Have you ever been on the verge of reality and sleep, like waking up, but without the ability to move? If so, then you are one of the “lucky ones” to have experienced sleep paralysis, one of the most annoying sleep disorders. You may be familiar with other side effects.
Sleep paralysis is called so not for the sake of a catchphrase - during its onset, a person remains conscious, but is unable to move. The fact is that the body at this time is in a phase of REM sleep and blocks any actions of the body. This can last from a few seconds to a couple of minutes.
Feeling like a dead person is one of the most common nightmares during sleep paralysis. People feel like a mind locked in an absolutely dead body, and the overwhelming panic of consciousness does not help to finally awaken.
According to recent studies, there are two main types of sleep paralysis - isolated sleep paralysis and recurrent isolated sleep paralysis. The first one "visits" people literally a couple of times in a lifetime, the second one is much more regular and appears sometimes once a month.
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Recurrent isolated sleep paralysis not only plagues people on an ongoing basis, but is much more intense. The sensations from it can last over ten minutes, accompanied by the effect of "leaving the body".
Mysterious entities that appear in sleep paralysis are extremely popular. The hallucination can be so pronounced that it affects all the senses, not just sight or hearing.
The first recorded case of sleep paralysis is described in Persian medical texts around the 10th century AD. The first officially observed seizure was seen by a Dutch physician in 1664, who convinced the patient that she was just having a nightmare.
Hallucinations during sleep paralysis often try to harm the person observing them, primarily due to suffocation. On this basis, skeptics believe that many mystical and religious phenomena were in fact partial manifestations of sleep paralysis.
The series of paintings "Nightmare" by the artist Heinrich Füssli is considered to be inspired by sleep paralysis. The demon sitting on the chest of a sleeping woman is one of its most characteristic manifestations.
The US National Library of Medicine conducted a specialized study of sleep paralysis in 2005. It turned out that many cases were related to him, when people considered themselves victims of alien abduction and "woke up in a strange room."
In addition to the frightening hallucinations and the choking effect, during sleep paralysis, unusual sexual arousal is often manifested. Scientists in the middle of the last century believed that a suppressed libido leads to paralysis, but then this theory was abandoned.
Sleep paralysis occurs due to a violation of the so-called "REM sleep paralysis" - this is a natural function of the body that does not allow us to make sudden movements in a dream, walk, fall out of bed. People who do not have REM sleep paralysis suffer from somnambulism. But people in whom it manifests itself even in a waking state suffer from sleep paralysis.
Patients with narcolepsy suffer the most from sleep paralysis, but it periodically occurs in completely healthy people. From him grows a lot of folk legends about brownies and demons that sit on their chests and do not allow breathing. Here are some facts about this frightening condition.
Sergey Evtushenko