I’ve noticed a lot of interest, all of a sudden, in the
disorder Sleep Paralysis (SP) and figured I’d give my piece, as I seem to have had it more
severely than most people. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not boasting about
that - why would I? It’s a horrible thing… But I thought people might be
interested, so everything I write here is based on experiences and
research.
Also, I’ve written a short story here attempting to mimic the experience.
First of all - Don’t be frightened of it happening to you, out of nowhere. So, Sleep Paralysis is basically a disorder in which the part of your
brain that controls consciousness decides to be less asleep than the
part that controls everything else. In other words, your body is asleep -
you are not. In most cases this only lasts a few seconds and the
majority of people who get it the odd time don’t even notice it.
I was about 15 when I first experienced it, I had just stayed up
til about 4-5AM watching a horror film and when I went to sleep, I woke
up, unable to move, for around 20 seconds-ish. After it happened about
three or four times over a couple of weeks I decided to look it up and
found out I had been suffering from quite a common thing called Sleep
Paralysis. This continued to happen for years and years,
the longest I’ve gone without it is about 4 months, but I’ve also had it for 3 days in a row before. It can happen lots of times in a night, each time you sleep - or it can last for many long minutes.
I feel it is important to point out, here, that it is a normal thing to
happen, your body always becomes paralysed when sleeping to stop you
acting out your dreams. Everybody has this, you're just not supposed to
wake up whilst that is happening, but it is marginally common so don't
panic - it's okay.
Sleep Paralysis happens either when you’re just dropping off to
sleep, or just about to wake up and it’s very common for you to
hallucinate. This is because
the brain likes to try to make sense of the fact that you can’t move, so it tries to give you a reason by making stuff up
and this accounts for almost every single sighting of demons and aliens
and so on - it plays on your psyche. So, if you don’t believe in something,
it’s unlikely to haunt you.
There is no known cure for sleep paralysis, but it seems to be
more severe if you sleep on your back, but only in the sense that it
gives you difficulty breathing;
I’ve never slept on my back and I still get it all the time.
A common thing to break it or prevent it from happening (in my
experience) is physical contact. If you have contact, preferably with
another person, that gives you something to focus on, and if someone
touches you while it’s happening, it’ll typically break it. It can also
take the edge off if you have a soft toy to sleep with or something else
physical other than your bed to focus on.
SP is mainly caused by bad sleep hygiene (irregular hours, sleep deprivation, caffeine before bed, etc…),
so sometimes you can be aware when it’s more likely to happen. But the
best thing to do is just deal with it - rather than starve yourself of
sleep which can only make it worse. I used to get up after an episode, chill for an hour and then go
back to bed. When you know it might happen is scary, but you need to
just carry on and let it pass.
One of the worst things about SP is just the lack of refreshing
sleep you get when you wake up. You don’t feel much better due to the
sleep, but it’s still better than not sleeping. While it is not a
nice thing to happen, and yes - it can be scary, it’s really nothing
that should be used to scare monger people - you can learn to deal with
it just fine. Don’t be scared of it happening to you if you've not experienced it before.
If you don’t get it in your teenage years, you’re very likely to never have it at all.
The worst personal experience I've ever had was when it accompanied
'Exploding Head Syndrome' alongside it, which is where you hallucinate the
sound of a large crash or an explosion - I was certain someone was
trying to break into my room and I could not move for what felt like 3-4 minutes. If
you hear anything like this, try not to panic as much as I did.
I was only scared because I was unaware that could happen.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me at http://bringerofsweets.tumblr.com/. I
hope this helps, is interesting, or is useful. Thanks.