Sleep paralysis is a transient inability to perform any kind of voluntary movement that takes place during the transition period between the sleep state and the waking state. It can occur at the time of beginning to sleep or when waking up and is usually accompanied by a feeling of great anguish. Its duration is usually short, usually between one and three minutes, after which the paralysis spontaneously subsides. During the episode, the person is fully conscious, with auditory and tactile ability, but is unable to move or speak, which can cause great anxiety. However, there is no danger to life, because the respiratory muscles continue to function automatically.
SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION
Experts believe that occurs when the person is under a lot of pressure or stress, and at the time of sleep the body is still alert about the threat (stress) which hinders the possibility of recovering the body. Some neural circuits remain overexcited and produce some nightmares that the person may feel are real, wake up abruptly to defend themselves, but the organism does not respond quickly. This lack of response is due to the fact that the organism is in a moment of deep relaxation.
CLINICAL FACTORS
If the sleep paralysis occurs in the numbness phase, it is called a predormicional or hypnagogic form, and if it takes place upon awakening, it is the posdormicional or hypnopompic form.2 3 Most of the affected persons present only isolated episodes throughout of his life, however the disorder can take place repeatedly and be associated with other symptoms, such as sleep crisis throughout the day and sudden loss of muscle tone (cataplexy). In this case, sleep paralysis is considered one of the symptoms of the disease called narcolepsy.
PARANORMAL ATTACKS?
You wake up in the middle of the night and find that you can not move or scream for help. You are barely able to breathe, you even feel a weight in your chest. You feel a presence next to the bed, you feel it is negative, but most importantly, you feel powerless to be able to react. Regardless of the medical explanation, or the paranormal theory for this surprisingly common phenomenon that affects thousands of people, it can not be denied that it is a terrifying experience for those who suffer it.
Some of the victims of this horrible condition are able to convince themselves that the experience was nothing more than a dream or even a terrifying nightmare. Other people remain convinced that they have been attacked by a supernatural entity. The latter claim that their aggressor is actually an external phenomenon and not a state produced by their subconscious. However, as always experts on dreams and psychologists dismiss this as a paranormal phenomenon, explaining that thoughts, images and sensations released from a person's subconscious are ultimately alien to the individual. But reality is much more complex, since the dream state is a phenomenon that currently has many unanswered questions. Throughout the world, and over time, the physiological aspects of sleep paralysis have been and remain the same, regardless of the race, religion or culture of the victim. They are the almost uncountable interpretations of these symptoms, which make sleep paralysis one of the most feared paranormal phenomena.
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