Hi Josh,

Sounds like you have a few things going on and it will be difficult to pin down exactly but I'll give it a shot.

It's hard to say what the floating things you are seeing are. They could be anything really so you will need to focus on your feelings. Next time you wake up and see them, just ask them why they are there.
It's very rare to hear a voice answering you so be aware of your feelings. Most spirits communicate through impressions and sensations. You should get some sense of what the answer is, particularly since you don't appear to be afraid of them.

As for fate, keep your thoughts open, don't always perceive what you're seeing always means danger. You don't want to become the victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy but you don't want to ignore gut instinct either.

Your sleep paralysis sounds like a different albeit connected issue. From what I know about sleep paralysis there are three schools of thought on the subject.

The first is medical: You have woken up and your brain has misfired. Like a bad concussion you have no connection or control over your body and once your brain sorts itself after a few minutes, you are OK again. This is a legitimate medical issue that needs attention and can be resolved in most cases.
It can be caused by anxiety, depression, stress or even just a lack of adequate sleep over time.
Given you are being woken up at night, this maybe factoring in to to the sleep paralysis. I would recommend getting a referral from your doctor to have a sleep study done and a consultation with a sleep specialist.

The last two schools of thought are metaphysical, one is that a spirit is causing you this problem the other is that you are causing you this problem. Let's start with the latter.

It has been reported that some times during astral travel, we wake up a bit early before we fully get back into our bodies. This can result in seeing a figure in the room, a figure on the chest area (near the solar plexus which is presumably where our connection to the soul/body is) and discomfort in the body because we are not fully connected to ourselves. I never experienced this so I don't have advice for it, but a good resource to start with if you want to know more about it is "Practical Psychic Self-Defense" by Robert Bruce. That and "Psychic Self Defense" by Dion Fortune (a classic) are extremely valuable tools full of information.

Which leads me to the former, that a spirit is involved. The best thing you can do is read the two books I have listed above, learn the methods they teach and in the mean time salt. I can't praise salt enough, sleep with a ring of salt around your bed.

The second thing you can do is bit trickier to master but very effective. You have to learn how to fight back. You can't attack with your body something that doesn't have a body but that does not mean you are defenseless. Practice the following while you are awake and get good at it, that way when you are asleep, you can do it without thinking about it upon waking.

Lay down on your back, legs straight, hands at sides, and close you eyes.
Focus on your feet. Draw all you attention to your feet, the bottoms of the soles, the tips of your toes, the way the insides of your ankles don't quite touch. Feel the energy there. Once you are good and aware of them, start pulling energy into them, visualize positive energy from the Earth flowing into them.
Now move your awareness up to your knees and pull this energy up to them.
Continue to feel the energy flowing into your feet, keep your awareness of them as well, but slowly feel it moving upwards, over the ankles, up the shins and to the knee caps. Linger your awareness there, feeling energy moving from foot to knee.
Once you've got that, move up to the hips. Do the same thing, remain aware of the feet and the knees, but let your awareness of your thighs, your hips, your groin area, all come into focus.
From here you will go to the stomach, the solar plexus, heart, shoulders, arms and hands, throat, middle of forehead and finally top of head.

When you are able to maintain full awareness of all of these things at once and can feel the tingling energy inside your whole body, then visualize it as a brilliant white light pouring out from the top of your head, down the sides of your body and back into the soles of your feet. Like a fountain that is continuously flowing.

Once you've got this, visualize the energy wrapping itself around you, almost like a mummy's wrapping. Safely and securely protecting your body and your mind from any outside harm. Like your own little nest. The final step is to then visualize your energy spreading out from you, about two to three feet away from your body, creating a solid impenetrable bubble around you. When you have your bubble good and solid and you can feel everything confidently, stop pulling energy in through your feet and proceed with life as normal.

This is a basic visualization for protecting yourself. Do this several times a day and you will find it makes a world of difference in all aspects of your life.

The next step is of course fighting back. You're going to do everything above except this time, once you've focused all that energy you've pulled in, rather than wrapping yourself or forming a protective bubble, you are going to direct it into a fierce thrust at whatever is attacking you.
Like you are pushing whatever it is off of you, but instead of using arms and hands, you are using all of that energy that you just raised and focusing it into one huge thrust.
That will take some practice but, if you get yourself used to raising energy, then when you need it, you'll find you can do it without thinking and the mind naturally knows how to defend itself once you give it the tools.

The above method is a long term solution, also read the books.

So to summarize this long post, my advice is:

1) Ask the floating shadows what they want.

2) Get a referral for a sleep study and consult a sleep specialist.

3) Salt ring your bed, practice raising energy, and read "Psychic Self Defense" by Dion Fortune and "Practical Psychic Self Defense" by Robert Bruce.

If you find you enjoy energy work, I would also look into information on Chakras (because those are the energy centers you are working with for this visualization) and Reiki which is a form of healing through energy work.

Best Wishes,
LJ


 

LJNox:  Excellent post!  Thank you!

Sue Fowler