Beyond the Veil: Sleep Paralysis, Lucid Dreaming & Astral Projection

Have you ever woken up unable to move, felt a mysterious presence in the room, or experienced a dream so vivid it felt more real than reality? In this episode of Vine & Veil, we explore three of the most fascinating mysteries of human consciousness: sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and astral projection.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome everybody to The Vine and the Veil, the podcast where we dive into the mysteries of the light and the dark, the wisdom of the spiritual, the wonder of the mystical, and the power of the supernatural. I'm your host, Carlos, and this is my co-host, Maria. And what have we got today, Maria?

SPEAKER_00 0:17

We are going into the dream world. So imagine waking up in the middle of the night. You open your eyes, you know you're awake, you can see your room, you can hear the world around you, but you can't move. Ooh, I don't like that. And then you notice something else. You feel a presence at first, and then something, you feel something standing next to you. Sometimes you see it, sometimes you don't. What would you do in that situation? Have you ever experienced that?

SPEAKER_01 0:48

I have. Yes. I've experienced what we would call sleep paralysis. I think a lot of people will refer to that as that. I have experienced that before. It is very freaky. Uh, I dislike it a lot because in those kind of situations you can't move. Um I've been diving into TikTok and doing a lot of research on it, and it takes a lot of different forms. In my case, I was having a I was having a dream. I thought I was having a dream, and I wake up and I feel like this dark presence comes through the window and it comes over me, and I'm just sitting there paralyzed, like I can't speak, I can't say anything, and it's just hovering, and it feels very oppressive. You feel like this pressure in your chest, and it's it's kind of scary. But in my case, I at that time we were really religious. So in my mind, I started reciting the Archangel Michael prayer, and suddenly I was able to break free, grab the thing by the throat, and then push it off of me and send it away. And that was what what I used to be able to actually break me out of that paralysis. But I know that a lot of people don't. Have you have you ever had anything like that happen?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

I can't remember the old closest to sleep paralysis, and I think many of you also may have experienced this is that falling state where you're between sleeping and being awake, but that's still like it feels real and then you jerk yourself away. But no, I haven't. But I mean, science is always trying to explain things right. But the interesting, fascinating, let's explore that thing about sleep paralysis is that it has been around for centuries. Like we're talking about ancient Egypt times where people experience this and then across cultures, right? Across cultures, different timelines. So I think there might be something greater than science to this whole situation. Like that many people exploring the same thing, very similar, the side effects of it are very similar as well. If you dive into science, like of course, they say it happens during your RRM sleep or rapid eye movement sleep, right? The brain is highly active, you're in your dream state, then you start having your vivid dreams. When you're in that state, your body pushes chemicals out in your brain, right? You have your glycine, you have your GABA, you have your serotonin. They're all working, one, to create the physical off switch of your muscles, right? So that's a paralysis. The other one is the reason for that, the GABA, is that it's kind of a protective mechanism for you. So because you are so active in your dreams that you're not actually hurting yourself, right? Because I mean, we've heard of the sleepwalkers, so it sounds like maybe they might have an issue with uh producing those chemicals. And then serotonin, of course, is is the other one that is very active in your rapid eye movement sleep. It keeps you in your in your your vivid dreams, and then of course, when sleep paralysis happens, there's something that goes along with that that you're you're not fully conscious, you're still in a dreamlike state, but then your body still hasn't switched off those chemicals working, so you're still paralyzed.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

So I think I think from the uh metaphysical level or the spiritual level, you're in in between. So you're not awake and you're not fully asleep. And I think this is this is pretty fascinating because you're kind of almost at the beginning of moving into a different uh plane of existence. Right. Astral travel, whatever it is that you want you want to call it. And so that's the place where I think you are able to, if you're if you practice it enough, you're able to manifest things or you're able to actually uh learn how to astral project, leave your body in that way because your mind is very active and it knows what it's doing. And I think that's the other kind of segue into uh what you would call lucid dreaming, too, where you you are aware that you are in a dream state, but you are actually in control and can do things unlike other times when you're in full REM sleep, you're just you're just participating in the dream.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Absolutely. And going back to that that state where like you're aware that you're asleep, but you can kind of control your dreams in the situation of sleep paralysis because your body is not moving, you can't speak. Like a lot of people have a hard time even saying any kind of word because everything is just numb, right? You're totally paralyzed. The commonalities that come through it, there's so many people that have the chest tightness, right? They have they see a demonic form or see of a non-normal friendly form. So, and going back to history in the 2400 BC Mesopotamian um times, they often reported seeing a demon called Luthu. It was commonly reported in their sleep, but the there's actually the first official medical report of sleep paralysis didn't come around until a Dutch physicist started writing about it back in, I want to say it was like the 18, 1800s, 1860s. But the again going to the same, we're talking 2400 BC to the 1860s, the reports were often a devil or demon or an entity laying on top of a person and the chest tightness and all of that. So crazy.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Yeah, it's crazy. It seems to take different forms. It for me, it was it was a shadow. I think a lot of people have seen some what they would call, I guess, again, a demonic entity. Some people have seen the hat man, which is another big one.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

And and I wonder about that. Is it is it that you are that because you are in between worlds, you are in a state where you kind of create a you've created a portal and you've actually allowed things in, or is it that now your awareness is so expanded that you're now seeing what was already been there?

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Is that like your third eye being open? Maybe you're in a state where you could actually see things because your third eye is open.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Yeah, and you're and you're not you're not limited by the the beliefs that you have.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Yeah. So this is where the lines skew of is it a chemical thing or is it your your cultural beliefs that play into it?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Because again, Christianity plays a role into all of this. So in Europe, specifically like Georgia's, or not Georgia, sorry, maybe Georgia, but Germany and that part of the world, they had the night hag that they would see.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

And then in Scandinavia, they had what was a mermith where they were having a mare, or sorry, not myrrh, mermit, where they had a horse that came present and that would lay on top of them and feel like they were crushing them. Japan had another folklore, again, an invisible force causing them to not be able to move. And then even in Islamic traditions, like they have gen or spiritual beings that they recognize. So, in some of those, there are some cultural beliefs associated to it, but on the grand scheme of things, like they're all seeing something.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

So I wonder if that is exactly what you just said. Somebody had to be the first person to experience.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

And based on what was going on at the culture of the time, they labeled it.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

What they thought it was, right? So the night hag or the horse or whatever it is, somebody talked about it, and then other people started talking about it, and then they started believing it.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

So now whatever it was, the the form or the being that was there took the shape or the form of what people believed in. And I think that could be a thing too.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

That could definitely be. So I'm not gonna read our Reddit story. It will be about sleep paralysis until later on in the in the podcast. But when I did a deep dive to the Reddit stories, there are actually stories that were positive, like fluffy unicorns and things like that. So it wasn't always a negative thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

So let's let's talk about lucid dreaming because that's a topic that really fascinates me. Where you can, this is the point where you are in control of your dream and what happens within your dream. Because a lot of times you're just not.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Yes. You're not, you're not.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Do you have an example of I do?

SPEAKER_00 9:55

I actually remember this so vaguely because it threw me for a loop. It was it was very much a lucid dream where we were traveling to a place that had a red barn with a silo, and it was in like a desert area. And I knew I was dreaming, but I was exploring. It wasn't a scary dream. But this is where it went from like that dream into when I actually visited this place because I had never been there before. We were going to one of dad's high school reunions and we were traveling, and I see the exact freaking red barn with the freaking silo in in real life. And I was like, oh my god, that's from that dream that I remembered that in the dream I was dreaming. That was crazy. But I've had like a ton other that was a positive one.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

What about one that's a little more scary?

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Scary, it just those same ones, my worst ones is when you realize you're dreaming and you wake up and like you're panicked and you're in a nightmare, and then you're like, oh my God, I gotta wake up. And so you think you wake yourself up, but then you find out you're still in a dream. Oh, yeah. And it happens until you actually really do wake up. But even in that state where you're like, oh, finally it's over, I'm awake, only to find out you're still dreaming. Oh my God, those are the worst. Throw a demon at me in my nightmares. I would rather have that, but oh, those other ones were not fun, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

I've had a couple. One that comes to mind is a is a pretty interesting one. I was dreaming that I was coming, I was hovering over a what looked like a futuristic city. And I come to a building and I go into the building. This is my spiritual form. I'm hovering over a building and I go down into it, and I see all of these people, and they're they appear to be having experiences, like think ready, player one. And so they're having all of these experiences, and I keep moving forward, and at the very front, I see me. And this is this is wild because I I say that this is where I met my dimensional self or a future self, and that version of me looks up at me, recognizes me, and then waves me to join it. So, join him. So I walks out of the building, I walk towards, or I kind of hover towards him, and then the next thing I know, I'm in with him, and we're having a conversation in the same, in the same body, and he's telling me all about the the area that they're in, why they're there, showing me around the entirety of the of this futuristic looking city. And as we're having this conversation, out of nowhere, this portal opens and these black things start coming through it. And he we're telepathically linked, so he's telling me, Oh, you brought these with you. And he uses this violet purple energy and makes them just disappear. And I said, What did you do? You just did you destroy them? And he said, No, I just wiped them from this existence. So he walks me up to his apartment, we have a conversation, makes me coffee, and he's just we just start talking, he's asking me questions. Now, at this point, we're in separate chairs because I've I've moved into me, this version of me, and that's that version of me that I'm sitting across from. And I don't know if you guys have ever experienced a situation like that where you're seeing yourself, but it was it was a little bit off-putting. But he was basically telling me that I have all of these abilities that he has. It's just that I haven't remembered them yet. And if I ever need and he was, you know, we talked a lot more about just the situation with you know, society, his society was like a much more uh advanced society where they slipped in and out of different uh experiences, which were, you know, for for people could live lifetimes in a matter of an hour or two hours. And so it was really, really strange. But at the end of it, I remember this vividly. He says, if you ever need anything, you know that what this place looks like. Just imagine this before you fall asleep, and you can come here and I can give you advice. And then he goes, Okay, it's time for you to leave. Bye. And then as soon as he says bye, I wake up.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

That is that one was that is so fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Wild dream.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Yeah. So questioned, you think it was a alien? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

I honestly think that it I I got the uh the impression that it was a dimensional self. So it was a version of me that existed in a in a different dimension, different future dimension.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

It was pretty well, and that is so cool. Yeah. I I can't say that I've ever had anything like that because that feels I think that's one of those dreams where like I joke because other lucid dreams that I've had are the ones where like your significant other cheats on you and you wake up and you're so angry because it feels so real, you're like, how dare you? And it's so visceral, right? So I feel like I would wake up with that feeling like it felt so real for you to have that dream.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

It did. I had I have another one that I'll share. This one was a little more it was a little more interesting because it it transitioned from dream to real life, which is another reality, right? So I was dreaming that you and our other sister Veronica and me were in a house and we were picking up mail from this house, and this house looked like it was something from the 50s. It was filled with like those little doilies, and you know, they were there were all kinds of antiques in this house, and we were we had to go pick up mail for this lady. So we go inside the house, we pick up mail, and we're getting ready to leave. But you said, Oh, I forgot something, and then you walk back into the house, and at that point, this figure rushes in to the house. I guess I don't know if it was going after you or it saw an a way to get in. So then we run in and I grab it as it's trying to come, it it leaps, and as it's leaping, I grab it by the throat, and we're like, this is like a bullet time, like we're hovering in the air, and I see it, and it's a shapeshifter, it's a werewolf. And this is the I don't know what this if it makes sense, but at the point where we're turning, I grab money, I have money in my hand, and I shove $26 into its mouth.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

$26.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

I don't know. Symbolism is is very, very interesting here. And I tell it, I said, You have two choices. Either I can destroy you right now, or you owe me a favor. Which one is it gonna be? And it said, it would owe me a favor. So I let it go, and then it took off and and ran away. And then at that moment I wake up and I hear it because the dogs are barking and I hear howling outside.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

And so I take the dogs out to the backyard, and normally they kind of mill around, but they went pee and they ran right back into the house. And as they're running back into the house, I look out and I see this dark, probably one of the biggest wolves that I've ever seen. It's off in the distance, like a dire wolf, like like big, big, big, big, massive. And there are no wolves in our area. Right, right, right. We live in a we lived in a freaking a neighborhood, a cookie cutter neighborhood. Yeah, and so and and it was walking, and I could feel the power that was emanating from it.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

And I acknowledged it, like, and they didn't acknowledge me, and then I booked it booked it back into the house. And it's so funny because I I looked just happened to look at the clock and it was 444 in the morning. Huh. And it took me a little while to get to sleep after that, but that was another one of those lucid dreams into waking. But it was a it was a transition.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

444.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

444 in the morning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

And then the number 26.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

I I don't know. Symbolism is everything. So if any of you guys hear this and you have a interpretation of what that is, please reach out. I'd like to know.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Have you looked into either of those numbers?

SPEAKER_01 17:53

I mean, four angel numbers, four four four is angel numbers, there's there's all of that. So synchronicities, the idea that you know, you do have there are shamans that exist that can shape shift, witches can shape shift, yes, lichens. I mean, so there could be so many different things. It would be really interesting to figure out what that was. But that was the other one that I'll share.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

That's interesting. Yeah, I think I've had again nothing like that at all, but I have had other ones where they're fun dreams where I know I'm I'm lucid dreaming, and it's almost like, let's do this. So then I'm, you know, fine or doing whatever it is that I want to do. Those are fun dreams.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

There's also those crazy ones that reoccur. Like I always have this tsunami dream where I finally buy this amazing house that's on overlooking the cliff of the ocean. And the day that I move in, I'm we're super excited with the entire family. I walk out to the back to overlook the ocean and I see a tsunami coming. And I'm like, well, can't go anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

I also have had a tsunami dream, and it it was right when mom was after like she was having some health issues, and then she ended up getting diagnosed after this dream that she was in liver failure. But it was so fascinating because we were in a night market on a pier, right? And we're going through, and it wasn't like a creepy, malevolent look like type of it was just a regular like going to a street fair. So we're going through looking for funnel cakes. I can't even remember what it was. Then all of a sudden, like we see the tsunami coming towards us. So we start running and we're running, and then there's there's a grave site to the right of us, and I'm like, mom, we've got to go in there. And so we run in there, and there's these tall gravestones. I'm like, all we can do is grab onto a gravestone and don't let go. So then both of us go, grab our gravestones, hug it. The tsunami comes and goes, she survives, I survive. But then she gets diagnosed, and then you know, a year and a half later, she ends up passing. So, but it was one of those that stuck with me where I'm like, you know what, this may not end okay for her.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

And that's probably what it was. It was a little premonition that you had of how things were gonna end up going. So that is again there is plenty of folks that use lucid dreaming or you know, sometime where they're they're traveling in between to understand the future or kind of see different versions of themselves. So there's there's a lot there that's not explored yet that I think people delve into. So if you guys have had any interesting occurrences with lucid dreaming, or if you guys are able to use some kind of a ritual to get yourself in a state like that, we would love to hear it.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Yeah. We would. Interesting fact is that the Beton monks, they saw it as another way to see another level of existence. Like it was almost like another going into another dimension. I couldn't, I bet it made me go down the rabbit hole of like going into like the the Cold War. Oh, yeah, the Cold War things that the military would do. So then, of course, they could not confirm that they did lucid dreaming, but they there was confirmation that they did, you know, remote viewing and also actual projections. Ah, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So that is another topic that I wanted to talk about because I've never I've been able to disassociate in real life, not in the dream state. But I do think that it's interesting that it's I feel like it would almost be the same thing. Like taking yourself out of your body and almost like in that state, I can see. Myself when I was having those disassociative states. But in your dream, like you're separating from your body and you're floating around doing whatever it is that you want to accomplish that time.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Right. And so I think that that is disassociation is a is a step in it. So just imagine being able to frequently do that on command.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

And I think that's where people get into a very relaxed state and then they picture, or at least I I've not been crazy successful. I've disassociated a couple different times and done the thing of like kind of walking around the room, but I've never made it out of the room. But a lot of people do that. They imagine themselves in their room, they can see it in detail, and then they sit up and then they start moving around. They move from the room to their house, and then eventually they can start traveling everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Grandma used to tell us stories. Our dad's mom would tell us stories all the time of how she would astral project and visit us. Yeah, I found it creepy that she was always visiting us. I was like, Man, I don't really want anyone visiting us in their dream state. What are they doing that we can't see?

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Yeah, it's the in-between state. It is the in-between state. Because they're not fully dreaming. So our dad also had the ability to astral project and he would do that. And he talked to my mom about it. And of course, my mom being super religious freaked out and said that was evil. And so she forbade him from doing that. Yeah. So he stopped, which is interesting because if you have your gifts, like a gift like that to be able to do that, you should explore it.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Of course. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Are you gonna try it?

SPEAKER_00 23:37

I you know, I remember, I don't know who brought it over. It might have been Aunt Margaret, who had a book from Pablo Norida. I can't remember his name. He was into the mystic arts. But there was a book that she had about lucid dreaming.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

And for some reason Was it Carlos Castaneda?

SPEAKER_00 23:57

That guy, Carlos Castaneda. He I think the other one was like a poet. And then this guy is not a poet. Um he was a mystic, but he um also not a very favored one. But he had a book about astral projections. I like I remember it. I remember it being like a blue book. Anyhow, for some reason it was in the bathroom. So you're bored in the bathroom trying, you know, PMI trying to go to the bathroom. And so I would open up this book and I was like, you know, that sounds really interesting, but I never really did it because it sounded like a lot of work. And I'm like, I really want to relax while I'm dreaming. Uh so yeah, I never really tried it, but I I might now. Okay. One day.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Okay, yeah. I'd be down to try it a little bit more and see what happens out of it. It's always, it's always good to explore different uh abilities because everybody has them. It's just a matter of remembering that you can do it and practice just like anything else.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Yeah. But no, I've never done it. It'd be interesting to see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Yeah, can you imagine being able to just like travel and go and see?

SPEAKER_00 25:08

I mean, I think it's fascinating that the US military used it.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Oh, of course. Of course. I mean, they're gonna try everything, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Yeah, and they did they were sus successful, even though they swear they did not do any espionage with it. It was still something that they gave a go and explored, yeah, that LSD, all the things. I think it was like the Stargate project, and then they had the a couple of other ones going on around the same time.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Oh yeah. So wild.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

It's so wild. So we had a pivot because it got really dark really fast, and I can't read in the dark. So we are going on to our Reddit story regarding sleep paralysis. This is something that one of the Reddit users on our paranormal submitted. Experience she experienced something terrifying last night, sleep paralysis or something else. Last night I had an experience that I just can't get out of my head. And I swear I'm not making this up. I'm not someone who believes in ghosts or paranormal stuff. I did watch, I didn't watch any horror movies, I didn't read anything creepy. I was just studying late. Then I went to bed like I normally do. Sometime around midnight, I suddenly felt like I was falling from a great height, and then bam, I landed on my bed. That fall felt all too real. I instantly opened my eyes and saw that I was lying in bed as usual. From a the moment I was from that moment I was confused, like what had just happened. That's when things got weird. I looked to the side and saw something, a dark, evil-looking figure standing near me. It had this extremely disturbing presence, and I felt like it was staring right into me. I tried to scream, move, do anything, but I was completely paralyzed. I couldn't talk, I couldn't move a single muscle. The thing slowly moved closer and closer. I just went through, I and just what just when I thought it couldn't touch me, it vanished. A few seconds later, I could mute move again. I sat up sweating, heart pounding like crazy. I was fully awake, not groggy. I remember thinking I was already awake during all of that because I didn't feel like it was a dream. It felt conscious, I felt aware, like I could think for myself. And the scary part is even after waking up, my body felt the after effects, like real fear, real sweat, real exhaustion. I've heard of sleep paralysis before, but this just felt all too real. Has anyone else experienced something like this? I'm genuinely curious. I was just, or was it just a brain glitch or something deeper?

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Hmm. Hmm. That's kind of that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

And it kind of feeds into what we talked about at the beginning, sleep paralysis. Wild.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

It's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Yeah, I mean, there's tons of stories like that that are out there. So again, if you've had any episodes of sleep paralysis where you've encountered the hat man, the hag, or something else.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Something standing on your chest and crushing you. That happened to Veronica. I remember, I remember it so vividly.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

All right, you know, incubus, succubus, who knows? Something, right? Let us know because we would love to we would love to read it, hear about it, and maybe bring it up on a future podcast, which would be kind of cool. And yeah, on that note, y'all, let's uh wrap it up because it's starting to get dark out here on the vineyard, and we've had a wild day. Yes. There was a fire not too far from here.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Close to here.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

And we actually had to evacuate with all of our pets, and it was a very challenging experience. It's uh talk about getting your adrenaline.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

But we still got the podcast done.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

And we wanted to, you know, bring that to you so that we could have something really cool uh to discuss and kind of take our minds off the off the crazy experience that we had earlier. So thank you so much for tuning in. We really appreciate it, and we will see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Bye. Bye.