Sleep Paralysis
Sleep paralysis is a surprisingly common sleep disorder. In a typical sleep paralysis episode, the person is generally thought to be awake, but the body is still in sleep, therefore paralysed. The person can see, and hear, but cannot move. This type of sleep disorder causes a lot of distress and anxiety. Frequently, there is a feeling of a presence in the room. Sometimes this can be a feeling of an evil presence, a sinister figure, the sound of footsteps, or a sense of some imminent threat. Sometimes there occurs the feeling of someone applying pressure on the sleeper’s chest. This is called the Incubus phenomenon. Many people report hearing loud noises. Some (like you) report vibrations going through their body. Sometimes there is physical pain, often in the stomach. Just about any sensation can be experienced during sleep paralysis, some are more common than others.
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Other associated phenomena include feeling the presence of someone familiar in the room, even chatting with them, or false awakenings, in which the sleeping person seemingly awakens, even gets up, and goes to the bathroom, only to find himself suddenly back in bed, paralysed.
Factors that increase the risk of sleep paralysis are simlar to those of other sleep disorders and include stress, anxiety, irregular sleep pattern, nightshifts, day naps, and sleeping in the supine position (lying on one’s back). Sleep paralysis is probably familial. Ask your parents and siblings whether they have experienced it.
Sleep paralysis is not a dangerous sleep disorder. The onset of the episodes is usually at a young age, in the teens. The episodes tend to decrease in frequency as one ages.
When you are undergoing sleep paralysis, there are some simple things you can do in order to terminate the episode. Instead of fighting against it, and trying to scream, just accept the fact that it’s just sleep paralysis, and a good way to regain movement of the body is to focus your attention on, say, the index finger of your right hand, and start moving that finger, and little by little you will gain more movement until the paralysis subsides and you are able to move again. it’s a good idea at this point to walk to the kitchen and have a glass of water or something, before going back to sleep. If you go back to sleep right away, the paralysis may occur again.
Many people have found that once they understand that they are suffering from sleep paralysis, the knowledge alone will help them overcome these episodes easily using the above mentioned techniques, and after finding out that sleep paralysis is fairly common, and not dangerous, the episodes may start happening less frequently and eventually cease occuring altogether. So don’t fight it, don’t be scared, just think, “oh, another sleep paralysis again, right, let’s get this over with”, and just focus on moving some body part until you regain movement. Don’t worry about the hallucinations - let them run their course. There is absolutely no danger.
Apart from the above, the treatment of sleep paralysis is the same as treatment of sleep disorders in general: Manage your stress, maintain a good sleep discipline, i.e. sleep enough during the night, avoid napping during the day. Exercise. Medication is seldom needed.
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The following is a personal account, and not a medical opinion.
Personally, I tend to disagree with the theory that the person is truly awake during these episodes. This is because I used to suffer from sleep paralysis a lot myself. I think it’s some sort of eyes-open dreaming, a state between dreaming and awakeness. In my view, the hallucinations are dreams, and the fact that there are false awakenings and sometimes a sense of warped time, make it more likely in my opinion that the person is in fact dreaming.
Here’s where it gets interesting though. When I learned about sleep paralysis, I immediately realized this was exactly what I was suffering from. Earlier, the episodes had been really distressing and frightening, and I thought I was alone with my sleep disorder. Then I stopped being afraid of these episodes, and in fact, out of curiosity, I started just playing it through. I let the hallucinations do whatever they pleased, and soon enough the hallucinations just went away. But even better, after they went away I realized I could get up and start playing the dream. One of the strangest things was that I saw myself sleeping in the bed, and at the same time I was walking around the room. Then, I could just imagine the next thing I wanted to happen and it happened. I went through my apartment walls, I went free flying, and did a number of other wonderful things during the nights, and eventually either woke up or sometimes just drifted back to peaceful sleep and woke up refreshed the following morning.
Consciously controlling your dreams is called lucid dreaming, and based on my personal experience, it’s a wonderful phenomenon. I think those prone to sleep paralysis are also more readily capable of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreams can be hard to sustain though, there is often a constant tendency to wake up. But there are also tricks that can be learned to maintain the dreaming state.
These days, I only get sleep paralysis very infrequently, just a few times every year. Only when I’m stressed, or I’ve been working too much, or taking a nap after a tough on-call. Therefore I don’t go lucid dreaming very often either. The initial onset of sleep paralysis is still very unpleasant, but it doesn’t bother me much anymore because I take it for what it is, and it goes away. I usually can’t be bothered with the lucid dreams attempts these days either, I just want a solid night’s sleep. Getting old, huh.
If you want to know more, try a Google search on “sleep paralysis”, there’s lots of information available. Also try “sleep disorder”.
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