I had it happen once and it happened to a mate of mine also.

I only saw one other atheist on youtube and he said he was sick of the religious explanations and wanted to know more about it from a medical and scientific point of view but had difficulty finding answers.

I only know it’s common and happens in rem sleep. I know there are 5 stages of sleep that go in cycles throughout the time your asleep. The whole cycle lasts from 90-100mins and rem is stage 5. That’s the one you dream in and lasts for about 10mins.

Like the other atheist on youtube said though "It’s difficult to find answers from a scientific point of view and it is terrifying when it happens.

I do know it’s common for people who are dying to hallucinate and it’s the brain shutting down. Why not many studies into sleep paralysis though?
I don’t want to hear from religious. I want to hear if any other atheists had it happen and scientific explanations. I asked before but I just got the religious with their demons and stuff.
Yeah I know we all go through stage 5 (rem) every night, well several times infact but most pass by it as just a dream and no sp. Others get sp, even if now and again and even if atheist.

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i find it hard to sleep at night then wake up during the night several times and am tired in the morning and all through the day and yet at night i still cant sleep???
any advice or tips or steps to fall asleep and not be tired?
no sleeping pills please

Technorati Tags: google, several times, sleep, sleeping pills

I’m a dog trainer and during work this afternoon my dog was fed treats through out a 4 hour period. He started coughing about 20-30 mins after I started feeding him the treats and the cough has progressively worsened except for when he’s asleep. Could this be an allergic reaction to his treats? Can I give him Benadryl? and how much is safe for a 35 pound adult dog?
He has developed a cough several times before with these treats just not his bad, I’ve always dismised it to thinking he was just eating them too quick. The treat I’m using with him is cubed Natrual Balance Roll. Beef flavor.
I cannot call my vet and ask, it’s 11:30 pm here
Come to think of it he has had a funny rash on his belly which happened to clear up during winter break when he was not getting any treats because he was not working.(he’s a demo dog)
He’s alseep now and quiet, so I’ll let him rest and see what happens, I’ll also be changing his treats and see if that doesnt make a change with his rash and cough during classes. If he’s still coughing Monday he’ll be going straight to the vet. Thank you for the help. I’ll choose a best answer when I find out whats wrong thanks again.

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I started mindlessly cutting my sleep back from about 7-8 hours per night to 5-6 about three weeks ago due to starting a full-time job. I didn’t feel much differently the first couple weeks of this. Last week, though, I had a few nights where my sleep was interrupted several times. I then started sleeping only four hours straight, waking up for a few minutes, then falling back asleep for another two hours. Last night I was too depressed to be alone, so I ended up crashing at a friend’s house. His siblings kept waking me up literally every hour by talking and moving around. The most consecutive hours of sleep I got were two. I had to walk a couple miles home, then attempted to sleep some more. Again, I only slept for an hour and a half and woke up for no apparent reason and couldn’t go back to sleep.

I’m starting to worry that I’ve forced myself awake so many times that maybe I’m already in the more severe stage of sleep deprivation. I don’t feel like myself and I can definitely sense that something is "wrong" with my mind. It doesn’t help that I’ve read that REM sleep is the most essential stage of sleep and that I don’t recall any dreaming last night except for during a brief 45 minute nap this morning.

1. If you wake up frequently but fall back asleep within, say, ten minutes, does your brain "restart" the sleep cycle or will you pick up where you left off before you woke up?

2. Is it possible that I’ve been forced awake so many times that my brain will "give up" on getting me to sleep? I feel tired but I’ve been working all afternoon, so maybe my brain tried to automatically shut down but couldn’t due to the physical activity.

I know I’ve become obsessive over this, but I’m definitely not feeling like I’m in a normal state of mind. I just wanna know that my brain still isn’t too messed up to allow me some good quality sleep.

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I have Bipolar 1 Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, ADHD, OCD, PTSD, anxiety and depression.

I was on medication for a year including Abilify, Welbutrin, Effxor, Ambien and Klonopin.

For the entire time I took the medication I felt lie a zombie. I didn’t want to do anything, and it took everything I had just to do the bare minimum. It worked overly well for stabilizing my mood- I just didn’t care enough about anything at all to put up much of a fight.

So about two weeks ago I stopped taking my medication because I just couldn’t stand it anymore. Things have improved in a lot of areas including in my feelings and actions. I actually wake up and get things done that I need to get done, and even finally find some joy and motivation in the things I used to like doing. The problem is that without the medication I do face other problems such as being easily irritated, waking up several times a night with difficulties of getting back to sleep and I continue to have panic attacks, especially when I wake up at night.

I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to deal with any of these problems, especially associated with the illnesses that I have. I’d really like to give it a shot and do this on my own without medication or therapy (tried it for 6 months and got no positive results) because I think that’s the only real way I am going to be able to honestly deal with it and stick to it without being an over medicated zombie.

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As I understand it, sleep occurs in five stages. 1, 2, 3, 4, and REM, and it takes approximately 90 minutes to complete one cycle. Now I have been led to believe that once awake, one must pass through all stages again to reach the REM stage, where dreams occur. I’m curious to know if one can not so much "skip" stages, but hold or maintain a state just out of REM while conscious for a period, then fall back into a dream state. I ask because for all I can figure, this seems to happen with myself. There are instances where I have been in the middle of a dream when my alarm clock goes off, but I wanted to continue dreaming so I would get up and hit snooze, look at the clock and decide whether or not I had the time to spare, and if I did, I’d lay right back down and from what I can tell, fall right back into the dream state, because sure enough, ten minutes later the alarm would ring again. Sometimes if the dream was really interesting enough and getting up was not immediately important, I’d end up repeating this several times.

Any ideas on what exactly this could be? Is it possible that I am holding perhaps a stage 2 state of consciousness at that point? Also I’ve noticed that sometimes while this is happening I almost feel conscious, as in I can feel myself lying in bed and the dream feels almost like I’m watching a movie in my head.

Technorati Tags: alarm clock, dream state, dreams, google, instances, lying in bed, middle of a dream, rem, several times, sleep, stage 2, state of consciousness

I dream throughout my sleep. Let me preface this by stating I know about REM sleep and the cycles of sleep, etc. Doesn’t work like that with me–not for quite awhile. From the moment my head hits the pillow I am already in an internal monologue, which trancends into dreaming.
I have woke up throughout the night several times dreaming a certain dream and it continues each time I fall back to sleep.
My dream life almost challenges my real life. I vivdly remember each dream. Most dreams involve family or friends in some capacity-some are romantic, some are of a same quasi-real place, many are of me on a mission to find something or be somewhere in a hurry. I always seem to be convincing someone of something in my dreams. Thank goodness my dreams aren’t scary or violent, though many times the feeling is that I have to do something or there will be dire consequences. Bottom line is I don’t get a lot of restful sleep. My mind never rests. Anyone similiar? Any thoughts?
Oh–and I am a night owl. I usually don’t get to bed until 2am – many times later. I think best and am most creative at night.

Technorati Tags: bottom line, consequences, dream life, dreams, goodness, google, hurry, internal monologue, night owl, owl, preface, restful sleep, several times, sleep

I have a 5 week old kitten from the animal shelter, and have had her for about a week now. The last few nights she has been waking me up several times during the night wanting to play. I understand she is a kitten, and that is what kittens do, but is there any way to break her of this? I work full-time and go to college full-time (including summer school) so sleeping is very precious to me.
I tell her no, and push her away, or put her in her favorite spot to sleep in, but she will come back thinking I am playing with her. I don’t mind her sleeping with me, I just don’t want her trying to play when I am trying to sleep. Should I make her a bed in my walk-in closet and some toys and a litter box? What do ya’ll do to break your kittens of playing during bedtime.
Last night, I played with my kitten before we went to bed, and she ran into my closet. I didn’t hear her for a while, so I went in to make sure she was OK. She was sleeping in a shoe box in there. I left the closet door open and let her sleep in there… I am sure it was a one night thing and she probably won’t be staying asleep in there, but she did let me sleep. She didn’t try to play with me until I was waking up.

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I’ve had insomnia for 5-6 years. It’s gotten worse and worse. Some nights I sleep for an hour. Some nights I never get into a deep sleep at all. Once in a while i’ll get a good 7 hours of sleep but thats pretty rare. I had a sleep study, but I actually fell asleep pretty fast that night (very rare) so I don’t think they saw how it usually is for me at night. I’ve been to so many doctors but they all proscribe the same meds that don’t work or give me a set of things to do to have better sleep hygiene (which I’ve tried several times and it never worked). It’s really effected my life. I’m in a bad mood a lot of the time and don’t have to many friends because I’d imagine I’m not the happiest person to be around. I also totaled my car from driving while exhausted and not paying full attention to the road. Can anything ever be done for me or will I just have to live with this?
oops in the title I meant for without the extra e on the end. My bad. (See, its probably from being so dand tired!)

Technorati Tags: 6 years, bad mood, deep sleep, doctors, full attention, google, hours of sleep, Insomnia, meds, several times, sleep, sleep hygiene, sleep study

I am taking venlafaxine for depression and anxiety, and I’ve mixed it with sleeping medication several times in the past month without consulting a doctor or pharmacist. I know that is risky, so I threw out all my sleeping pills and resolved not to buy any more. But now, I just don’t sleep, period. In the past three nights, I only slept for one of them, and that was from 3am to 12 noon.

Any suggestions? Thanks for reading.

Technorati Tags: 3am, anxiety, depression, google, medication, pharmacist, several times, sleep, sleeping medication, sleeping pills, venlafaxine

My bf is 34 y/o, 5’10" 300lbs. I believe he has a serious sleep disorder, but he doesn’t want to admit it. He says it’s his weight and doesn’t get enough sleep. First of all, He sleeps ALL the time. Right now, he doesn’t work so I know that he’s not sleep deprived, over worked or getting up early. He will fall sleep during the day.morning/evening on the computer with the mouse in his hand and sometimes wake up and continue where he left off. He has fell asleep a few times on the toilet. I have caught him several times during the day, drift off while driving and me in the passenger side. He has even fallen asleep at a red light in the afternoon. He falls asleep while I’m talking to him. What has got me asking this question is that we recently had a baby (2 weeks old) and he fell asleep while holding him on the couch and dropped him!!!!!!!! I’m so upset with this I wont allow him to hold him anymore unless he is wide awake….and I don’t know when that is. One time, he slept for almost 18 hrs straight! Help!

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I’ve got sleep apnea, which means I stop breathing several times each night and wake up gasping for air. I’m used to it. But the problem is that I am not sleeping well because it is getting interrupted so much. My dad has had a CPAP for 5 years and both of his parents have one. I will probably end up getting one as well. I plan to have a sleep study done over the summer, at which time they will analyze my body throughout the night while I am asleep. I know that if I have one I will be using it the rest of my life. My main question is how often would I have to change the tubing and the facemask? Would I have to change them at all?
This is the type of mask my dad and his parents use: http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26p%3DCpap%2520machines%26fr2%3Dtab-web%26fr%3Dybr_sbc&w=500&h=333&imgurl=static.flickr.com%2F70%2F154016843_14d712a212_m.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Ftattootom%2F154016843%2F&size=83.2kB&name=154016843_14d712a212.jpg&p=Cpap+machines&type=jpeg&no=4&tt=1,943&oid=d34cdd81836d5d3e&fusr=Tattoo+Tom&tit=The+Ever+Faithful+REMstar+CPAP&hurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Ftattootom%2F&ei=UTF-8&src=p

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I have severe sleep apnea. I sleep with a CPAP (continous positive airways pressure) machine. It works great, but my nose tickles several times in the middle of the night! I have to turn it off and scratch my nose before i can go back to sleep. What can i do to stop the ticleing????
The tickle is on the outside of my nose, not inside.

Technorati Tags: cpap, google, several times, sleep, Sleep Apnea

She is on a routine, every day is the same. She takes her nap at noon, but always wakes up after 30 minutes for me to go in and put her down again. At nigh she is up several times again for me to go in and put her back down. I am at the end of my rope and don’t know what to do. Is "cry it out" the only thing left? I never feed her or rock her to sleep. What can be wrong?

Technorati Tags: 30 minutes, google, nap, rope, several times, sleep

A few nights a week, I find that I wake up several times during the night and I am so exhausted the next day. I wake up from dreams or I have to go to the bathroom and I think it is just because my body does not want to sleep. I am going to try and work out more again, because I know that will help make me tired so I will sleep sound…
but what other things are there I can do to help me sleep? Certain foods, drinks, etc.

Technorati Tags: dreams, drinks, google, several times, sleep