6 facts you need to know about sleep paralysis

Ever woke up in the middle of the night with a feeling of dread slowly encapsulating you, but you’re totally terrified, unable to move and not able to speak/shout. Welcome to the land of sleep paralysis! If you’ve never experienced this phenomenon—consider yourself lucky, but beware as it can happen to anyone. Sleep paralysis is a medical condition where a person, on waking up from sleep, experiences temporary inability to move or speak. It is also commonly accompanied by a feeling that someone or something is in the room with you or sometimes you actually see or hear things (basically, hallucinating) as well as the physical sensation of experiencing pressure on your chest. Basically, it’s scary AF. Let’s talk about it some more. - Sleep paralysis shouldn’t be confused with night terrors. People who wake up to night terrors normally bolt up and sit upright in panic, often unaware of their surroundings and not knowing where they are!In sleep paralysis, however, the opposite happens. The body remains paralyzed while the brain awakens. You are alert and conscious, but are unable to move voluntary muscles. This is often accompanied by a sensation of chest pressure; this is the reason why many people also wake up from sleep paralysis gasping for breath. - It also, more often than not, is accompanied with a feeling of dread—as if you’re slowly dying. This is why when you finally wake up, you feel as if you woke up from the dead. Reiterating the same, this is what a fellow sufferer said when she shared her sleep paralysis story on this Reddit thread. "I woke up and couldn't move. I had never heard of sleep paralysis, so it was pretty scary. It wasn't quite as terrifying as I've seen some descriptions of, but I guess results vary. It went through my head that I might be dying and I just kind of told myself ‘oh well, fuck it, doesn't look like I can do anything about it’ so I went back to sleep. Not sure if it means I have no will to live, or if I'm some sort of zen badass. It was an interesting experience to say the least, wouldn't recommend." - Sleep paralysis can often occur in one of the two transitions—when you’re falling asleep or waking up (the reasons for which are still pretty much unknown). The body MUST go into REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, and must come out of it. Sleep paralysis happens when your body has trouble making this transition. If it happens when you’re falling a sleep—it’s called ‘hypnagogic’ sleep paralysis. Whereas if it happens while waking up, it’s called as ‘hypnopompic’ sleep paralysis. - No matter how much you try, even if you consciously know that you’re undergoing a sleep paralysis—you can’t wake your body up. A very miniscule amount of people can slightly move their fingers, wiggle their toes or facial muscles, which eventually helps them wake up the rest of their body. But, as I said, majority of people have to wait this out. The episode can last from somewhere between 20 seconds to a few minutes. - It also often includes hallucinations and reported nightmares. Because unlike the visuals in your dreams which occur when you’re deep in sleep and your eyes are closed, these hallucinations occur when your mind is alert and eyes are open. This makes it double scary because we have been conditioned to believe that seeing is believing! The added anxiety of not being able to move your body or scream for help also makes people super afraid of their surroundings.