Why Sleep Paralysis Is so Scary and What to Do About It
I don’t mind bad dreams. When you wake up, sleep disappears. But what scares me terribly is when my brain wakes up and my body can’t move. This is sleep paralysis and affects seven to 40 percent of us.
Sleep paralysis is scary only when you notice it
Since you can move and walk in dreams, your brain cuts off communication with your muscles during REM sleep or dreaming, sleep, so you do not actually move or walk when you should go to bed. In this sense, paralysis during sleep is completely normal.
Fearful sleep paralysis occurs when you are awake enough to be aware of your surroundings, but your body is still paralyzed. This can happen when you fall asleep or wake up. While sleep paralysis is terrible and can happen at night, it has nothing to do with nighttime horrors . In a sense, they are opposite: in the night terror, you sleep, but you move. With sleep paralysis, you are awake but unable to move.
Hallucinations increase fear
As if paralysis isn’t everything, many people experience hallucinations during an episode of sleep paralysis. Sometimes a hallucination is a specific image that you can see; in other cases, it is a vague feeling that someone or something is in the room with you. The Consciousness and Cognition magazine report identifies three common types of hallucinations:
- The intruder who is in the room with you
- A crushing sensation in the chest or back.
- Feeling of flying or levitation.
My most vivid memory of sleep paralysis is in the third category. I finally fell asleep after a sleepless night the night before, and in my dream I was at a party in someone else’s house. I learned to fly by hovering a few feet above the ground. It was fun until I realized I was flying faster and faster. I woke up – sort of – but I still felt like I was flying and couldn’t stop. According to the same report in Consciousness and Cognition , some people who experience floating sleep paralysis find it enjoyable, but I could not shake the feeling of pure terror. After seconds or minutes – I don’t know, but it felt like an eternity – I was finally able to move and wake up completely.
People who experience hidden or crushing hallucinations describe them as demons, dark clouds, robbers, and other unwanted creatures. A Dutch woman in the 1600s described visitors as a devil, a dog, and a thief. In a 2013 study in culture, medicine and psychiatry , some Danish participants described being visited by a ghost; their counterparts in Egypt described the hallucination as a genie , a spirit from Islamic mythology. In a group of Cambodian refugees who survived the Pol Pot dictatorship, the perpetrators were sometimes attackers or relatives whom they recognized from their past .
In a study of participants from Denmark and Egypt, people in both countries who considered themselves religious were more likely to interpret hallucinations as supernatural. Unsurprisingly, those who thought they had something supernatural were more likely to report fear as part of the experience.
Your Best Weapon Against Sleep Paralysis is Understanding and Relaxation
Understanding sleep paralysis as a brain failure rather than a demon or ghost seems to help alleviate fear. As scary as the attacker may seem at the moment, in fact, no one in your bedroom is threatening you.
Scientists are still debating why sleep paralysis occurs, but we know several things make it more likely. For example, episodes are more frequent if your sleep is disturbed – like mine after the night. People are also more likely to have sleep paralysis if they also have PTSD, panic attacks, anxiety, or depression . Frequent sleep paralysis is also one of the symptoms of narcolepsy . The condition seems to be spread in families and is more common in college students than in the general population, possibly due to stress or lack of sleep. While you cannot change your genetics or biology, you can lower your chances of having an episode of paralysis by not sleeping on your back and by following a healthy sleep pattern.
When it comes to stopping sleep paralysis in the moment, behavioral sleep medicine research provides several suggestions. The authors surveyed people with sleep paralysis and asked how they tried to stop it and if they felt successful. Be suspicious of methods because episodes always end up eventually, so we don’t know if they were to blame or not. The most successful tactic seemed to be:
- Attempting to move an arm or leg
- Attempting to move another part of the body, such as the mouth
- Trying to relax with positive thoughts, prayers, or breathing exercises.
The authors of this study suggest that the fear and panic in sleep paralysis can peak, as in a panic attack, when “trying to interrupt the episode becomes largely useless.” If so, they write, it can help if you keep an eye on your episodes of sleep paralysis so you can learn to recognize when they start. This may allow you to use your moves, such as moving your arm or leg, earlier in the episode, when they are more likely to work.
Baland Jalal , who has led research on the experiences of Danish and Egyptian sleepers, prefers a four-step meditation technique to get rid of fear and hopefully stop paralysis:
- Remind yourself that a hallucination is just a dream.
- Move away from fear by telling yourself that the experience is “ordinary, auspicious, and temporary,” and therefore there is no reason to be afraid.
- Focus on something other than hallucinations , such as a happy memory.
- Try to relax your muscles , not move.
This method may work, but again, it has not been tested on a large group of patients. Since meditation is good for you anyway , it doesn’t seem like it can hurt.