a partial shutdown during REM sleep it puts the muscles into a semi-paralysis, and under rare circumstances when you awaken and find yourself unable to move, the brain fires off a signal to the deep cortex memory bank . Not being able to lift a finger by one's will, we panic and my guess is that it pulls out of the memory bank library listings under "unknown terror" and projects them back to semi-conscious awareness. One's panic leads to another into an escalation - and we create a "presence" next to us, which is really our own mind's "shadow side". Doom, fear and helplessness are always with us, they just rarely make an appearance in our waking consciousness often.

Maybe at one time in early mankind the images were more immediate about DANGER: bears, the recently dead or even transdimensional monsters. Modern man is just so damn "modern" that he thinks he's ditched the gods and monsters, but they are all piled up in that gray matter waiting to be called up.

The shrouded Grim Reaper you speak about is universal - every culture has them, so they are part of our cerebral history. Maybe they are just  "stage characters" your own mind pulls out from backstage to fill the gap of awaken-when-you-should-be-asleep moments. Terror is the Unknown and the mind always wants to fill in the blanks. The human imagination is a marvelous thing, as flawed as it is on so many levels, it still brings both nightmares and visions. When we recognize that we have met the monsters and they are US, we can begin to embrace the fragmented parts of our real selves.

With the exception of transdimensional "alien" abductions, which are a whole other kettle of fish, I'd recommend a simple technique to break this cycle if it ever happens to you again: command yourself to relax, and then mentally laugh in their faces. It sounds silly but it works. You send a mental imperative to muscles that disengages fear. Even if you were terrified that the hellhounds are going to drag you off to Hades, they can do no harm once you laugh because laughter is a kind of grace-under-fire mechanism in the mind. Remember the old Film Noir line from gangster movies? "COME AND GET ME, COPPERS!". Well your consciousness  challenges the Shadow Side to do something - which it can't: It's a slide show in your brain, not a skeleton hand grabbing your wrist. Knowing that you are safe makes it easy to return to dreamland.

Sorry for the long rambling comment but it's my two cents.

Sweet dreams.

Approaching Infinity:
I can't find the exact quote, but in Levine's "In An Unspoken Voice", he mentions that sleep paralysis is a vagally mediated immobilization response. In his experience, for those who are traumatized, this experience can be terrifying (immobilization with fear). For those who are not, it can be blissful or just 'interesting'. I think this is a neat take on it. By dealing with our own trauma (he has some great exercises to do such in the book), perhaps we become less 'edible' or 'desirable' to beings that manipulate our states. So if there is reality to these perceived beings, making oneself 'inedible' seems the way to go and this can be done via diet and psychological work - removing the 'hooks' and openings these beings exploit.

NewOrleans:
Interesting interpretation of that phenomenon, Approaching Infinity. Well said.

Scarlet:

--- Quote from: RyanX on September 09, 2011, 03:36:27 AM ---It seems like if you're engaged in any activities or involved with people that might be draining you energetically, this can potentially happen, osit.

--- End quote ---
Thanks RyanX, for your insights here.  I can see how in my life when I have been stressed out it comes more frequently, but I also have episodes when I am not experiencing stress, like today for example.  When I interrupt my normal sleep patterns is when I am more prone to getting it.  I guess my brain likes routine and is slow sometimes, lol.  ;P


--- Quote from: NewOrleans on September 09, 2011, 03:46:26 AM ---Starting with the premise that the body is a machine: I think that when the body does a partial shutdown during REM sleep it puts the muscles into a semi-paralysis, and under rare circumstances when you awaken and find yourself unable to move, the brain fires off a signal to the deep cortex memory bank . Not being able to lift a finger by one's will, we panic and my guess is that it pulls out of the memory bank library listings under "unknown terror" and projects them back to semi-conscious awareness. One's panic leads to another into an escalation - and we create a "presence" next to us, which is really our own mind's "shadow side". Doom, fear and helplessness are always with us, they just rarely make an appearance in our waking consciousness often.

The shrouded Grim Reaper you speak about is universal - every culture has them, so they are part of our cerebral history. Maybe they are just  "stage characters" your own mind pulls out from backstage to fill the gap of awaken-when-you-should-be-asleep moments. Terror is the Unknown and the mind always wants to fill in the blanks. The human imagination is a marvelous thing, as flawed as it is on so many levels, it still brings both nightmares and visions. When we recognize that we have met the monsters and they are US, we can begin to embrace the fragmented parts of our real selves.

With the exception of transdimensional "alien" abductions, which are a whole other kettle of fish, I'd recommend a simple technique to break this cycle if it ever happens to you again: command yourself to relax, and then mentally laugh in their faces. It sounds silly but it works. You send a mental imperative to muscles that disengages fear. Even if you were terrified that the hellhounds are going to drag you off to Hades, they can do no harm once you laugh because laughter is a kind of grace-under-fire mechanism in the mind.

--- End quote ---
Thanks NewOrleans, for your thoughts here!  I remember when I started to explain to others what I saw was when I determined the only thing I could think of was that it looked like a miniature grim reaper.  It's just so weird that my blood relative saw it too, but that neither of us watch scary movies or focus on scary creatures.  However, I recognize that we save images in our minds, though that doesn't explain the other creatures I've seen.  This is the only recognizable one, well other than the "Joker" face I saw at one point in my life. 

Thank you also for the suggestion to just relax.  When I fight the SP my body becomes more entangled in the paralysis, but when I just relax it seems to fade away without a fight.  :)


--- Quote from: Approaching Infinity on September 09, 2011, 06:02:45 AM ---I can't find the exact quote, but in Levine's "In An Unspoken Voice", he mentions that sleep paralysis is a vagally mediated immobilization response. In his experience, for those who are traumatized, this experience can be terrifying (immobilization with fear). For those who are not, it can be blissful or just 'interesting'. I think this is a neat take on it. By dealing with our own trauma (he has some great exercises to do such in the book), perhaps we become less 'edible' or 'desirable' to beings that manipulate our states. So if there is reality to these perceived beings, making oneself 'inedible' seems the way to go and this can be done via diet and psychological work - removing the 'hooks' and openings these beings exploit.

--- End quote ---
Thanks, Approaching Infinity, for this post!  I have lived most of my life traumatized over certain things like events in the news, scary movies, things that have happened to me and people I know, etc.  I just woke up from a nap and had two SP episodes near the end of it.  In the first one, my eyes quickly scanned my room looking for any sort of a presence.  There was none, whew!  I rolled on my side and decided to sleep more.  I woke up frozen and thought of yours and NewOrlean's comments.  Instead of fighting to break free of it, I just laid there and became fascinated that I could see my arm, but not move it.  I broke free without fighting it, but rather just accepting it, and this was a much more relaxing way of coming out of this experience.

Also, I would like to note that with every SP experience I remember, I have heard an intense ringing in my ears, felt a great amount of energy mainly in my head, but surging through my body, and also felt a tingling sensation along my spine in my upper back.  Perhaps the fact that I have a reverse cervical curve in my neck (it goes in the opposite direction than other peoples') could be a factor, but I have no evidence for that.

So, I was thinking, SP is obviously related to a delayed ability for my brain to stop releasing the chemicals that naturally cause a state of paralysis while sleeping.  However, I also think that these times must be opportune moments for 4D STS to make attempts to attack me.  I've seen too many things I cannot explain otherwise, but maybe NewOrleans is right.  Maybe it was like how it was for Laura seeing things when she was in her bed and that they were fear-based projections.  But it's as if I see them before I get scared and seeing them is what causes me the fear, not just being awake and frozen.

As it is, I am happy to note that it's been over a year since I saw the last monster in my bedroom and I, like RyanX have noticed a reduction in the rate of occurrence after changing my diet to exclude dairy, gluten, refined sugar and alcohol.  :)  Scarlet :love: Forum

Cuchulain:
FWIW, I had SP quite often and it wasn't until early this year that I began to really get serious about Astral Travel and one day when falling asleep I found myself in the familiar "Crossing zone" where you can allow yourself to go unconscious or fight with your will to break free. For once I decided to just let it be (After decades of believing this was possibly a doorway to death or some terrible experience, believe me, it was not an easy choice), I was sort of testing my mettle as well as feeling a bit courageous. Anyhow, when I "let go" instead of fighting or feeling afraid I popped right out of my body. I don't consciously remember thinking about astral projection immediately before or during the experience though. I started to move towards my bedroom door in front of me but for some reason I felt fear of passing through it and somehow caused myself to go backwards which happened so quickly I went through the back wall and before I knew it was outside. I didn't like that at all and went straight ahead and I believe I rushed back into my body due to being in fear.

I had always assumed I would be able to control my astral body with the same exact thoughts as I use for moving around now but it was as if there was a slight adjustment that needed to be made, I wasn't able to spin myself around or turn, I was like a Joystick that could only go N,S,E,W but also straight up and straight down.

I started thinking this may have been a dream but over the next week I ended up projecting 5 more times.

The reason I bring this up is that due to my experiences I began to be believe this state of "sleep paralysis" is the threshold between the conscious and the subconscious and possibly a window into 4th density of some kind, not just a state between simply being awake and asleep, which is TECHNICALLY what it is. But isn't this the state practitioners tried to reach?

I read that Edison used to meditate holding metal balls in his hands so that they would drop into metal bowls if he fell asleep while meditating because the place he wanted to reach was the state immediately before falling asleep and it was so easy to slip right past it into sleep that he would be woken by the loud clanging sound and have the ability to retry.

There seems to be something connected with fear in this state, there always seems to be a panic to wake oneself fully however I kept allowing myself to stay in the state and what happened one day was stranger than astral projection.

I was laying on my bed and had the window half open. I began to fall asleep and started to experience somebody talking into my right ear. I just listened, didn't move, didn't try to speak, it was unintelligible EXCEPT while I was hearing it I understood what it was saying, only afterwards trying to remember, it made no sense. Then I began to feel my headphones had slid down and were on my chin, all of a sudden I heard the voice coming from the left and slightly tilted my head and saw three shadowy figures run across the small room then fade. As I lay there just listening I realized it must be extremely windy outside, it sounded like the trees were whipping around and I could see the branches and leaves thrashing. All of  sudden I heard an extremely loud sound coming from my backyard, I couldn't make it out exactly but the closest I can come to describing the sound would be to imagine somebody taking a large dumptruck filled with Aluminum cans and begin tilting the dumper, allowing them to fall on to the asphalt. Except it sounded like there were several trucks doing this and it just kept on and on and on. I thought my neighbor might be dumping out cans on his patio but it was impossible, the sheer volume and duration of time the sounds went on...Well it was after hearing that I decided to get up and take a look around. The first thing I noticed was that my headphones had not slipped down onto my chin, they were on my ears like they were supposed to be...And there was no wind, nobody in my neighbors yard, no cans, nothing.

It was like the merging of two worlds. I'm sure there's some cold, hard, scientific way to explain it, some part of the brain switching on or off, chemicals doing this and that, etc. But that just tells us the mechanics. People so often mistake the explanation of how something works as being the explanation for what it "is", and what is happening, that's a big mistake.

Going back to the OP's "Grim Reaper" thing, when I was still in a crib, I would see a hooded figure stand above me and breathe at me. Scariest sound you could ever want to hear. I even drew a little sketch of it when I was 3 or 4 and dubbed it "The Standing Thing". Haven't seen it for many, many years though.

Like I said, for what it's worth.

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