[b]You wake up, but you can’t move a muscle. Lying in bed, you’re totally conscious, and you realize that strange things are happening. There’s a crushing weight on your chest that’s humanoid. And it’s evil.


You’ve awakened into the dream world.

This is not the conceit for a new horror movie starring a ragged middle-aged Freddie Prinze Jr., it’s a standard description of the experience of a real medical condition: sleep paralysis. It’s a strange phenomenon that seems to happen to about half the population at least once.

People who experience it find themselves awake in the dream world for anywhere from a few seconds to 10 minutes, often experiencing hallucinations with dark undertones. Cultures from everywhere from Newfoundland to the Caribbean to Japan have come up with spiritual explanations for the phenomenon. Now, a new article in The Psychologist suggests sleep researchers are finally figuring out the neurological basis of the condition.

“This research strongly suggests that sleep paralysis is related to REM sleep, and in particular REM sleep that occurs at sleep onset,” write researchers Julia Santomauro and Christopher C. French of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit, Goldsmiths, at the University of London. “Shift work, jet lag, irregular sleep habits, overtiredness and sleep deprivation are all considered to be predisposing factors to sleep paralysis; this may be because such events disrupt the sleep–wake cycle, which can then cause [sleep-onset REM periods].”

In other words, you experience just a piece of REM sleep.


As David McCarty, a sleep researcher at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center’s Sleep Medicine Program, explained it, humans tend to think about the elements of the different stages of sleep as packaged nicely together. So, in REM sleep, you’re unconscious, experiencing a variety of sensory experiences, and almost all of your muscles are paralyzed (that’s called atonia).

“But in reality you can disassociate those elements,” McCarty said.

In sleep paralysis, two of the key REM sleep components are present, but you’re not unconscious.

Narcolepsy, which can be linked with sleep paralysis, has a similar pathology. For narcoleptics, some of the elements of rapid eye movement can “come out of nowhere,” he McCarty said.

Sleep paralysis was first identified within the scientific community by psychologist Weir Mitchell in 1876. He laid down this syntactically old-school, but accurate description of how it works. “The subject awakes to consciousness of his environment but is incapable of moving a muscle; lying to all appearance still asleep. He is really engaged in a struggle for movement fraught with acute mental distress; could he but manage to stir, the spell would vanish instantly.”

But the condition lived in folklore long before anyone tried to subject it to even semi-rigorous study. The various responses have fascinated some researchers and they were cataloged in the 2007 book, Tall Tales About the Mind and Brain. In Japan, the problem was termed kanashibar. In Newfoundland, people called it “the old hag.” In China, “ghost oppression” was the preferred nomenclature.

A study released earlier this year found that more than 90 percent of Mexican adolescents know the phrase “a dead body climbed on top of me” to describe the disorder. More than 25 percent of them had experienced it themselves.

Having an element of REM sleep mix with your consciousness is scarier than it sounds. I experienced sleep paralysis on several occasions when I was in college. I can testify: It’s run-to-your-mama scary.

In my case, it would happen right as I was falling asleep on the two twin beds that I had taped together. The most vivid time, I “woke up” with the uneasy feeling that something awful was to my left, on the border of my peripheral vision. I couldn’t really see it, but I knew that it was evil and coming closer to me. I felt true terror, like you experience when you are about to get in a car crash. I was sure it was going to hurt me.

After a few minutes, I could finally move and took the opportunity to run across campus to a friend’s house and asked to sleep on the couch. With the lights on. It happened a few more times.

Then, it just stopped. It hasn’t ever happened again.

The good news, McCarty said, is that my experience is actually pretty standard. Sleep paralysis rarely persists or causes serious life damage.

“It’s very common, way more common than people realize, but usually it doesn’t recur,” he said. “It’s not frequent enough to make people come in and ask the doctor for help.”[/b]

[b]Deep Soul , thanks for your response. Many ignorant souls have injured themselves massively over the years just because of Sleep Paralysis They have termed it to be Old Hag phenomenon, witch attacks, ghost visit,etc.  During the REM time which happens every 10 minutes in your midnight sleep, if you act out your dreams or sleep during this time, there is a great tendency that your eyes will open while the remaining part of your body has not responded , it usually takes like several seconds to 5 minutes before the brain senses that his master has waken up!

   When this happens, you can twitch your toes slightly in order to send message to your brain that you are awake, and the brain in turn will signal all the body neurons to wake up! If twitching doesn't work, try roving your eyes, roll it up( but not to the state of stressing it),then move it down, move it up again severally , then the brain will definitely sense you are up! People do hurt themselves whenever they think it is a Ghost visitation or maybe a witch Grandma is visiting you. As a matter of fact, you will feel whatever you think during that time, if you feel like you are singing a song, your brain,supposedly in dream/sleep mode will sense it and you will be filled with songs, if you feel you have angel visit, then you will have angel roaming over you, if you have a bad feeling about it-fear, then there is 100% possibility that you will be hallucinating witch,ghost,alien,etc. Why not occupy your mind with your daily routine: Shopping,office works,going out with loved ones! You will find out that it feels good.


    You can stop this SP(Sleeping Paralysis) by sleeping on your stomach, not on your back! Let your brain relax, take a cold bath before sleeping to cool down all your body cells. Do not eat heavily before going to sleep,  stop sleep disorderliness by having a long night rest everyday! Stop thinking about those fictional stunt! Think about natural things, then your mind won't transmit fear into something unbearable! Do not drink to stupor. If you continue doing this, then you will save yourself from SP.



   Do we say devils,angels, does not exist? Yes, I guess so! Please don't let us harm ourselves with all these imaginations.[/b]

why is it in some countries children are taught the whole process or REM sleep and the cemicals the brain secretes to cause this "sleep paralisis" which happens in most people (sleep walking is caused when the brain doesnt secrete this.) while other countries grown adults think it is caused by demonds?

@poster
i think there is a spiritual and physical dimension to this phenomenon. it is erroneous o conclude that it is only physical. how do you explain the case of one being frequently harrassed t almost a choking point or someone wakes up with fresh wound marks and scars. that is one major area of satanic and witchcraft attack. how comes they dont allow their victims to mention the name of JESUS

I had an episode of this sleep paralysis a few months ago and
it was the most disturbing experience ever!
I was lying down ready to sleep then all of a sudden I couldn't
move, open my eyes or say a word and I felt something pull me back
and then I felt this cold strong vibration on my back as if
something was sucking something out of me.
It was horrendous. I am terrified of sleeping since.
I just kept calling Jesus in my mind and I snapped out of it.