Bugger. It's just glorified tech support. If they could say 'unplug yourself and plug yourself back in' they would, and they'd make just as much money.

Nah Doctors are good people mostly, I'm sure. And yes they know quite a bit but they are often only very slightly better at diagnosing and treating illness than the everyday shmoe with a medical almanac and some common sense.

Yea, I'm studying to be a doctor, so I intend on knowing as much as humanly possible. However, that's not to say that you don't have to crack open a medical textbook to diagnose something. My doctor had no clue what was up with me. I don't fault him for not knowing, just for not running all the tests at once and for really just leaving me hanging about information.

I believe this may hold the answers you seek.

I've gone through pretty bad bouts of it at times in my life. Mine were accompanied by the hallucinations, which can happen but is not a guarantee.

I have trouble sleeping, and no one knows why. I exercise regularly and eat pretty well and have been losing weight like a mo'fo, but I always wake up feeling tired and when I'm dreaming I'm conscious of the fact I'm asleep and can wake up at any time I feel like.

I get this every once in awhile. My eyes open up, and then I can't move anything. Can't even rotate my eyes, I'm just stuck laying there staring at whatever spot I happen to be focused on. Sometimes I hear the low chattering of voices and laughter.

Its a really horrible feeling, but it doesn't really seem to be anything serious, so I just don't worry about it.

@ Osterbaum, MasterofMagic:

You guys are suffering from sleep paralysis. Your body naturally paralyzes you while you sleep, or else your body would be acting it all out. This is dangerous for various reasons, because there would have been nothing stopping your caveman ancestor from chasing that potential mate of his dreams straight off a cliff in real life. For most people, the brain cuts it off as soon as you wake up, before you're even fully awake. For people who suffer from sleep paralysis, it sometimes takes minutes for the signal to go through. In that time, your body is paralyzed. Many people mistake it for alien abductions because it often is accompanied by the perception of garbled speech or other sounds, shadows or other images moving about, and/or the feeling of a negative presence or presences. One account I read about put a woman in the middle of a circle of cloaked figures performing a dark ritual of some sort. Overall, it can be a frightening and unpleasant experience.


Edit: Or if I weren't an idiot and had been more observant, Runswithnopants provided a link.

Actually, same problem as the last story you mentioned.

I would wake, but still be unable to move, and a circle of men in black robes would stand around the bed chanting "Meat. Meat. Meat." etc. etc.

Myriad of mostly minor health issues aside from that of the "It'll hurt like hell but you're not in any danger" persuasion.

Oh yeah, I mean, it's totally not their fault (except when it is), it's just frustrating when you have purple rash that looks like Mother Teresa and you wanna go to an authority on treating human ailments and say 'hey, what the hell is up with Mother Teresa on my thigh?!' but the best they have is ointment that 'might' work. I'm exaggerating, but there it is.

To those interested:

If indeed I do have sleep paralysis (or isolated sleep paralysis) then I don't get the hallucinations. I'm just concentrated on waking up. And I'd like to point out that while I am aware of where I am more or less, I don't really see the room all that clearly.

Just to cover this, but I get the occasional pang of a similar nature. Heart attacks include chest pain and often pain down the left arm in men, while women tend to get it more often in the jaw, although either area or neither aren't unheard of in both sexes.

On the other hand, heart attacks have other key indicators, such as shortness of breath, and in the absence of at least that, what I'd chalk it up to is what I sometimes get, which is a spasm of one or more of the intercostal muscles. Basically, they all have to work together to help the ribcage move when you breathe, so if you have one decide it doesn't want to play nicely, it can be quite painful, but it's in no way permanently damaging.