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Sleep paralysis is a state, during waking up or falling asleep, in which a person is conscious but in a complete state of full-body paralysis. [1] [2] During an episode, the person may hallucinate (hear, feel, or see things that are not there), which often results in fear.
Sleep paralysis occurs when your mind is awake, but your body can’t move, Xue Ming, a sleep expert and professor of neurology at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, tells me. You can ...
You’re finally ready for bed, so you turn out the light and prepare for some much-needed shut-eye. For once, you drift off with no problem…but then, something extremely weird happens. You’re ...
Hypnagogia is the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep, also defined as the waning state of consciousness during the onset of sleep. (Its corresponding state is hypnopompia –sleep to wakefulness.) Mental phenomena that may occur during this "threshold consciousness" include hallucinations, lucid dreaming, and sleep paralysis.
Sleep paralysis in combination with hallucinations has long been suggested as a possible explanation for reported alien abduction. [25] Several studies show that African-Americans may be predisposed to isolated sleep paralysis—known in folklore as "the witch is riding your back" "the witch is riding you" [4] [5] or "the haint is riding you."
According to a study on sleep disturbances in the Journal of Neural Transmission, a hypnic jerk occurs during the non-rapid eye movement sleep cycle and is an "abrupt muscle action flexing movement, generalized or partial and asymmetric, which may cause arousal, with an illusion of falling". [13]
Sleep paralysis is associated with sleep-related hallucinations. [22] Predisposing factors for the development of recurrent isolated sleep paralysis are sleep deprivation, an irregular sleep-wake cycle, e.g. caused by shift work, or stress. [22] A possible cause could be the prolongation of REM sleep muscle atonia upon awakening. [34]
Since the REM stages typically occur during the second half of sleep, sleeping too little may not allow the body enough time to complete all the REM sleep cycles, per the National Sleep Foundation.