Sleep Paralysis Tickling (Demon) Nightmare

Sleep paralysis tickling stories are all over the internet. As always, there’s a scientific explanation for it, although I understand why some people consider it paranormal. I’ve seen The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix and they depicted sleep paralysis in the most horrific way. What can I say? It’s in the horror genre, it’s supposed to scare us. Maybe there is a paranormal bit in real life sleep paralysis, I don’t know. I will tell you how it is for me every time it happens. My sleep paralysis is “extra” though. It only occurs when I have to force myself to wake up from a tickling nightmare. I have not experienced this in a while. I guess the time has come for me to write about it.

Round One

My sleep paralysis tickling episodes started when I was 6 years old. We can’t Google things back then so I didn’t know what to call the experience. I often get seemingly normal dreams that turn dark and it involves this unpleasant tickling sensation on my neck. And then sleep paralysis upon waking up. In my dreams, sometimes I can see someone doing the tickling, a lot of times no one’s doing it. The only way to make it stop is by forcing myself to wake up. A strong tickling sensation concentrated on the right side of my neck. It’s like having convulsive seizures except it does not involve the entire body. In my dreams, I tried fighting it and waiting for it to go away, but nothing ever worked. Only waking up can make it stop.

Sleep Paralysis Tickling Dream

Dreams rarely make sense. The one I had started with me casually flipping through a photo album while watching TV with my sister. I was on the sofa laying on my stomach, looking at this photo album (with moving images like the Daily Prophet). My sister was sitting on the floor as she laughed at the sight of my mom being on some TV game show. I glanced quickly. I saw my mom wearing a black starfish costume about to dive into a shallow kiddie pool. She would never do that in real life.

I could be doing other things but I just can’t stop looking at this photo album. At first, the images were not interesting until the photo of a doll soaked in blood. And I thought, okay, I’ll keep looking here and I might see weirder things. After the bloody doll was a photo of a ball, shaped like a Tupperware Shape-O Toy, it turns out it’s an old picture frame. Each hole has photos of people I don’t recognize. I flipped past this page but I went back to it when I realized something written right next to the image. The text says it’s possible to see the future of each person in the photos. I leaned forward for a closer inspection. Out of the blue, it triggered the uncontrollable tickling sensation on my neck.

Oh No, Not Again

We all know what it feels like to get tickled but the sensation I’m talking about is nothing like that. It’s forceful yet not painful, and uncontrollable in a dream state. The weird thing about it is, the sensation stops immediately as soon as I open my eyes. Last night’s dream was freaky but it wasn’t something I would consider a nightmare. Unfortunately, there’s no escape from this pain in the neck sleep paralysis tickling. I had to force myself to wake up. No sleep paralysis demon or bent neck lady or anything like that but it always takes a few seconds to feel something or even move slightly.

The image below is closest to the sleeping position I was in when I woke up. Except, my right leg was straight (also, I’m a woman and this guy has a weird sleep face).

Tech FTW

Check out this data from my fitness band. It registered that I woke up abruptly at 12:01 AM but I wasn’t able to grab my phone and check the time until 12:02 AM. I’ll walk you through how I force myself to wake up and move normally every time I experience sleep paralysis. First, I’m (almost) always 100% aware that I’m in a dream when I’m dreaming. It helps me ignore the visuals and sounds especially in nightmares so I can focus on waking up. I shut my eyes as tight as I could and then slowly open them to check if I’m back in the real world or not. If it’s easy to open my eyes, I’m not awake yet. When I feel it takes a lot of effort to keep my eyes open, it means I successfully woke myself up.

sleep-paralysis-episode
Sleep Paralysis at 12MN Coz My Brain Is Extra

Sleep Paralysis Tickling Dreamception

I must keep at least one eye open because I’ve had “dreamception” episodes in the past where I thought I woke up but actually fell asleep again. On rare occasions, the dream becomes positive, however, in most cases my brain either takes me back to the same nightmare or comes up with a fresh nightmare. When it’s hard to move, I focus on breathing and keeping my eyes open first and then try to feel where my hand is. I usually pinch or scratch whichever of my body parts is closest to my fingers to wake the rest of my body up. Experts say sleep paralysis is not deadly, and that’s great news. It’s still a pain in the neck to snap out of it though.