Make sure you have gone to the bathroom. Get ready to go to bed about 30 minutes earlier than usual. If you are too tired, this will not work since you have to lay in bed for a while without falling asleep.
- Lay down anyway you want to, start flexing your muscles for about 5-10 minutes just to get them tired so you wont want to move.
- Now lay on your back in a position you can stay in for at least 10-20 minutes. Close your eyes and don't move (the most important part is not being able to move). If you move, you'll have to start over.
- With your eyes closed, focus on an imaginary point that would be about 3 inches in front close your eyes. It's okay to strain your eyes for a bit (sometimes this actually helps). Also imagine energy going into your body, and try to feel the energy. If done right, your body will get slightly weird. That's a good sign.
- Stay like that, and once again, don't move. At this point, you are still physically able to move, but if you do, you will mess it up. Focus occasionally on the area in front of your eyes to build up more energy. Also, completely relax your body if it's not, and stay still and calm for about 10 minutes. You can think about whatever, but don't fall asleep.
- At some point, your limbs, usually starting with the legs will start to feel like they are just things attached to you, but not your real body. Or, you can just imagine you don't have any limbs and that you have dead arms and legs attached to you, but they are not part of you. In fact, imagine your entire body is no longer a part of you. All you are is your thoughts.
- Eventually, you will get an extremely weird screwed-up feeling in your body. It's hard to describe, but I promise that you will know when it happens. It may spread across your body and become stronger, and it may give you a slight feeling of emptiness, uneasiness, and unreality. If you're still not sure how to tell if you've reached this point, then this time, I want you to try to move. Maybe lift up your arm, kick your leg.
But you can't. You're in sleep paralysis! CONGRATS!!!!
How to snap out of it:[]
If you find yourself horribly frightened, you may panic and freak out. This will only make it worse. On the contrary, if you want a more frightening stronger experience, feel free to panic and freak out. Saying to yourself, "Oh my god, I can't move!" is always a good way to have a stronger fear and more intense experience. But if you want it to stop, try this.
- Calm down. Say to yourself that it is not real but just a state of mind.
- Often, the head and neck will be the first area you regain control of. If you tilt your neck forward, the rest of your body will move slightly. Once you feel the bed again, your body will be awakened, and you should be able to move again fairly easily.
- Another method is to think about your movement and visualize the signal going from your brain, through your spinal cord, and into your body as you try to move. It helps a lot.
- Wait. It will go away eventually if you do nothing. Maybe...
- Another tip: wiggle you're fingers, toes, blink your eyes, and maybe even twerk. It'll "alert" your brain and body and you'll snap out of it very quickly.
Note: If you are fully awake and aware but suddenly find you can't move a body part for real, even after doing all this and tapping the affected body part, this is not sleep paralysis. It's an emergency. If it's at your feet or limbs moving up your body, it might be Guillain-Barre or transverse myelitis. If it's from the head down, it might be Miller-Fisher or botulism. If it's half of your body, it may be a stroke. If it's your entire body, you're screwed. Or possibly also suffering from hyper/hypokalemia or a neurotoxin or something.
Ways in reducing the chance of SP occurring:[]
The most successful way of preventing SP so far is to lay on your side when you go to sleep. This will not 100% guarantee SP not to occur, its only to reduce the chance of it happening. My brother used to get SP A LOT and the only way he found it to not occur as much was to sleep on his side but even then he still got it at times.
Tips and Troubleshooting[]
Q: It doesn't work! You suck!
A: If my method doesn't work, try the other methods at the bottom of the page. Each person has a different way that it will work of mind. Don't worry about what position your body is in. Pretend it's in a bunch of random different positions for the fun of it. Also, don't be afraid of SP. You should go into it calm and willing to let go of your body and movement.
Q: Can I die from this?
A: I've done it about 100 or so times in the past 3zzzzzzzz. I'm not dead yet. It happens naturally in your sleep every night, and when you induce SP, your breathing will not be affected, although it may become shallower or faster. You won't die though. The closest you could come is if you have panic attacks and are freaked out when it happens. But again, if you do it calmly knowing you won't be able to move, you'll be fine. Nothing about SP can actually hurt you. However I don't suggest doing it while swimming or if your house catches on fire.
Q: I keep feeling this urge to move whenever I try to induce SP.
A: That's actually a good thing and means you're almost there. Your body is checking to make sure you're "asleep," by giving you urges to move. It knows that SP freaks people out (and is also very inconvenient) while they're awake, so it likes to make sure you're asleep before activating SP. It checks by creating an urge to move so that if you're awake to sense the urge, you'll move and your body will know NOT to do SP. If you resist the urge to move after a few minutes, sleep paralysis will activate.
Q: I did this and now I'm getting SP way more without inducing it.
A: Yeah, that happens. About 2 years after I induced SP for the first time, I had it naturally and I'll admit it scared the s--- out of me. In my dream there were doctors around me telling my parents I had died of what they called "fast onset ALS" and I was still alive and trying to say "Hey, I'm not dead yet! I'm not ready to die!" and for 5 seconds, I was fully convinced that I was going to die. Good times... But anyways, first and foremost, if you want it to stop, don't try to induce it. Also don't stay up late, and don't worry about it. Sometimes if I don't want to have a nightmare about something, I think about it briefly and tell myself that it's in my conscious mind, no longer my subconscious where it will become a nightmare. Addressing things and worries while you're awake is sometimes a lot better than shoving them to the back of your mind where they will be amplified by nightmares.
Q: I keep getting an urge to swallow. Do I have to keep my mouth still too?
A: No. If you swallow, it's not going to mess you up. When you're in sleep paralysis, your body isn't actually completely paralyzed, so a small bit of movement in your mouth and throat shouldn't ruin it. Also, I've found that thinking about salivating will actually make you salivate more. If you're curious, lay down for a bit and don't think about anything for a bit, but as soon as you think about whether or not you have to swallow, you will get saliva in your mouth. It's really weird. But when you get saliva in your mouth, swallow it. You'll be fine.
Other Methods
These will be some of the best tips I've read from commenters on this page. If my way doesn't work for you, someone else's might. And if someone else's way doesn't work, make up your own way just for the heck of it and see if it works.
Note: If you do not want your comment to be on here, let me know in the comment or just delete it from here.
A good tip for inducing it is to think of something other than your body. First regulate your breathing. You can say a mantra (ex.: inhale, exhale love, inhale, exhale, peace, inhale, exhale, joy, etc.) or you can just try and deepen your breathing so it's the same as when you're actually asleep. (Because remember, you're tricking your body into thinking you're asleep.) After you regulate your breathing, focus on something else, a ticking clock, a white noise machine, or if you hear ringing in your ears focus on that. You will usually hear ringing while paralyzed, so inducing it is that much easier when you hear it and focus on it. (If you don' hear the ringing, or it's very quiet, try and imagine it getting louder.)