Sleep Paralysis

[Muxel]

I've had sleep paralysis ever since I was a kid. My very first time I could not breathe, and "broke out" of the paralysis gasping for air and heart pounding away in my chest. I told my mom and she said it was because I was a "naughty boy". Sometimes a whole day would go by before my conscious mind remembered that I had sleep paralysis that morning (I think this is because my subconscious was still dominant at the moment of attack). Sometimes I get what I can only describe as cluster sleep paralysis—where it hits me over and over while I "shrug" it off repeatedly in hopes of finally falling asleep in peace. If I'm lucky, I get a "mild" attack, where my breathing is relaxed. A usual bout of sleep paralysis includes: slow suffocation, unbearable discomfort in paralyzed body position that drives my brain wild with frenzy, huge amounts of "energy" put into convulsing the neck area which "jumpstarts" my body out of sleep paralysis (the big toe is somehow immune to sleep paralysis but wiggling it achieves nothing).

Doing a forum search, it is disappointing to find that no one has directly addressed this subject, rather it is mentioned in passing or referenced in some other context. I note that the only forum member who has constantly brought up sleep paralysis, is davey72. Are davey72 and I the only ones here suffering from sleep paralysis? Do the majority of people experience it, say, once or twice in their entire lives, go "Gee that was bad" and then forget about it?

It's as if there's an information blackout on sleep paralysis. Nobody seems to talk about it, nobody has an answer, nobody is willing to "go there". The first time I had sleep paralysis, I already knew that my mom would not comprehend if I told her. I knew that telling the doctor would be silly. To be faced with despairing knowledge like that at such a young age! Why isn't sleep paralysis brought out into the open? Is it because sleep paralysis is part of the unspoken hyperdimensional reality? Like the people in Ancient Britain who considered the faery folk (Greys) a taboo. Deep down, they know the Darkness instinctively, so they shut their eyes, shut their windows, and hope that someone else becomes the "sacrifice" for that night. Is that what sleep paralysis is? "Electronic wave diversion"?

If anybody has any answers...

 

[Z...]

It's as if there's an information blackout on sleep paralysis. Nobody seems to talk about it, nobody has an answer, nobody is willing to "go there". The first time I had sleep paralysis, I already knew that my mom would not comprehend if I told her. I knew that telling the doctor would be silly. To be faced with despairing knowledge like that at such a young age! Why isn't sleep paralysis brought out into the open? Is it because sleep paralysis is part of the unspoken hyperdimensional reality? Like the people in Ancient Britain who considered the faery folk (Greys) a taboo. Deep down, they know the Darkness instinctively, so they shut their eyes, shut their windows, and hope that someone else becomes the "sacrifice" for that night. Is that what sleep paralysis is? "Electronic wave diversion"?

If anybody has any answers...

Well I wouldnt say this is exactly true. Sleep paralysis is recognized medical phenomenon and common beleif is that it occurs when the person becomes conscious during the REM phase of sleep. Wheteher the phenomenon is biological or of methaphyisical nature it is hard to say. Most doctors advise improving sleep hygiene as the cure.
This is what I wrote on the forum while ago
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,19010.msg183127.html#msg183127
Since then things have changed significantly. That is, I havent experienced sleep paralysis for more then 2 years now. This coincides with dietary changes and EE practices I have adopted during this time.
So perhaps you should examine your dietary habbits as well as focus on stimulation of vagal nerve. Hope this helps.

 

[RedFox]

I agree with Herr Eisenheim on this. Although there may be a high strangeness element to sleep paralysis, being in an altered state of consciousness means there are little (if any) objective reference points to say what is real and what is not.

It's as if there's an information blackout on sleep paralysis. Nobody seems to talk about it, nobody has an answer, nobody is willing to "go there".

It may be worth asking yourself why you assume this to be true? Its a pretty big assumption.

Most doctors advise improving sleep hygiene as the cure.

See Are You Getting Enough Sleep? Sleeping properly?

That is, I havent experienced sleep paralysis for more then 2 years now. This coincides with dietary changes and EE practices I have adopted during this time.

I experienced sleep paralysis for years. From about the age of 12 to 18 quite regularly (every few days). It also went hand in hand with my high strangeness experiences, in that both would show in relation to each other. Knightmares of 'being chased'/'end of the world' would also show up with these.

EE and dietary changes have seen all these things disappear from my life. To be more specific I'd say dietary changes is probably the most important trigger here.
I posted about it a year or so ago, that I ate something that probably had gluten (or spices, or both) in...felt awful and proceeded to have a terrible nights sleep (filled with knightmares, high strangeness and the beginning of sleep paralysis - it has a certain feel to it that I recognise....a little like knowing your about to get leg cramps a few seconds before you do). Having been free of these for a few years, it made it very clear what role diet plays in these things.

So are you 100% gluten/dairy free? Is your diet free from things that produce inflammation?
What things are you eating?

 

[realitybugll]

Muxel,

Well, i do not think Sleep Paralysis is THAT recognized. And there is many a reason why no one wants to pay that much attention to it. Not that some don't study it of course. The first time I had it (9 years) I got completely paralyzed sitting up in the backseat of a car. My mom is a nurse (medical professional) and expressed worry and then disbelief. because paralysis is such a serious issue, it generates worry, but then my mom couldn't really buy it because of the severity I guess. but then I explained it is a common phenomenon, online it says this, but yes, someone that has never had it consciously cannot really relate or conceive of it without effort. That may be the reason it is not studied. It is a subjective phenomenon that cannot be measured or observed very easily.

I get the cluster paralysis LOL. I've read a little bit about other people that have it too. in general I think my sleep paralysis really started when my sleep habits became more erratic. Also, when I began to sleep less. This was in high school because of overload of work and dissociation activities. But now even when I sleep regularly I still get the phenomenon. about once a month or so.

My sleep Paralysis has changed overtime. Before it was very 'light'. now it is usually accompanied with a pulsing in my brain that can be uncomfortable and hurt when it is really pronounced.

Especially when i get the clusters of paralysis, after I break free of the first one, it is like I can feel a subtle 'wave' that courses through the atmosphere and my body. They wave then can induce the paralysis, in order to avoid it I will have to get up walk around, usually I am better.

There is nothing worse than getting repeatedly paralyzed when you are really tired and want to sleep! unfortunately usually I am really tired, so I all I can think about is to sleep and to get rid of it. usually I am even too tired to get up and way around. Interesting that tiredness is associated with the SP state. But it can be really interesting to explore. mostly I have not tried this. For me, Astral projection or Out of body experience, begins with a different kind of state than Sleep paralysis, and is induced in a different manner (when I used to do it, haven't for 2 years). I cannot consciously induce SP unless I am feeling the wave. But out of body experience, projection, wake-induced lucid dream, sleep paralysis, is a related phenomenon I think. I have mild hallucination sometimes, but nothing drastic like some people have while under SP. Only distortion of objects.

I'm curious. A lot of times the primary distortion is vision is that I 'see' a human figure or face out of the most mundane material. like the folds in a backpack, or a chair, becomes a face-person. And when I am in normal consciousness I can actually make out the face or human, in the lines of the object, that I would never have seen before. so my brain does the weird vision association...

Sleep paralysis is also associated with Lucid dreaming for me. About half the time, when I wake up from a lucid dream, it is in a paralytic state.

Sometime I would like to do a lot of investigation. I was at some point, but I do too many other things, to make time for it.

RedFox,

I wouldn't say that sleep paralysis is a sort of pathology. that is what you seem to indicate. but honestly I don't know. Scientists categorize different states of brain activity, so I think it is along these lines. it doesn't have an evolutionary purpose, like pain that I am aware of, which tells the organism to not move and rest, or to not eat, etcetera.

It's interesting that you group SP with high strangeness experience. surely SP is an odd, self-reflective experience. A state that your body goes into that is against your will--loss of control. Also it makes me think 'something is attacking me' of course I know this is such a weird idea, not worthy to consider, but I had this thought again, I distinctly believe in a semi-conscious state (I cannot call if full consciousness because I cannot fathom myself believing this) that I was under attack. something was trying to paralyze me. When I was resisting the wave, recently. So I think that is also interesting. Other people visualize entities, "hags" a lot of the time which is sitting on them, but even demons and reptilian beings. So this lets on there is maybe more to sleep paralysis than only a state of neural activity....

 

[ocean59]

Doing a forum search, it is disappointing to find that no one has directly addressed this subject, rather it is mentioned in passing or referenced in some other context.

Perhaps a different type of search may help here. Using Google, I found over 200 hits on this site alone containing the phrase "sleep paralysis." I used the query site:cassiopaea.org "sleep paralysis"

Searching for the same phrase without the site, there are 1.7 million direct hits for that exact phrase. So I think it is pretty widely know, at least that has always been my understanding...

For me, I experienced it as a small child VERY often, scared the bejeezus out of me each time. However, around age 5 or 6 this just stopped occurring, and I was never able to determine why.

For me, the paralysis was a sign that I was about to have a recurring dream, which I've not heard in anyone else'e experience. I would be 'awake' but unable to make a move or a sound, despite my being frightened. Within 5 (very long) minutes or so, I would fall asleep and have a dream of my dad getting ready for work at night. It was bizarre how normal and non-dream like it was, and it must have happened well over a dozen times. I also occasionally heard strange voices in strange (non-earth I can now say pretty safely) languages at night while falling asleep when I was that young (mostly 4 and 5 years old). That also stopped around the same time. Lots of other little things too, all pretty highly strange as well.

There has been a good deal of discussion about this on the forum, and a ton more elsewhere on the internet. Lots of great info and experiences to sift through out there on this topic, don't sell yourself short Muxel. :)

 

[davey72]

Also,i cannot remember which,but it is mentioned in one of the sessiins,and explained as when your brain has different fical point than the physical. Or something like that. Perhaps someone can post the said reference?

 

[SadEyes]

I have been having episodes of sleep paralysis for several years now. Now that I am writing about, I just remembered that I had one about 2 nights ago. They used to be quite frightening for me, and the first one I had, I do remember seeing a large, "hooded" figure at the foot of my bed with red eyes. I found a Youtube video a while back that talked about sleep paralysis and mentioned ways to break it. It mentioned having a strong will and fighting to move even a single limb with all of your might. Two nights ago when I had another episode, that is exactly what I did, and it broke after what seemed like a very weird, half out of body experience. I am quite sure that I was still very much asleep and awoke in the middle of a dream, only to find that my body had not realized it. About a year ago, I recall one night when I woke up and couldn't move, and had the feeling that I was being dragged up my wall. It was strange because I could see my room and I knew I was in my bed, but in my mind, I was sliding up the wall on my back feet first. Very weird stuff..

 

[Anthony]

I have been having episodes of sleep paralysis for several years now. Now that I am writing about, I just remembered that I had one about 2 nights ago. They used to be quite frightening for me, and the first one I had, I do remember seeing a large, "hooded" figure at the foot of my bed with red eyes. I found a Youtube video a while back that talked about sleep paralysis and mentioned ways to break it. It mentioned having a strong will and fighting to move even a single limb with all of your might. Two nights ago when I had another episode, that is exactly what I did, and it broke after what seemed like a very weird, half out of body experience. I am quite sure that I was still very much asleep and awoke in the middle of a dream, only to find that my body had not realized it. About a year ago, I recall one night when I woke up and couldn't move, and had the feeling that I was being dragged up my wall. It was strange because I could see my room and I knew I was in my bed, but in my mind, I was sliding up the wall on my back feet first. Very weird stuff..

I had the very same thing. Thankfully they have stopped now. But before, I had feelings like I was being moved
around, carried, my mouth being opened up and so on. The last time I had sleep paralysis I had a feeling somebody was
stretching and lifting my legs.

Also I had one instance when I was dreaming and my family was asking and rushing me to
hurry up and go someplace with them. But then I became aware that it was a dream and then
I saw myself being lifted through the walls of my house. Followed by sleep paralysis.
I'm not sure since it's hard to distinguish from dream and reality, but perhaps 4D STS can even
access our free will through dreams, that is it's the same as if we gave them free will and compliance in real life.

 

[Medulin]

Sleep paralysis is a recognized medical phenomenon (I'm a doctor, so I should know),
but the greatest and latest Sleep medicine textbook (Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine 5th Edition 2010
by Meir H. Kryger MD, Thomas Roth PhD, William C. Dement MD PhD) failed to dedicate to it a whole chapter,
although the book itself is fairly large (1800 pages).

Since I've bought the book, I feel compelled to copy and paste what the authors did write on sleep paralysis,
so everyone here could know what western medicine thinks of it:

SLEEP PARALYSIS
Sleep paralysis is an inability to move during the transition into or out of sleep. The association with intentional sleep distinguishes these events from cataplexy. Patients may
describe complete awareness of their surroundings or feeling partially asleep with awareness but be unable to move even their fingers or to speak. Patients may try to
scream but produce only a whisper. Some individuals will describe a feeling of suffocation and be able to resume breathing only when the event has passed. Patients frequently describe a strong feeling of impending doom, being chased, or having to escape imminent danger. On occasion, patients may note the feeling that someone else
is in the bedroom. Auditory and tactile hallucinations may accompany the events, and patients may recount dramatic stories. These events can be emotionally profound and
leave a lasting memory that patients vividly recall years later. Most sleep paralysis episodes last a few minutes and usually end after the patient is touched or is alerted to a
sound. If the event is allowed to persist, the patient usually reenters sleep and awakens later. These events are experienced by many individuals after severe sleep deprivation,
schedule disruption, or ingestion of alcohol and may be more frequently seen in patients with narcolepsy or depression

HYPNAGOGIC AND HYPNOPOMPIC HALLUCINATIONS
Hallucinations can occur with sleep onset (hypnagogic) or at the end of sleep (hypnopompic). These hallucinations may include visual, auditory, or tactile components and
may last seconds to minutes. The events occur at the transition between wake and sleep and incorporate some dreamlike features. They can be relatively pleasant or very
terrifying and difficult to distinguish from reality. Patients may note a feeling of weightlessness, falling, flying, or out-of-body experiences and may sometimes terminate with a
sudden jerk (hypnic jerk). Visual hallucinations may bedescribed as poorly formed colors and shapes or wellformed images of people and animals. The events are
aborted once the patient awakens. Exploding head syndrome is a loud painless sound of explosion that occurs near sleep onset. This parasomnia is benign and may be
associated with a hallucinatory flash of light.In the face of excessive daytime sleepiness, patients with hypnagogic hallucinations should be evaluated for narcolepsy. These events may be repetitive but are not usually stereotypical. This lack of stereotypical feature distinguishes these events from seizures. Individuals may experience these events after sleep deprivation or change in sleep schedule. Alcohol ingestion or withdrawal of REM suppressants may also evoke these events. The relationship of sleep to these hallucinations distinguishes them from hallucinations of psychosis and dementia. Hypnagogic hallucinations are shorter in duration than peduncular hallucinations.

from another chapter:

Sleep Paralysis
Sleep paralysis likely represents the persistence of REM sleep atonia into wakefulness and is extremely common in patients who are not narcoleptic, occurring in more than
33% of the general population. It may be familial, and it is more common in the setting of sleep deprivation and being in the supine position. When occurring in isolation,
it can lead to erroneous diagnoses such as cardiac disease or seizures or to unwarranted psychiatric diagnoses. Rarely, episodes of periodic paralysis arising from the sleep period
may be confused with true sleep paralysis. Management is reassurance that this is a normal phenomenon.

Hypnagogic and Hypnopompic Hallucinations
Prominent vivid dreamlike mentation can occur at sleep onset, during light NREM sleep, and even during relaxed wakefulness.As with sleep paralysis, such sleep onset and
sleep offset hallucinatory phenomena are quite common in the nonnarcoleptic population, and they may be combined with sleep paralysis (often referred to as the “old hag”
phenomenon). As a matter of fact, the original meaning of the word nightmare referred not to the current use of the term (a dream anxiety attack arising from the sleep
period) but rather to a combination of sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations occurring at sleep onset.Patients can be reassured that these hallucinations are
normal sleep phenomena and not symptoms of psychiatric disease.

DREAM DISTURBANCES OF THE SLEEP–WAKE TRANSITION
Several interrelated dream disturbances occur at the transitions into or out of sleep. These share the attributes of vivid, often intensely real, sensory imagery and disturbing
affects such as fear. The distinctive reality quality might stem from an interleaving or boundary dissociation of sleep–wake processes at this time, such as intrusions of real
perceptions into sleep or of dreamed objects or characters into wakefulness. The nature of the intruding components can determine the distinctiveness of the transition
disturbance, including typical or odd combinations such as a frightening hypnagogic image terminating in a sleep start or incomprehensible sleeptalking accompanying sleep
paralysis.

Sleep Starts
Sleep starts, also known as predormital or hypnic myoclonus and hypnagogic or hypnic jerks, are brief phasic contractions of the muscles of the legs, arms, face, or neck that
occur at sleep onset. They are often associated with brief, albeit vivid and forceful, dream events. Perhaps the most common of these events is the illusion of suddenly falling
that incites a vigorous, startling jerk. Brief sensory flashes also occur; sometimes they are somatic and somewhat difficult to describe. Complex hypnagogic images can also
occur. Mild starts are a normal—even universal—feature of falling asleep, with a prevalence as high as 60% to 70%. More-extreme starts can engender difficulties in initiating sleep.Sleep starts can bear a striking resemblance to exploding head syndrome in that the latter also occurs at sleep onset and produces sudden loud auditory sensations or
bright light flashes, or both. Sounds are described variously as thunderclaps, clashes of cymbals, doors slamming, electric shocks, loud snaps, bomblike explosions,
and so forth. In a sample of 50 patients, 10% reported a concurrent flash of light, 6% reported the curious sensation of stopped breathing and having to make an
“uncomfortable gasp” to start again, and 94% reported fear, terror, palpitations, or forceful heartbeats as an aftereffect. It is not known whether chronic sleep starts are primarily a disturbance of motor systems, perhaps akin to PLMS, with epiphenomenal imagery, or a disturbance of imagery systems per se, such that gripping images provoke the
disruptive reflex activity. EEG events have been noted to accompany sleep starts; however, more systematic studies of the variety of EEG burst patterns accompanying
drowsiness are needed.

Terrifying Hypnagogic Hallucinations
Terrifying hypnagogic hallucinations (THHs) are terrifying dreams similar to those from REM sleep; after a sudden awakening at sleep onset there is prompt recall of frightening content.
Because they arise from sleep-onset REM (SOREM) episodes, they may be aggravated by factors that predispose to this type of sleep, for example, withdrawal from REM-suppressant medication, chronic sleep deprivation, sleep fragmentation, or narcolepsy. Other sleep and medical disorders can accompany the condition. Content analyses of THHs are lacking, but clinical and anecdotal reports suggest that the themes of attack and aggression also found in REM sleep nightmares are common. THHs are perhaps more anxiety provoking than most nightmares because of a vivid sense of reality related to their close proximity to wakefulness and because of frequently accompanying feelings of paralysis. These features are illustrated in the case example. The suffering during such episodes is exacerbated by the patient’s simultaneous sense of wakefulness and inability to move or call for help. Further, the intense anxiety associated with recurrent THHs can disrupt sleep onset sufficiently to produce sleep-onset insomnia. Prevalence figures for THHs are not available, but an estimate for patients with narcolepsy is 4% to 8%.

Isolated Sleep Paralysis
Isolated sleep paralysis (ISP) consists of episodes of muscle paralysis with clear consciousness that occurs at sleep onset or upon transitions into wakefulness. Physiologic mechanisms of ISP have been studied in some detail,but the relationship of ISP to nightmares requires further study. For example, nightmare subjects rate their own home dreams to contain significantly more feelings of inhibition or ineffectuality than do control subjects.Patients seldom present for symptoms of ISP alone, but they might when the frequency of their episodes increases, for example, to one per day. Frightening sleep paralysis episodes have also been referred to as sleep paralysis nightmares,and their role in the misdiagnosis of hysteria and allegations of abuse have been described.

Etiology
Although psychopathology does not seem to be a direct cause of ISP, associations have been reported between ISP and psychopathologies such as social anxiety,
panic disorder and depression.

Psychopathologic factors
might influence ISP indirectly by their influence on stress and overwork and subsequent disruptive effects on sleep or by modulating vigilance levels during sleep disruption.
Sleep-related life habits are also associated with ISP occurrence in nonnarcoleptic populations, for example, poor sleep quality, insufficient sleep, and a proclivity to
daytime sleep—all factors that can favor the occurrence of SOREM episodes. In fact, ISP episodes have been elicited experimentally by a schedule of sleep interruptions
producing SOREM. Other mediating factors may be phase advance or rapid resetting of the circadian clock, as is the case with jet lag, or sleeping in the supine position.
However, daytime imaginativeness, as indexed by standardized questionnaires, and vividness of nighttime imagery, as measured by selfreported frequencies of nightmares and sleep terrors and dream vividness, are personality factors mostpredictive of ISPs in a large college student cohort.ISP is typically accompanied by vivid hypnagogic hallucinations. In fact, it is rare to find ISP in the absence of other hallucinatory activity. Only 1.6% (of 387) subjects experienced ISP without other attributes. Of six experimentally elicited ISP episodes, all but one included auditory or visual hallucinations and unpleasant emotions.Conversely, it is not true that most hypnagogic hallucinations are accompanied by sleep paralysis. Given this association of sleep paralysis with hypnagogic hallucinations, it is unclear whether sleep paralysis is, as some have suggested, a type of perception, that is, of ongoing REM sleep muscle atonia. Rather, paralysis sensations may be dreamed, which could account for why the episodes are often reported to be accompanied by odd feelings of oppression, pressure on the chest, or being beaten or choked violently. It could also explain how paralysis and felt ineffectuality appear routinely and in such variety in normal dreams and nightmares.

Prevalence
Multiple ISP episodes have a low prevalence, occurring “often or always” in 0% to 1% of young adults and “at least sometimes” in 7% to 8% of young adults.
On the other hand, the ICSD-R cites the lifetime prevalence at 40% to 50%, which is somewhat higher than other estimates. We found rates of 25% to 36% among three university student cohorts, which is similar to the 26% reported for 208 Japanese undergraduates, the 21% for 1798 Canadian undergraduates, and the 34% for 200 sleep-disorder patients.
Use on questionnaires of a culturally identifiable term for sleep paralysis, such as kanashibari in Japan, can increase the prevalence estimate by an additional 8%; the adjusted
estimate of 39% corresponds well with estimates from other cultures, such as 37% of 603 Hong Kong undergraduates reporting at least one episode of ghost oppression,
the Chinese equivalent of kanashibari. One survey of Newfoundland villagers found as many as 62% admitting to old hagattacks.

 

[ScarletBegonias]

It mentioned having a strong will and fighting to move even a single limb with all of your might.

A suggestion I read once, and one that has helped me out of it, is to make attempts to move my big toe. For some reason moving my toe has been easier and more effective than moving a whole arm or something like that.

Thanks for posting the info from your book, Medulin! It was interesting to read.

 

[SadEyes]

Sleep paralysis is a recognized medical phenomenon (I'm a doctor, so I should know),
but the greatest and latest Sleep medicine textbook (Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine 5th Edition 2010
by Meir H. Kryger MD, Thomas Roth PhD, William C. Dement MD PhD) failed to dedicate to it a whole chapter,
although the book itself is fairly large (1800 pages).

Since I've bought the book, I feel compelled to copy and paste what the authors did write on sleep paralysis,
so everyone here could know what western medicine thinks of it:

SLEEP PARALYSIS
Sleep paralysis is an inability to move during the transition into or out of sleep. The association with intentional sleep distinguishes these events from cataplexy. Patients may
describe complete awareness of their surroundings or feeling partially asleep with awareness but be unable to move even their fingers or to speak. Patients may try to
scream but produce only a whisper. Some individuals will describe a feeling of suffocation and be able to resume breathing only when the event has passed. Patients frequently describe a strong feeling of impending doom, being chased, or having to escape imminent danger. On occasion, patients may note the feeling that someone else
is in the bedroom. Auditory and tactile hallucinations may accompany the events, and patients may recount dramatic stories. These events can be emotionally profound and
leave a lasting memory that patients vividly recall years later. Most sleep paralysis episodes last a few minutes and usually end after the patient is touched or is alerted to a
sound. If the event is allowed to persist, the patient usually reenters sleep and awakens later. These events are experienced by many individuals after severe sleep deprivation,
schedule disruption, or ingestion of alcohol and may be more frequently seen in patients with narcolepsy or depression

HYPNAGOGIC AND HYPNOPOMPIC HALLUCINATIONS
Hallucinations can occur with sleep onset (hypnagogic) or at the end of sleep (hypnopompic). These hallucinations may include visual, auditory, or tactile components and
may last seconds to minutes. The events occur at the transition between wake and sleep and incorporate some dreamlike features. They can be relatively pleasant or very
terrifying and difficult to distinguish from reality. Patients may note a feeling of weightlessness, falling, flying, or out-of-body experiences and may sometimes terminate with a
sudden jerk (hypnic jerk). Visual hallucinations may bedescribed as poorly formed colors and shapes or wellformed images of people and animals. The events are
aborted once the patient awakens. Exploding head syndrome is a loud painless sound of explosion that occurs near sleep onset. This parasomnia is benign and may be
associated with a hallucinatory flash of light.In the face of excessive daytime sleepiness, patients with hypnagogic hallucinations should be evaluated for narcolepsy. These events may be repetitive but are not usually stereotypical. This lack of stereotypical feature distinguishes these events from seizures. Individuals may experience these events after sleep deprivation or change in sleep schedule. Alcohol ingestion or withdrawal of REM suppressants may also evoke these events. The relationship of sleep to these hallucinations distinguishes them from hallucinations of psychosis and dementia. Hypnagogic hallucinations are shorter in duration than peduncular hallucinations.

from another chapter:

Sleep Paralysis
Sleep paralysis likely represents the persistence of REM sleep atonia into wakefulness and is extremely common in patients who are not narcoleptic, occurring in more than
33% of the general population. It may be familial, and it is more common in the setting of sleep deprivation and being in the supine position. When occurring in isolation,
it can lead to erroneous diagnoses such as cardiac disease or seizures or to unwarranted psychiatric diagnoses. Rarely, episodes of periodic paralysis arising from the sleep period
may be confused with true sleep paralysis. Management is reassurance that this is a normal phenomenon.

Hypnagogic and Hypnopompic Hallucinations
Prominent vivid dreamlike mentation can occur at sleep onset, during light NREM sleep, and even during relaxed wakefulness.As with sleep paralysis, such sleep onset and
sleep offset hallucinatory phenomena are quite common in the nonnarcoleptic population, and they may be combined with sleep paralysis (often referred to as the “old hag”
phenomenon). As a matter of fact, the original meaning of the word nightmare referred not to the current use of the term (a dream anxiety attack arising from the sleep
period) but rather to a combination of sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations occurring at sleep onset.Patients can be reassured that these hallucinations are
normal sleep phenomena and not symptoms of psychiatric disease.

DREAM DISTURBANCES OF THE SLEEP–WAKE TRANSITION
Several interrelated dream disturbances occur at the transitions into or out of sleep. These share the attributes of vivid, often intensely real, sensory imagery and disturbing
affects such as fear. The distinctive reality quality might stem from an interleaving or boundary dissociation of sleep–wake processes at this time, such as intrusions of real
perceptions into sleep or of dreamed objects or characters into wakefulness. The nature of the intruding components can determine the distinctiveness of the transition
disturbance, including typical or odd combinations such as a frightening hypnagogic image terminating in a sleep start or incomprehensible sleeptalking accompanying sleep
paralysis.

Sleep Starts
Sleep starts, also known as predormital or hypnic myoclonus and hypnagogic or hypnic jerks, are brief phasic contractions of the muscles of the legs, arms, face, or neck that
occur at sleep onset. They are often associated with brief, albeit vivid and forceful, dream events. Perhaps the most common of these events is the illusion of suddenly falling
that incites a vigorous, startling jerk. Brief sensory flashes also occur; sometimes they are somatic and somewhat difficult to describe. Complex hypnagogic images can also
occur. Mild starts are a normal—even universal—feature of falling asleep, with a prevalence as high as 60% to 70%. More-extreme starts can engender difficulties in initiating sleep.Sleep starts can bear a striking resemblance to exploding head syndrome in that the latter also occurs at sleep onset and produces sudden loud auditory sensations or
bright light flashes, or both. Sounds are described variously as thunderclaps, clashes of cymbals, doors slamming, electric shocks, loud snaps, bomblike explosions,
and so forth. In a sample of 50 patients, 10% reported a concurrent flash of light, 6% reported the curious sensation of stopped breathing and having to make an
“uncomfortable gasp” to start again, and 94% reported fear, terror, palpitations, or forceful heartbeats as an aftereffect. It is not known whether chronic sleep starts are primarily a disturbance of motor systems, perhaps akin to PLMS, with epiphenomenal imagery, or a disturbance of imagery systems per se, such that gripping images provoke the
disruptive reflex activity. EEG events have been noted to accompany sleep starts; however, more systematic studies of the variety of EEG burst patterns accompanying
drowsiness are needed.

Terrifying Hypnagogic Hallucinations
Terrifying hypnagogic hallucinations (THHs) are terrifying dreams similar to those from REM sleep; after a sudden awakening at sleep onset there is prompt recall of frightening content.
Because they arise from sleep-onset REM (SOREM) episodes, they may be aggravated by factors that predispose to this type of sleep, for example, withdrawal from REM-suppressant medication, chronic sleep deprivation, sleep fragmentation, or narcolepsy. Other sleep and medical disorders can accompany the condition. Content analyses of THHs are lacking, but clinical and anecdotal reports suggest that the themes of attack and aggression also found in REM sleep nightmares are common. THHs are perhaps more anxiety provoking than most nightmares because of a vivid sense of reality related to their close proximity to wakefulness and because of frequently accompanying feelings of paralysis. These features are illustrated in the case example. The suffering during such episodes is exacerbated by the patient’s simultaneous sense of wakefulness and inability to move or call for help. Further, the intense anxiety associated with recurrent THHs can disrupt sleep onset sufficiently to produce sleep-onset insomnia. Prevalence figures for THHs are not available, but an estimate for patients with narcolepsy is 4% to 8%.

Isolated Sleep Paralysis
Isolated sleep paralysis (ISP) consists of episodes of muscle paralysis with clear consciousness that occurs at sleep onset or upon transitions into wakefulness. Physiologic mechanisms of ISP have been studied in some detail,but the relationship of ISP to nightmares requires further study. For example, nightmare subjects rate their own home dreams to contain significantly more feelings of inhibition or ineffectuality than do control subjects.Patients seldom present for symptoms of ISP alone, but they might when the frequency of their episodes increases, for example, to one per day. Frightening sleep paralysis episodes have also been referred to as sleep paralysis nightmares,and their role in the misdiagnosis of hysteria and allegations of abuse have been described.

Etiology
Although psychopathology does not seem to be a direct cause of ISP, associations have been reported between ISP and psychopathologies such as social anxiety,
panic disorder and depression.

Psychopathologic factors
might influence ISP indirectly by their influence on stress and overwork and subsequent disruptive effects on sleep or by modulating vigilance levels during sleep disruption.
Sleep-related life habits are also associated with ISP occurrence in nonnarcoleptic populations, for example, poor sleep quality, insufficient sleep, and a proclivity to
daytime sleep—all factors that can favor the occurrence of SOREM episodes. In fact, ISP episodes have been elicited experimentally by a schedule of sleep interruptions
producing SOREM. Other mediating factors may be phase advance or rapid resetting of the circadian clock, as is the case with jet lag, or sleeping in the supine position.
However, daytime imaginativeness, as indexed by standardized questionnaires, and vividness of nighttime imagery, as measured by selfreported frequencies of nightmares and sleep terrors and dream vividness, are personality factors mostpredictive of ISPs in a large college student cohort.ISP is typically accompanied by vivid hypnagogic hallucinations. In fact, it is rare to find ISP in the absence of other hallucinatory activity. Only 1.6% (of 387) subjects experienced ISP without other attributes. Of six experimentally elicited ISP episodes, all but one included auditory or visual hallucinations and unpleasant emotions.Conversely, it is not true that most hypnagogic hallucinations are accompanied by sleep paralysis. Given this association of sleep paralysis with hypnagogic hallucinations, it is unclear whether sleep paralysis is, as some have suggested, a type of perception, that is, of ongoing REM sleep muscle atonia. Rather, paralysis sensations may be dreamed, which could account for why the episodes are often reported to be accompanied by odd feelings of oppression, pressure on the chest, or being beaten or choked violently. It could also explain how paralysis and felt ineffectuality appear routinely and in such variety in normal dreams and nightmares.

Prevalence
Multiple ISP episodes have a low prevalence, occurring “often or always” in 0% to 1% of young adults and “at least sometimes” in 7% to 8% of young adults.
On the other hand, the ICSD-R cites the lifetime prevalence at 40% to 50%, which is somewhat higher than other estimates. We found rates of 25% to 36% among three university student cohorts, which is similar to the 26% reported for 208 Japanese undergraduates, the 21% for 1798 Canadian undergraduates, and the 34% for 200 sleep-disorder patients.
Use on questionnaires of a culturally identifiable term for sleep paralysis, such as kanashibari in Japan, can increase the prevalence estimate by an additional 8%; the adjusted
estimate of 39% corresponds well with estimates from other cultures, such as 37% of 603 Hong Kong undergraduates reporting at least one episode of ghost oppression,
the Chinese equivalent of kanashibari. One survey of Newfoundland villagers found as many as 62% admitting to old hagattacks.

I have seen quite a few videos and clips on sleep paralysis that talk about people experiencing fear and often times believing that something/ someone is in the room with them. Oddly enough, when I typed "sleep paralysis" into the search engine on Bing, I was met with a number of pictures that show people being help down in their beds by demonic forces:http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=sleep%20paralysis&FORM=BILH

While I respect the medical community to some degree, I just find it odd how many people report these same things, even people with no religious or spiritual affiliation. Heck, I was an "atheist" and definitely didn't believe in any of the things I do now when I had my first major sleep paralysis moment back in 2005. In that episode, I woke up to a hooded shadow standing over my bed with dimly lit red eyes. Scariest moment of my life watching this thing stare at my motionless body. I just think there is much more to it than has been recognized...maybe we'll have to ask Laura to ask the C's one day?

 

[emilien512]

From my personal experience, I can only relate this with diet. I can imagine the nervous system being over-stimulated, or over-"downed" by over-consumption of caffeine/theobromine (coffee, tea, cocoa, ...) and/or opioid (wheat, dairy, grains, ...).

 

[Beorn]

I've found there is a way to get out of sleep paralysis (or at least the kind of SP I was experiencing) but it is an action of the mind not the body. There is a 'twisting' action that you can do which will connect you with your body. It's more a twisting of your consciousness so there's really no good way to explain it except to say that if you find yourself in that predicament try to explore the state you are in rather than panicking. You might find there's an easier way to get back. Once you learn how to do it you will always know and SP will no longer be a scary experience.

It's natural to be terrified when you feel like your consciousness is not connected to your body but rather than being terrified why not see it as a challenge? A challenge to have greater mastery over your own states of consciousness. It might even be fun!

If all else fails, trying to wiggle your fingers and toes does seem to help although it can be a slow process.

In some states the legs do seem to be lighter than the head. On occasion I find the legs seem to float towards the roof while the head descends a little into the mattress. So I guess it might feel like you are being pulled or lifted...

 

[cubbex]

Well, I recently posted about a strange UFO appearance near my house, as the death of one of the dogs in the house. And I've been noticing that I'm into a period of frequent sleep paralysis since december, and I can confirm that it's related to the diet and some negative emotios I've been having because of conflict with certain people; it can be easily explained, chemicals, brain, and that is enough to work as an antenna for high strangeness or at least negative events, or maybe both. I thought certain food was gluten free, but I guess I need to check my diet more, thing is that yesterday I couldn't resist and ate a variety of cookies, drank lots of coffee and two spoons of sugar, one in each cup, and eat lots of rice with chicken... so that night I had a weird paralysis, my jaw literally twisted in a weird way and it hurt a lot.

A lot of people talk about beings, and aliens and shadow creatures, I've never seen one nor do I want, but I've been able to hear a weird pulsating sound on my ear that increments the paralysis whenever I want to move, until I fade out and go black on my mind.

Yes, it happens between a period of awareness and sleepiness, I took my dinner 4 or 5 hours before sleeping, but I ate the cookies and drank coffee through the day. I noticed coffee is not recommended, less if you have no tolerance for it because you will be very anxious.

So if any of you have sleep paralysis I guess the only thing to do is to avoid gluten and dairy (I don't know about carbs) avoid anxiety and negative feelings. A weird thing I found, was that I had a dream with a lot of people in white clothes, there was anart and another woman, anart went into a dark room alone like she was hypnotized and then this other woman and I proposed to go for her, but when I went there, it happened something that always happens before I get paralyzed, an strange person appears and attacks me, and his stare is very cold and hostile. That time it was anart walking like a zombie and looking at me with anger. Strange because I had no bonds with her, so I don't know.

If you fall paralyzed, do not try to move in any way your body, it doesn't work. While I was paralyzed I remembered that phrase of controlling breathing to control everything, so a good technique is to breath fast like in the ba-ha portion, and then breath in and out explosively, the more air you can pull the better. Do not breath slowly at all.

 

[Muxel]

I wonder if there is a connection between SP and trauma. Is SP occurring through spontaneous activation of the freeze response? Bad sleep hygiene can be "traumatic" to the body, can it not?

If you fall paralyzed, do not try to move in any way your body, it doesn't work. While I was paralyzed I remembered that phrase of controlling breathing to control everything, so a good technique is to breath fast like in the ba-ha portion, and then breath in and out explosively, the more air you can pull the better. Do not breath slowly at all.

Yeah I've gotten out of SP by doing this before and can vouch for it. But there were times when I had SP while supine and with my cervical spine flexed to a small degree (head nodded forward slightly due to pillow), and it seems my breathing was significantly incapacitated. Maybe a paralyzed diaphragm or intercostals or some other breathing muscle. This used to be the scariest part of SP for me: the near-suffocation.

Also,i cannot remember which,but it is mentioned in one of the sessiins,and explained as when your brain has different fical point than the physical. Or something like that. Perhaps someone can post the said reference?

The "eclipsing of the realities" session.

Q: (L) Okay, in the experience I felt a paralysis of my body, what caused this paralysis.

A: Yes. Separation of awareness. Which is defined as any point along the pathway where one's awareness becomes so totally focused on one thought sector that all other levels of awareness are temporarily receded, thereby making it impossible to become aware of one's physical reality along with one's mental reality. This gives the impression of what is referred to as paralysis. Do you understand?