Imagine the terror: You wake up, but you can’t move. There seems to be something (or someone) sitting on your chest. You try to open your mouth to make a noise, but nothing comes out—mostly because your mouth hasn’t moved a muscle.
Such is the waking nightmare of awareness during Sleep Paralysis (SP). Typically, when you slip into REM sleep, your brain uses a bunch of neurotransmitters to keep your body from moving, so you don’t act out your dreams. When there’s a glitch in that neuro-matrix, though, your brain wakes up but your body doesn’t switch back on—and you can’t move a muscle.
That would be scary enough, but on a cognitive level, the effects of sleep paralysis go deeper. The amygdala, which is the part of your brain that controls fear, goes into fight-or-flight mode, and because you’re still kind of asleep, you might experience dream-like hallucinations (and they tend to be scary ones, like black shadowy figures lurking at the end of the bed). Although the experience is usually over in just a few seconds or a few minutes, the fright can feel like an eternity.
A Dark History of Sleep Paralysis
Accounts of sleep paralysis go all the way back to the 17th century, when Dutch physician Isbrand Van Diembroeck recounted an experience. There’s even a famous 1782 painting, Henry Fuseli’s “The Nightmare,” which features an ogre sitting on a woman’s chest that is said to depict the condition. Likely, though, humans endured sleep paralysis for centuries before that without any real awareness of what was going on. Experts say that about 40 percent of people have experienced sleep paralysis at least once, but some suffer from regular occurrences. Sleep paralysis isn’t dangerous—but it is extremely distressing.
Who’s at Risk?
There might be a genetic component, but researchers aren’t entirely sure about that. If your parents deal with SP, though, there’s a chance you’re going to, as well. Experts do know, however, that if you’ve been skimping on sleep or feeling ultra-stressed, you’re at a higher risk of sleep paralysis. The condition could also link to narcolepsy, a sleep disorder that affects your brain’s sleep-wake cycle.
Banishing the Nightmare
There’s little to be done, medically speaking, to stop sleep paralysis from happening. So it’s up to the person experiencing the nightmare to make small habit changes that can decrease the likelihood at night. This might mean taking more time to relax before bed, minimizing sleep interruptions, and above all, remember that it’s fear ruling your mind during a bout of sleep paralysis—the more you understand what’s going on, the less scary the experience is in the end.
