There is umpteen information over the internet about how to get a peaceful sleep and the right way of sleeping, but there are a few bizarre facts about sleep that are under-reported. The internet is swamped with theories about the correct method of sleeping and other various things about sleep. But, an under-reported fact about sleep is Sleep paralysis, which is experienced by 7.6% if the population.
This statistic includes students who have disrupted sleep patterns and people suffering from mental health disorders, like anxiety and depression.
Sleep paralysis is an odd condition in which you wake up at night and realizing that you can move any part of your body except your eyes.
Waking up in the middle of the night is not due to a nightmare or other conventional reasons, but they wake up randomly and experience this condition.
The question arises, that if the brain is awake then how is it that the body does not move? This is due to the stages of non-rapid eye movement. Humans can dream in all stages of sleep, but they seem realistic in REM sleep, for instance, where you feel like you are drowning. This condition lasts for a few minutes and is experienced by people who are depressed or sad. This might sound like a page from a horror novel, but this condition is legitimate and there are a few types of sleep paralysis.
1. Incubus Hallucinations
The Incubus hallucinations make you feel an intense pressure on the chest by something with a heavy presence and squeezing the air out of your lungs. However, this is a mental game, which fosters because the sufferer is scared of making them feel like they are unable to breathe.
Well, when you are in REM you breathing patterns are shallow and your airways are constricted making it hard to breathe anyway. The symptom involves the threat-activated systems in the amygdala making the sufferer feel like someone is strangling or suffocating them.
2. Intruder Hallucinations
People experiencing the intruder hallucinations experience the feeling of a presence of an intruder, fear, visual and auditory hallucinations. In addition to incubus, the sufferer's mind develops a vision to solve a sort of paradox that occurs during sleep paralysis.
This leads the body into a state called “hyper-vigilant state of mind,” making people aware of the slightest stimuli and only seem to recognize the cues towards threats and danger. Even a small sound can seem terrifying during sleep paralysis and evidently, the incubus and intruder hallucinations go hand in hand.
3. Unusual Bodily Experiences
This type of sleep paralysis hallucination is uncommon, in which people have an out of body experience. These experiences are the ones when you feel like you are flying around the room or feel like you have had an unusual encounter, which is least likely to be probable. This is different from the others, since different parts of the brain are active, which is similar to the condition when the person awoke.
The unusual bodily experience is associated with the stages of REM where the brainstem, cerebellar and cortical vesticular centers are activated in your sleep. The pons, a part of the brainstem that links that medulla oblongata to the thalamus inhibits movement during your sleep. In this hallucination, you feel like you are moving, but are not, since this part is overactive.
Even though sleep paralysis is hereditary, it can happen to anyone. There are other factors that can increase someone’s likelihood to experience sleep paralysis like, jet lag, lack of sleep, sleep disturbances, and shift work.
This condition is common among certain groups of people and it is also linked to hypertension, seizures, and narcolepsy, which is a sleep disorder in which the person loses control over their ability to regulate sleep cycles and fall asleep at unexpected moments.
Stress and depression can cause episodes of sleep paralysis to occur, so, having a proper sleep schedule and reducing the amount of stress can help cure it. There being no “one-size-fits-all” cure for sleep paralysis you need to find the solutions applicable to you and implement them to prevent future episodes.
The content does not include scientific facts. If you are suffering from any sleep disorder, do consult a doctor.
