My #1 complaint from people contacting me with paranormal activity is encounters during sleep time.
I am admittedly immediately suspicious of whether this is genuine activity. The one exception is a visitation by a newly deceased relative which does often come around sleep time.
Sleep is an odd time and during the stages, the body undergoes a paralysis-like condition in order to have dreams and not act upon them. Sometimes, while shifting from dream images and paralysis to the deeper or lighter levels of sleep, one can be caught between the two in which the eyes open, things are seen that are not there, and often times associated with not being able to move.
I tell people who are having visitations only at night and are the only one witnessing it, to try a few sleep hygiene methods to work it out. First, attempt to sleep without alcohol or strong drugs that cause excessive drowsiness. These can ruin the sleep cycles. Next, wear an eye mask so that you have complete darkness and ear plugs so that noises do not wake you. During sleep, we get hyperacousis, or sensitivity to sound. Even a cap falling off the counter and making a light clink can wake us, but we don't know why we awakened. This relic might have been necessary when sleep outdoors and in vulnerable places during early man's existence. Ensuring that you are not distracted and able to go through the sleep stages without getting caught between them and frightened, is a great first step to eliminating the ghost explanation.
There is also an interesting internal alarm clock situation that can plague us. This is when you know you have to get up at 7:30 because your alarm clock is set and then every morning you wake up at 7:28. If you wake up at 3 a.m. the witching hour, more than likely this is part of your sleep cycle shifts and you note the clock and then begin to find importance in this. Two things are at work: 1. You may go to bed at a time that 3 a.m. is a last shift into REM cycle, or 2. You have now set your internal clock with the number 3:00 and now it is waking because there is notice taken of this time. This can be reset by either setting your alarm beforehand and then waking up and going back to sleep or simply shifting your time to go to bed, turning the clock away, and not allowing yourself to imprint time in your mind.
I hope this helps those visited in their sleep to realize that their own dream state and sleep cycles might be the thing haunting them.
