Well I suppose I will keep it short and sweet and to the point. Scroll down to the ================= separator if you don't care to read the story and you will still get the idea of the question I'm asking. Or if you feel like having the back story I wrote up something quick because I woke up about an hour earlier than usual for work ;P

Also sorry if I'm putting this in the wrong subsection, could go under spirituality maybe? Regardless this looked like the best place for it!

I have never been religious in my life up until a very recent date and even more so I am not openly religious, I suppose I "found god" in an interesting way. I suffered from HORRIBLY bad nightmares for a semi-long period, I'm also not talking about the trying to run upstairs while my legs feel like jello and something is chasing me kind of dreams.

My dreams were usually about random wanderings through what I could only describe as a torture chamber, talking nothing but screams, bloodied corpses walking around and the works, this was accompanied by the weirdest Hallucinatory Sleep Paralysis (HSP) That ALWAYS involved the same "figure" walking up to me and then starting to choke me while asking me the craziest questions I've ever heard, ALWAYS revolving around religion. Things like "do I bow to the son of god" "is god my servant" or sometimes vise versa and sometimes it would just end after that and other times it got a tad messy? This thing would literally make words, signs, dates and such pop up out of nowhere written in blood on my walls, or he would decide to gut me or kill me in some other fashion.

Regardless of anything I left out, this made me more terrified to go to sleep than just about anything. I've suffered from regular Sleep Paralysis all my life and it never bugged me, even had my run in with Hallucinatory Sleep Paralysis several times before this. Let's just say it was on a whole new level, this was happening on a nightly basis. There may be say one night a week where this did not happen for probably a little more than 2 months straight. This was putting me on a bender, I swear I must of looked like a crackhead for how sleep deprived I was. There were times that I didn't sleep for days and the two months this was happening were easily as bad as the first few months after my fathers death.

In my life to date, there has only been 3 times that I have REALLY cried, once when my father passed away, once when my first long term relationship ended, then there was this time. When things were really hitting the fan and all the people that I told about this be it online or close RL friends either thought I had to check into a sleep diagnosis hospital or start praying for my life and hope for a hail marry.

Well I went with option two and started praying my @$$ off and memorized some scripture that I would repeat every time I was "having an episode". About a week after this I had a very realistic, very long, and quite interesting dream. From what I've read in psych books and from a little investigating dreams of this kind are called "epic dreams" I basically had a dream where I had quite the chat with a very benevolent being. A lot more than that went down but that's all I really care to share about it.

I haven't had any of the same elements in my dreams sense, actually I hardly even have nightmares anymore and my SP is back to a kind of once every few months kind of deal. It was kind of weird, everything that just kind of popped out of nowhere, the nightmares the HSP and such that came just randomly and continued nearly every night for over 2 months just stopped out of nowhere and never came back after the dream I mentioned in the above paragraph.

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The whole experience has kind of left me at a crossroads. None of my friends know me as religious, heck even my family doesn't think I have a religious bone in my body. I don't think any of my close friends that aren't already religious would even use my name in the same sentence as religion.

So in essence I feel like a closet christian...

Now I know none of my friends will openly oppose me for being religious but I could see it being the butt end of a few jokes sense I don't think I have more than 2-3 religious friends.

The best way I can describe it is I feel like it's a major shift in my character to be religious and if I can barley understand it I doubt many of my friends would, if any...

So it comes down to should I keep on the road I'm at now and just kind of let it become a part of my life a little more slowly or do I need to totally revamp my life and image?

If you sat through and read the whole story thanks for your time, if not I'd still like some opinions.

Wow. I can't imagine what you must have felt with those nightmares. If what you're doing is working, I'd definitely keep on!

As far as your question, Christianity isn't so much about religion as it is about relationship. Religion, as commonly understood, is humans trying to find ways to contact, appease, or otherwise reach the deity. Christianity is God reaching down to us. The point of Jesus dying and rising again is to open the door so anybody can have that one-on-one relationship with God, know they're loved eternally, and find help when it's needed (for me that's pretty much all the time).

Do you need to revamp your whole life right now? No. We're all on a journey of discovery and change. If you're in LA and you're flying to New York, it's hard to get on the plane in New York. God will meet you where you are, get you started, and walk you along the path to that revamping. That's the other big difference with Christianity: change comes from the inside, not the outside.

I'd recommend you keep doing what you're doing, and find some Christians you feel you can trust and ask them to pray with and for you. And of course, we're always here for you.

First off, Praise God for conquering your dreams!

Second, I commend you on your change and would point a verse in the Bible that may speak to you; 2Corinthians 5:16 "16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" That said, I agree that this is a re-birth with a long period of growth that exists however, you are different than you once where and people should not be able to miss it. God did a powerful thing in your life and it should be shared. He is the Good News so I say share Him. Take care.

Thanks for the answers so far, I guess things will come as they should but also no point to ignore what's happened and will happen. Food for thought I suppose :/

Your testimony is powerful because He who healed you is powerful. Thank you for bringing this to light. I will agree with dwashbur that it has nothing to do with religion but it is about a relationship. You found the Father you've been missing.Just treat God the way you would have treated your physical father if somehow he could return from where he is now.Celebrate, enjoy, make Him happy by offering things to Him as a gift.Prepare meals for Him, take Him out for a walk, call Him and tell Him every thought that comes in your mind.Tell Him how much you love Him and He will tell you no doubt how much He loves you.
You lost your physical father but the Real Father found you!
Do not become religious but be a believer!

Joe, this experience of yours is very strong testimony. I am very positive that Lord God has a plan for you. What is that plan, you have to ask HIM. HE may tell you immediately, HE may take some time to work on you before HE starts using you for HIS glory and make you a tool to bring lost sheeps back to HIM. I connect to your story because I have a friend who gets nightmares and is sleep deprived but would not listen to me and pray to Jesus for healing and sound sleep. Please pray for her release.

Once we put our faith in Lord Jesus, even though the road seems tough, yet we walk on it victoriously with the strength provided by Lord God. Just keep walking on. HE is with you always.

Sorry about my late response, I work a lot so it's hard to get here every day with all that I have to do. This is all pretty new to me but I think this is some pretty positive input. Enough to at least let me figure the rest out on my own. Thanks a bunch guys.

Hello, I would like to say that you are not- NOT alone. I too had sleep paralysis for over 12 years, had hallucinations - that I knew were real, saw some reaaaaaly scary stuff and I didn't tell anyone what was happening to me for the longest time, no one knew, my own children came to me to tell me what they saw entering my room on a nightly basis, it had them terrified because they knew what they were! And I didn't even let them watch scoobydoo or any ghost/ or dark cartoon for entertainment.

I would have to suggest that the person you were talking to that after this encounter things are somewhat abated, has shown you that what you are experiencing is something real something that phsycology cannot explain because of the lack of belief in a higher power.

The reason why things are still not fully cured is because you are sitting on the fence with this and you have to decide what you want in your life. This goes far deeper than believing in something and being apprehensive to reveal it to your friends.

Your are being called to decide, you have that choice and do you decide for you, what is best for you based on the conversation with... and your nightly terrors, or do you satisfy the masses and continue life as it is, as you used to know it?

People have lost friends for things much less, do you think it's a good idea to put lock stock and barrel into their opinion about what you discovered? And who says you have to tell them? If you choose faith over your friends, this is a lifestyle change, and it will probably be the hardest thing you will have to ever do, but I am speaking from experience, living a life in freedom, having comfortable sleeps, having faith that rids all the torment and terror is far greater than having the bestest friend in the world, because that person you talked to- he'll become your best friend, reliable and trust worthy and will lead you- if you let him into wonderful situations that you can't possibly know!

Hello, I would like to say that you are not- NOT alone. I too had sleep paralysis for over 12 years, had hallucinations - that I knew were real, saw some reaaaaaly scary stuff and I didn't tell anyone what was happening to me for the longest time, no one knew, my own children came to me to tell me what they saw entering my room on a nightly basis, it had them terrified because they knew what they were!
What did your doctor say?

To be quite honest, I didn't tell my doctor because I thought I was going crazy. I researched it though, and the one person I told said that I should go to the doctor because I was probably having seizures! I was perfectly healthy before I used the ouija board!

Well I will tell you what. I read through the whole story and thank you for sharing.

It is amazing how some people are brought to God. My advice to you is does it really matter what family or friends really think?

You need to walk your own path in life. What you think is best for you. You need to be completely open to God, no matter what anybody else thinks.

So follow your heart and your feelings and let them lead you where you need to be in your life without concern about what others think or feel or act etc...

Nice to see that this thread is still going, I do and probably always will pray daily if not multiple times and I'm kind of getting into it, just not really ready to make huge changes yet. It really does make things easier in life having some one to talk to even if there isn't a direct response.

All I know is I'm glad that part of my life is over because it was effing terrifying, I always thought of ghost / demonic possession movies were dumb / funny or that it would be cool to be haunted or something. Well it's not, even if a lot of people in and outside this board thinks it's a bunch of bull. Mine was more than just dreams, it was odd occurrences , presences the biggest temp drops within about a 2meter sphere around me I've ever seen, like major major chills, people actually walked by me and were like... But it's part of the past now and who knows what can be described as sleep deprivation / paranoia or other things. But everyone has there beliefs.

It is an interesting thing to go through if not brief in the scheme of things, the total experience was about 4 months and the worst of it 2. It's almost like a milestone now though, "oh yea back when I was haunted"... I could probably write a short 150 to 200 page book on it if I wanted because I took lots of notes and kept a dream diary during the time. But yea... a few months is a long time when you never sleep for more than 2-3 hours and have the craziest dreams and HSP you could imagine, I did however achieve a mild talent with astral projection and changing dreams and such, never got too far with the SP and HSP though >.< One thing I can say with a 100% guarantee is that there is a really within our reality lying in dream scape and about us, Possibly fabricated within our own minds though. I suppose I'll never know for sure.

It is hard to tell, did you say 2 or 3 hours of sleep. Is that per day. I have been sleeping like that since I was a teenager and now I am in my thirties.

Honestly you do not have to be religious to believe in God and pray to God. I would call it more being spiritual. People like to label things to describe something. The big changes you have made was actually praying and adding prayer to your everyday.

I also agree about a reality within our reality in the dream world about us, and about others.

For years, especially the teenager years I wrote in my dream journal all the time. I would have dreams come true all the time. I always could tell that something was going to happen. Just one of those things you figure out.

I still have them but they are vague and not as focused because having so many things going on in life. I am not very well focused in meditation like I used to be.

Yes, it is so true everybody has different beliefs. You do not need to jump in, your doing great with praying daily. Just know that it is a journey and you will find the right way for you.

Joe

It is hard to tell, did you say 2 or 3 hours of sleep. Is that per day.
Joe

If I was lucky and I was once every few weeks I got a very light six hour sleep where I would wake up at least 4-5 times, the weird thing is, your brain needs at least a few hours to go into its first cycle of rem sleep "dream sleep" I almost never made it past the first cycle lol and a lot of the times dream immediately after falling asleep, (within minutes) that shouldn't happen. Only when incredibly sleep deprived should that ever happen and I guess I was lol.

But to get to the point, I averaged 2 hours or so of sleep a night IF I slept. When it was the worst I probably had 20-30 instances where I didn't sleep at all in a night I was just wrecked.

Well maybe 10-20, 30 sounds a little exaggerated now that I think about it lol. Sorry.

Do you still have problems sleeping or your sleep has improved now that you do not have those dreams anymore?

Very rarely do I ever have a hard time sleeping now, I almost NEVER have bad dreams now. Less than before all this began. We will see what happens in the weeks upcoming.