Imagine waking up in the middle of the night…completely unable to move. It’s terrifying, but a very real phenomenon. It’s been stated that nearly 8% of the general population experiences sleep paralysis.
“Your mind wakes up, but your body doesn’t,” explains a researcher at the Sleep Paralysis Project. Most often occurring during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, or the period of sleep when dreams are typically the most vivid and realistic, sleep paralysis can last a few seconds to as much as 15 minutes.
Let’s think about that for a minute–you wake up and are completely conscious, yet none of your limbs (besides eyelids, usually) will move. At all. For any extended period of time, suffering bouts of sleep paralysis like this is a truly terrifying experience.
What’s perhaps even more frightening is that sleep paralysis is typically accompanied by a variety of other terror-inducing sensations. The first is an extremely heavy pressure on the chest, making you feel like you can’t breathe. After that, hallucinations can begin to form, either visually, audibly, or some combination of both. The third sensation, though far less common, are categories of “out of body” experiences; i.e., feeling like you are flying, floating, or otherwise moving unnaturally around the room.
And though it may be of little consolation during the sleep paralysis itself, all three of these experiences can be attributed to tricks of the brain, as described in this study. In a nutshell, your brain is confused why you can’t move and you become afraid. Your brain is overactive in the amygdala (the area responsible for fear) and creates the three aforementioned sensations. You get more scared and the vicious cycle continues.
Sleep paralysis can happen to anyone, but knowing some factors to look out for may help. Common triggers can include lack of sleep, sleep disturbances, jet lag, shift work, as well as stress, anxiety and various mental conditions.
If you do find yourself in a state of sleep paralysis though, try your best to focus all of your attention on moving just one muscle–one toe, one finger…as soon as you get just one, the paralysis will be broken.
Check out this video for even more info on this scary sleep phenomenon.
