Imagine you wake up in the middle of the night in the dark, and find yourself paralyzed from head to foot while you are completely shiny and conscious.
As if that is not enough, you feel a sense of panic, caused by the feeling that someone (or something) is in the room with you, maybe lying on your chest, making it difficult to breathe.
This crazy phenomenon is called paralysis in sleep, and according to statistics , 8% of individuals suffer from it at least once in life.
This is a state of transition between waking and sleep, characterized by the inability of the subject to move, talk, or react to any kind of stimulus, while being fully aware of the surrounding environment.
Sleep paralysis usually occurs as an individual tries to fall asleep or during awakening. It can be a really scary phenomenon if you are not aware of its existence, and it is characterized by :
Difficulty breathing deeply, as if the chest was compressed by a weight
Inability to move, except for eyes
Terrifying allucinations, to which the person is unable to react due to paralysis
Deep panic sensation
The length of an episode of paralysis in sleep may vary from a few seconds to about 2 minutes; At the end of the subject completely recovered the ability to move, but may be so frightened and restless that he does not have the courage to go back to sleep.
Vivid allucinations, such as hearing "demonic" voices or glimpsing supernatural creatures, have been documented during the phenomenon; Some scientists have suggested that sleep paralysis is a plausible explanation for sighting ghosts or aliens .
The nightmare of Henry Fuseli (1781) is considered one of the classic episodes of sleep paralysis conceived as a demon's visit
Causes of paralysis in sleep
Palsy occurs when a part of the REM phase is at work while we are lucid and conscious.
The REM phase is a phase of sleep during which the brain is extremely active and dreams are more frequent. The body during the REM phase is tendentially motionless, probably to prevent the individual from hurting by reacting to the dreams he is doing.
It is not clear how the REM phase can be activated while a person is awake, but there are some possible explanations:
Do not sleep enough (maybe because of insomnia)
Irregularities in periods when you are sleeping (for example due to jet lag)
Narcolepsy (a disease that causes the person to suddenly fall asleep at inappropriate times, for example driving a car)
A family history of paralysis in sleep
Sleeping at least 6 hours per night and regularly prevents the disturbance from recurrence, however, if paralysis is frequent and chronic it is advisable to consult a doctor and schedule a therapy.
In history
Over the centuries , the symptoms of paralysis in sleep have been described in various ways and often attributed to diabolical presences: night demons in ancient times, and most recently alien captors.
Virtually any culture speaks of strange dark creatures that terrorize helpless human beings during sleep at night.
Night paralysis was considered to be a demon work, in particular nightmares, believed to sit on the chest of the victims causing him difficulty breathing.
The first definition of sleep paralysis, even, was written by Samuel Johnson in his "Dictionary of the English Language", and was an eloquent word today: "nightmare", or "incubo" in Italian.
Yea it happens to me a times but after reading about the history of it. I learnt to control it without that feelings that someone is on top of me . It happens when your mind is awake while your body is not, so what you do just be calm until the whole body is awake and also mind how you position yourself to sleep because it can cause it most time.
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