You wake up in the morning to discover that you cannot move
a muscle; you find your body completely paralyzed. You tried to speak but no
words seem to come out of your mouth, the words that eventually part your lips
seem so faint to be heard by anyone. It feels so unreal yet real at the same
time. In the mix of all that terror you notice an evil presence in your room
and a sense of weight upon your chest causing you to suffocate and threatening
you with death. You try to react and defend yourself but you can’t due to the
paralysis. After a while, you regain movement in the muscles and discover
there’s nobody in the room with you but the shock of the event leaves you quite
terrified and distressed.
This weird phenomenon is known as sleep paralysis. Sleep
paralysis is a temporary inability to move or speak that happens when you are
waking up or, less commonly, falling asleep. Although you are awake, your body
is briefly paralyzed. In some cases, hallucinations are present, and the
sufferer feels that someone or something is in the room with them, some
experience the feeling that someone or something is sitting on their chest and
they feel impending death and suffocation.
The paralysis can last from a few seconds to several
minutes. After this, you will be able to move and speak as normal. An
unsettling feeling may come over you and you may become anxious. The condition
does not however pose a risk to general overall health. It has been linked to
disorders such as narcolepsy, migraines, anxiety disorders, and obstructive
sleep apnea; however, it can occur in isolation. Many people only experience
sleep paralysis once or twice in their life. If it happens several times in a
month or more regularly, it is known as isolated sleep paralysis.
What Happens During
Sleep Paralysis?
To better understand what happens during sleep paralysis, a
little knowledge of what usually happens when you are asleep is important.
Sleep occurs in cycles and each cycle is split into two phases – rapid eye
movement (REM) sleep and the non-REM sleep.
The brain is usually very active during REM sleep and most
dreams occur at this stage. Also, during REM sleep, the body is paralyzed apart
from the movement of the eyes and the diaphragm (the muscle that controls
breathing) the paralysis is thought to occur to prevent you acting out the
actions in your dreams.
Sleep paralysis occurs when the normal muscular paralysis of
REM sleep temporarily continues after you have woken up.
Causes
Several circumstances have been identified that are
associated with an increased risk of sleep paralysis. These include insomnia
and sleep deprivation, sleeping in unfamiliar or spooky place or in an
environment that is too hot or cold, an erratic sleep schedule, sleeping in the
supine position(on the back), stress, overuse of stimulants, physical fatigue
as well as certain medications. It is also believed that there may be a genetic
component in the development of sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is also known
to be more common in teenagers and young adults.
Is It Really Evil
Spirits?
All over the world, sleep paralysis always had a
supernatural explanation which seemed to be evil in almost all cultures. People
have always thought of sleep paralysis as stemming from an evil source. It has
been given different names and various explanations.
In New Guinea, for example, people refer to this phenomenon
as Suk Nimyo, believed to originate from sacred trees that use human essence to
sustain its life. The trees are said to feed on human essence during the night
so as not to disturb the human’s daily life, but sometimes people wake
unnaturally during the feeding, resulting in the paralysis.
In Korean culture, sleep paralysis is called gawi nulim,
which translates to “being pressed down by a ghost”.
In Nigeria, sleep paralysis is often associated with
witchcraft and demon attack. It is referred within African communities as “the
Devil on your back”.
Treatment
Sleep
paralysis is more common in people who are sleep deprived, so getting enough
sleep may help reduce the number of episodes of sleep paralysis. Most adults
need 6-8 hours of sleep each night. Keeping a regular sleep schedule where you
go to bed at roughly the same time each night and get up at the same time each
morning, can also help. The safest treatment for sleep paralysis is for people
to adopt healthier sleeping habits. However, in serious cases more clinical
treatments should be sought.
Terror after an
episode
Waking up to realize that you cannot move or speak can be a
terrifying experience especially when it is accompanied with hallucinations and
feelings of breathlessness. A new research found that people were most
distressed after an episode when hallucinations felt threatening and when they
held supernatural beliefs regarding sleep paralysis.
The research also suggests that understanding why it happens
helps people feel less distressed after an episode.Believing that sleep
paralysis is brought on by the supernatural, on the other hand, makes people
feel more unnerved.
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