It’s a horrifying experience: you open your eyes in the middle of the night, only to realize that the rest of your body isn’t able to move. You’re convinced that some evil figure is close by, so you try to scream, but your voice cords don’t work either.
This is an occurrence that some have to deal with on a regular basis. It is called sleep paralysis and it is a sleeping disorder that falls under the parasomnia disorders.
Researchers define it as “a common, generally not harmful, parasomnia characterized of brief episodes of inability to move or speak combined with waking consciousness before or after falling asleep.”
While the inability to move a muscle is scary enough, the experience is much more terrifying because it is often accompanied by terrifying hallucinations. The three most experienced hallucinations are:
- the feeling of a presence of a threatening individual,
- someone or something pressing down uncomfortably on their chest or abdomen,
- out of body experiences in which the person thinks their spirit has left their body.
Many people experience sleep paralysis once or twice in their life, while others have to deal with it a few times a month or more regularly. It is most common in teenagers and young adults.
Why does it happen?
While science still hasn’t been able to fully understand it, it is known that sleep paralysis happens during the “dream phase” of sleep which is also known as the REM phase, during which our skeletal muscles are paralyzed.
While sleep paralysis often gets better with time, improving your sleeping habits and environment may help.
Reference: Medical News Today, National Health Service
Link: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321569.php , https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/sleep-paralysis/
