Sleep Paralysis

[Lainey]

Sometimes, when I get stressed out, this happens to me. It's creepy and I hate it, and it can cause me to feel like things are real that I don't believe in when I'm (fully) awake.

At times, I've been under the impression I'm under attack and about to be possessed by a demon. The fascinating (:roll:) twist is that I don't believe in demons.

Other times, I've "felt" like there was something by my bed, such as aliens. While I suspect that there is life on other planets, I highly doubt they come and visit us.

Still other times, it's thinking my blanket is attacking me (if it's over my face). I also don't believe that inanimate objects ever become animate.

And once, it was as mundane as feeling the sock I wore to bed (hey, I live in Canada) slip off my foot, and thinking that it wasn't worth the effort to search for it and put it back on. Yet when I woke up in the morning, it was on my foot. And I truly thought I was awake when I felt it slip off. (As in I imagined it--it never fell off).

So, my question for debate is, of the above options, what do you all think causes it? Do you have any other options? And why could this make someone like me, who doesn't believe in these things, feel like they're real when I'm half asleep? I read an older post on this board by an atheist who experienced feeling like he (I forget who--I don't think he posts here anymore) was going to be possessed, even though he didn't believe in anything like that.

As for me, I think it's a combination of brain chemicals and imagination. I've read it's that you're dreaming, but you really believe you're awake, so when you dream something up, you think it's real. Some people even hallucinate that there's an entity of some sort sitting on their chest and they have a heard time breathing. I've never experienced that one, though. If I did I'd probably die of a heart attack.

And does anyone who answers this post ever experience it?

[Cathar1950]

It could be a combination of the top 3 choices.
Maybe?
I have had them also.

I like going to the bar and ask any one if they have had 20 min. of their life they can't account for and I usually get many responses.
I then tell them they could be an alien abductie.

[juliod]

Oh, yeah! I've had that. Not often, maybe 4 times over 25 years. Absolutely terrifying. And so real that I forgive anyone for thinking they are under attack by aliens or demons.

The last time I had one, about 2 years ago, I think, I was laying on my back, unable to move. A large demon-like thing was clawing at my right arm. It had long thin arms and spindly ungly fingers. I was struggling to sit up, to run, to push it away, anything. I couldn't move. A real horror.

As I came out of it, I was suddenly able to move and lashed out with my elbow, catching my girlfriend a good one to the ribs. Which was great because she was sound asleep.

And it just goes to show that what I was experiencing couldn't have been real regardless of how it appeared to me. I was up against the wall, not near the edge of the bed where the monster was. Still, it was terrifying.

DanZ

[Cathar1950]

I think it is the first two answers.
It is Chemicals and imagination.
I tend to think the other answer are the same, not the cause but, the problem.
I have been hit a few times in my sleep juliod, Maybe I should have believed them?
I have had vivid dreams too. Pretty cool but usually I was sick and had a fever.

[juliod]

I have had vivid dreams too. Pretty cool but usually I was sick and had a fever.

Vivid dreams are very interesting, but sleep paralysis is a distinct phenomenon. It is what is blamed for most alien-abduction experiences. When one is asleep one's motor neurons are sort-of switched off. This is so that we don't move while dreaming of running, etc. But very rarely, when one is wakeing up this paralysis is not lifted for a few moments.

It's like being startled out of a nightmare, which I presume everyone has experienced, but instead of just sitting up in bed you lay there completely unable to move with the nighmare images encroaching on your clearing consciousness. You struggle to move. The experience is of extreme effort. And horror. Very freightening.

DanZ

[Lainey]

I haven't had it for awhile, but I had it yesterday. I was taking a nap on my boyfriend's couch, and his fridge was buzzing. It sounded like the buzzing was getting closer and in my sleepy stupor, I equated it with the feeling that something was attacking me.

Yeah, I really believe it's the cause of the alien abduction stories. I think I read something to that effect in a Carl Sagan book (The Demon-Haunted World).

It is a horrible feeling. You can't move, and you can't even make a sound. I've tried calling out to someone when it was happening before, but you can't. For some reason, though, you can usually wiggle your toes. I read on the internet somewhere that if you wiggle them, you can break the inability to move, and I've found it works.

Some psychics think that it's in that state that you can astral project.

It's interesting how people come up with different explanations for what they've experienced though, isn't it?

Juliod, I have never seen anything in that state (well, I thought I saw a ghostly hand come over the headboard when I was 6, and I assume now that that's what it was, so I guess I saw something once). If I did now, I really think I'd die of a heart attack! Ugh! There's one thing I wonder about, though. A LOT of people report seeing an "old hag" that sits on their chest and makes it hard for them to breathe. I wonder why so many people think they see the same thing? I'm sure there's a good explanation, but I don't know what it is...

[Jose]

Interesting. I hadn't known about sleep paralysis before. I've never experienced it, fortunately--though I have dreamt of intruders and lashed out with a serious karate kick, much to my wife's dismay. Too much nutmeg in the curry, I guess.

I looked it up on PubMed, to see what I could find. Here are a couple of things:

Cheyne JA, Sleep paralysis episode frequency and number, types, and structure of associated hallucinations. Cheyne notes that the "basic structure" of SP events is pretty much the same for everyone who has 'em, which suggests that this is some kind of "intrinsic" thing that doesn't depend on prior experience.

McNally RJ, Clancy SA , Sleep paralysis, sexual abuse, and space alien abduction.

Sleep paralysis accompanied by hypnopompic ('upon awakening') hallucinations is an often-frightening manifestation of discordance between the cognitive/perceptual and motor aspects of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Awakening sleepers become aware of an inability to move, and sometimes experience intrusion of dream mentation into waking consciousness (e.g. seeing intruders in the bedroom). In this article, we summarize two studies. In the first study, we assessed 10 individuals who reported abduction by space aliens and whose claims were linked to apparent episodes of sleep paralysis during which hypnopompic hallucinations were interpreted as alien beings. In the second study, adults reporting repressed, recovered, or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse more often reported sleep paralysis than did a control group. Among the 31 reporting sleep paralysis, only one person linked it to abuse memories. This person was among the six recovered memory participants who reported sleep paralysis (i.e. 17% rate of interpreting it as abuse-related). People rely on personally plausible cultural narratives to interpret these otherwise baffling sleep paralysis episodes.

So, it does seem to be the case that researchers are considering SP to be a likely source of some of these curious experiences. Alien abduction sounds like a pretty good way to explain it, if you experience weird-looking creatures and you can't move. But, you know, the alien-abduction story is something you'd use to rationalize or interpret "an otherwise baffling event" after it happens. I'd say that recognizing it as something at the borderline between sleep and wakefulness is pretty impressive.

A couple of the other articles I found talked about other cultures (like the Inuit) interpreting SP events as spiritual experiences, or apparent evidence of some kind of spiritual world out there. By contrast, American culture historically considered SP events as some kind of mental problem--or worse, demonic possession. Therefore, while some other cultures have talked about these events freely, Americans have generally hidden them. I bet there are lots of people who have SP events, and have no clue that other people do too, and therefore spend a fair amount of time worrying if they are sane.

Thanks for bringing this up, Lainey. It's fascinating.

...and keep wiggling those toes!

[Lainey]

Jose wrote:

Therefore, while some other cultures have talked about these events freely, Americans have generally hidden them. I bet there are lots of people who have SP events, and have no clue that other people do too, and therefore spend a fair amount of time worrying if they are sane.

I thought twice before I posted it here...I mean, I don't want to come off as a nut, and yet I want to talk about these experiences where I feel like things are real that aren't real...it does sound a little weird. I was relieved when I found out that lots of people have it happen, and that there's a good scientific explanation for it!

Thanks for bringing this up, Lainey. It's fascinating.

Aw, shucks...

...and keep wiggling those toes!

You better believe it, Jose!

[QED]

I've raised this several times in my posts here. It's something that happens to me quite often and demonstrates very vividly to me how our perceptions of reality are utterly fallible. As you can see from the responses here some people (like Jose) have never experienced this condition. Others may only ever get to experience it once or twice in their lifetimes. You can imagine how this would influence the superstitious among us -- and nearly everyone in times before the establishment of a proper scientific understanding. But it is an entirely natural by-product of the need for our muscles to be disabled during certain phases of sleep where they would otherwise be causing us great problems.

Auditory processing anomalies in the transition to and from sleep gives rise to another distinct set of phenomena that I haven't seen much work published on. I get this sometimes with the sleep paralysis thing and at other times without. Generally it's an over-amplification of some external sound although sometimes it seems to be an entirely synthesised sound. In all cases it always seems very "real" and is often very loud -- almost painfully loud at times. The same sort of embarrassing situation often occurs though:

QED: Goodness! What was THAT incredible noise!
wife: What noise, you were snoring. I was reading my book.

[Lainey]

QED wrote:

You can imagine how this would influence the superstitious among us -- and nearly everyone in times before the establishment of a proper scientific understanding. But it is an entirely natural by-product of the need for our muscles to be disabled during certain phases of sleep where they would otherwise be causing us great problems.

A few years ago, I had this happen quite often. Luckily, it didn't last. At that time, however, I was MUCH more superstitious then I am now, and it scared me to death! Combining this experience with having a religious friend who talked as though demons were as common as goldfish, well...let's just say I'm glad common sense and my old friend skepticism took over.

Auditory processing anomalies in the transition to and from sleep gives rise to another distinct set of phenomena that I haven't seen much work published on. I get this sometimes with the sleep paralysis thing and at other times without. Generally it's an over-amplification of some external sound although sometimes it seems to be an entirely synthesised sound. In all cases it always seems very "real" and is often very loud -- almost painfully loud at times.

That part never occurred to me...you mean like how I suddenly was hyperfocusing on the buzzing fridge?