I've only had this happen when I took Valerian to help me sleep, so I quit taking it. I didn't enjoy seeing an apparition of my EX standing in the room with snakes entwined all over his body, and on another night I saw a huge cartoon spider. LOL

I taught myself to awaken if I have bad dreams or hallucinations so I can stop them. I'm sorry you're experiencing something bad. I have noticed that if I watch TV before bed and it's a crime scene or horror, then my mind will tend to carry it over, so I now watch something nice before bed.

I dont know how to tell you what that realm means, Alison,
But I experience it on a daily basis, sometimes several times a day,
depending on what I do to my blood sugar.
I personally interpret it as a subtle realm,
or perhaps crossroads between realms that has evolved into its own society.
It is certainly inhabited by a host of amorphous entities, not all friendly.
There is A LOT going on there,
and information to be gathered.
My problem with it is that becoming consciously aware of your activity there can
effectively prevent you from continuing your business there.
What it sounds like to me,
\although this is just an opinion,
is that something there tried to attach itself to you and feed.
This is normal.
People do it all the time,
but these things are a bit more open about it.
Your fear creates a sort of vapor that they could find exquisite to consume.
I personally have done battle with numerous hostile entities there.
My advice to you then is this:
Everything there is made of some sort of aether of magnetic light,
and therefore is subject to your willpower and imagination.
You have the power to implode, banish into vortexes of your own devising,
seal, bind, whatever.
~
Practice:
Lay awake with you eyes closed at night.
The subtle dancing lights beneath your eyelids are connected to that realm.
Watch them for as long as you can,
trying not to let you mind wander.
(At some hours on some nights, you may be able to see your room thru your eyelids)
Eventually they should start taking forms,
and you will begin to enter that state or realm.
The trick here is to maintain a peripheral awareness of it all,
as your fully conscious mind will remove you.
Begin using you imagination to manipulate what you perceive there,
and your willpower to give it power.
and once you get kind of good at that, not even great,
nothing will be able to fuck with you.
Keep an eye out for the friendlies too!
~
Thats my advice.
I could be wrong.
Good luck.

Yes, I aso experience these a lot.
I think you can encourage them by thinking about absolute nonsense, like
"If a cow has 4 legs, then would an orange consider hiring the cow to fix his car, that broke down on the way to Mars, where a mountain of televisions ... blah blah blah

Catalyst them with nonsense, and then "sneakily" back off to watch the show.
If you can do this, you may eventually see yourself partake in the show, and the show becomes 3D.
This requires of you to not get caught up and lost in the non-sense; easier said than done.
You are then, I think, in a Lucid Dream, the lucidity of which is determined
by the amount of memory you've sneaked across the border, as well as mental clarity and such.
It seems like you start out with an empty toolbox, but if you have lucid dreams regularly your toolbox fills up with skills and tools,
like in a Zelda adventure. If you start LD'ing less, the tools and skills seem to evaporate.
At least that's my experience with 'em.

Hello, I'm new to this tribe. I used to be afraid of sleep paralysis, now I wish it would happen more often, as I believe it is the beginnings of astral projection. Like you, I would fight the paralysis, and try to scream and escape the pressure. Once I learned not to fear it, I would kind of egg it on. I talk to it, actually yell at it. "Yeah, come on, let's go!" And as it would die off, I would ask it, "Is that all you got?" Kind of like I do with earthquakes here in California. I hope to be able to learn something from it.

hi for the last year i have suffered from hypnogogia. i dont believe in all honestly that it is some sort of dream or hallucination. I believe am getting haunted by a ghost, as i know for certain that i am not asleep or even about to drift of to sleep. it takes m a while to get to sleep and when i have my eyes closed at first i could feel a cold draft coming to the side of my face and being absolutley paralized with fear, but now its getting to the point where whatever it is , is actually moving my bed covers.the whole time i can not bring myself to open my eyes, i can just feel something that shouldnt be there.even my dog is acting strangley, waking up and growling , which is not like her at all!!!!

it can definately be disconcerting...i found that it usually was during stressful times that it happened (at least for me) and that once i had come to terms with what was bugging me it would cease.