What is sleep paralysis?
Sleep paralysis is relatively common, but under-research phenomenon. It is a transient period of awakening from sleep during which the subject is unable to move or speak. Many subjects describe a sensation of weight over the chest, terror, and anxiety and feel compelled to try to move, get up, or shout. It usually happens either sleep onset or upon awakening.
It is normal for muscles to be paralysed at certain times when subject is asleep. Sleep paralysis occurs when the mechanism that cases muscles to relax during sleep temporarily persists after subject is woken up. It can take from couple of seconds to a couple of minutes.
Onset is usually n teens and episodes are rare after the mid-20s. Fewer than 5% of collage-age students experience sleep paralysis more than once per month. The episodes appear to be triggered at times by tiredness, stress, or sleep deprivation.
Symptoms
For an episode to be considered sleep paralysis only symptoms 1-3 may be present. Symptoms 4-9 may or not may be present.
1. Being ‘Awake’
Those affected report feeling consciously awake during sleep
paralysis experiences. It is experienced as part of waking consciousness, not
as a dream.
2. Realistic Perception of Environment
The immediate environment surrounding the bed is clearly
perceived. Distinctive elements in the
room are observed (e.g. a sleeping partner or a clock).
3. Inability to move
The sense of paralysis is one of the first elements of the
experience noticed by the individual. Sometimes this paralysis is attributed to
an outside force.
4. Overwhelming fear and dread
A sense of overwhelming fear can accompany the experience.
This can be felt so strongly that those who experience it may later struggle to
articulate its intensity. Sometimes feelings progress from a sense of
foreboding to complete terror and may include feelings linked to death or
dying.
5. Sensed presence
Individuals may sense an ‘evil’ or malevolent ‘presence’ in
the room with them. This presence may be seen or merely ‘felt’.
6. Chest pressure
The sense of a physical weight being pressed down onto the
chest. This can be purely sensual or can seem to be the result of an external
presence or force literally pushing down on the chest.
7. Difficulty breathing
This can occur alongside pressure to the chest.
8. Supine position
Most sleep paralysis attacks occur whilst the individual is
lying on their back, although studies have shown that generally people tend not
to fall asleep in this position.
9. Additional Unusual Sensations
As well as visual hallucinations, sleep paralysis episodes
may be accompanied by hallucinations of an auditory, olfactory and/or physical
nature. Commonly reported hallucinations include doors opening, animals
growling, approaching footsteps, scratching, internal buzzing/beeping,
malevolent whispering as well as smells of rotting flesh, ‘death’, decay, damp,
mould and feelings of being moved, drifting, rolling, floating, cold or heat.
Out-of-body experiences are also sometimes reported.
Sleep paralysis in history
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| The Nightmare, by Henry Fuseli (1781) |
In its original meaning sleep paralysis was usually described as a nightmare, which was the nocturnal visit of an evil being that threatened to press the life out of its victim.
English lexicographer Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) in his 1755 Dictionary described was is a nightmare:
NI’GHTMARE. n. f. [night, and according to Temple, mara, a spirit that, in the heathen mythology, was related to torment or suffocate sleepers.] A morbid oppression in the night, resembling the pressure of weight upon the breast. Saint Withold footed thrice the would, He met the nightmare, and her name he told; Bid her alight, and her troth plight. Shakes. K. Lear. The forerunners of an apoplexy are, dullness, drowsiness, vertigoes, tremblings, oppressions in sleep, and night-mares. Arbuthnot on Aliments. (Johnson, 1755, p. 1363)
An isolated sleep paralysis, linked with the belief that deceased spirits are involved in “pressure on the body, hallucinations, breathing difficulty, and anxiety” is referred to as kanashibari experience. The Japanese term kanashibari means “to immobilize as if bound with metal chains”.
In the mid-twelfth century, 76th Japanese Emperor Konoe Tonnô (1139–1155) experienced
this phenomenon: “Every night the emperor was oppressed by a mysterious agony
which the holiest monks, working all their healing rites, seemed unable to relieve”.
It used to be described as a attacks by demons, witches and now it very common that people interpret it as they have been abducted by aliens.
The sleep paralysis project
In 2013 there was created a short experimental documentary about sleep paralysis. It explains what it is and shows how people can experience it.
Bibliography:
Reite, M., Ruddy, J. and Nagel, K. (2002) Concise guide to evaluation and management of sleep disorders. 3rd edn. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press
MacKinnon, C., French, C., Broks, P., Mullighan, J. and Denis, D. (2013)The Sleep Paralysis Project. Available at: http://www.thesleepparalysisproject.org/
NHS Choices. (2015) Sleep paralysis - NHS Choices. Available at: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Sleep-paralysis/Pages/Introduction.aspx
Olry, R, & Haines, D 2014, 'Kanashibari (金縛り): A Ghost’s Business', Journal Of The History Of The Neurosciences, 23, 2, pp. 192-197
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