Have You Ever Woken Up
And Weren’t Able To
Move? This Is Why!
Find out how this creepy and horrifying
experience could be prevented.
By Zoella BruschenZoella Bruschen
It can be startling when we wake up from a
deep sleep and can’t move. Have you
experienced this? Where you can’t open
your eyelids, move your arms and legs or
fingers and toes?
If this has happened to you, you’ve also
realized it’s much harder to breathe, as if
someone is sitting on your chest and you
can’t push them off.
This can last for minutes, but it seems like
hours.
If you haven’t experienced this, we’re not
describing a scene from a horror movie or
book. This is an actual phenomenon that
has been unexplained, until now.
These symptoms are stemmed from an
unusual sleep phenomenon called sleep
paralysis. Though social and psychological
factors can influence this, the study of more
than 36,000 participants back in 2011 state
that it could be much more than that.
BuzzFeed
According to Business Insider:
7.6% of the general population
experience sleep paralysis, which rose to
28.3% in high-risk groups like students
with disrupted sleep patterns. It was
even higher for those with mental illness
at 31.9%.
Daniel Denis, a PhD candidate in cognitive
neuroscience and researcher at the Sleep
Paralysis Project, explained this type of
situation:
When you’re experiencing sleep paralysis,
you become conscious. The idea is that your
mind wakes up but your body doesn’t.
So, if the brain is awake, why can’t your
body function?
Today.com
This is because of your 3-4 stages of non-
REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and one
particular REM state.
It’s possible to dream during all of the
stages, but dreams experienced in REM
sleep are the most vivid and realistic
because your brain is the most active then.
The brain is so active during REM sleep that
your body becomes paralyzed (REM atonia).
Researchers still don’t know the reason for
this, but they speculate that it’s so you
don’t act out the dream.
Most of the time, people who suddenly
wake up can move around freely. It’s when
you’re in REM sleep and suddenly awaken
that you’re still in a state of REM atonia.
This can last anywhere from seconds to
minutes.
In rare cases, you could be paralyzes for
10-15 minutes before having the ability to
move.
Most people describe a feeling as if they are
in the clutches of a presence during their
sleep paralysis. Researchers aren’t sure
about why so many people feel this way,
but they have a few ideas.
MensXP.com
One idea is that the mind attempts to
create the movement it can’t actually do.
Another is because the amygdala, the part
of the brain controlling fear, becomes
overactive. Here is how Denis describes it:
You wake up with your amygdala screaming.
‘There’s a threat!’ So your brain has to
invent something to fix the paradox of the
amygdala being active for no reason.
Types of Sleep Paralysis
As noted from a study performed in a 1999,
there are three types of hallucinations that
occur during sleep paralysis:
Incubus, Intruder, and Unusual Bodily
Experience
jerseydemic.com
Incubus
This is when people feel pressure on their
chest and cannot breathe. However, this is
all mental. They’re so afraid that it is
affecting their ability to breathe. Also, the
body is still in REM breathing mode, which
is slow and shallow.
jerseydemic.com
Intruder
This is an experience where people feel a
presence, including visual and/or auditory
hallucinations. The writers with Business
Insider describe it this way:
…”Hypervigilant state of the midbrain”,
which can make people highly aware of
then the smallest stimuli and “biased
toward cues for threat or danger”. That’s
why a small sound can seem horrifying to
someone experiencing sleep paralysis.
jerseydemic.com
Unusual Bodily Experiences
These are the people that have an out-of
body experience, like they are levitating or
flying around the room. It’s so much
different than the other ones because
different areas of the brain are active when
they wake up.
Is there a way to prevent sleep paralysis?
After talking about all of these scary
experiences, I bet you’re wondering if this
can be prevented in any way. As a matter
of fact, there is.
Though these aren’t for sure ways of
preventing it, they will considerably
decrease the chances of it happening to
you.
1. Don’t sleep on your back. Researchers
say that side sleeping is the most effective
to prevent sleep paralysis.
2. If you wake up and find you cannot
move, concentrate on moving only one digit,
whether it’s a finger or a tow. Once you can
get a muscle to move, the paralysis is
broken and you’ll be free to move around.

https://dailyplug.com/have-you-ever-woken-up-and-werent-able-to-move-this-is-why/

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