Have you ever been in that fuzzy state of awakening from sleep or dropping off to sleep…and not been able to move, or speak or cry out?
Was it fun (did you experience flying sensations), or was it scary!

Either way, you are not alone—Sleep paralysis is a common condition. And it is now believed that half of all people experience it sometime during their life.

It is characterized by brief (lasting anywhere from a few seconds to minutes) partial or total paralysis of skeletal muscles and reflexes—in other words, a disconnection between the brain and the body.

A touch or a sound may bring the episode to an end—suddenly you feel released from the paralysis, but you can be left with a lingering sense of dread.

This brief paralyzing condition can occur in normal people and can also be associated with narcolepsy (an involuntary sleep attack), cataplexy (sudden loss of muscle tone during excitement or arousal), and hypnagogic hallucinations.

Sleep paralysis is now being studied as an explanation for terrors in the night. Did you know night ‘mare’ has been derived from the word incubus (half man, half beast) that is sometimes referred to as “the old hag” (in Newfoundland) or “that terror in the night”? And it means “one who leaps on, oppresses or crushes.”

Some researches believe sleep paralysis is an hallucination created by physical things occurring in the body as a result of a dysfunction of the normal REM (rapid eye movement) state of sleep (the deepest part of sleep) brought on by life stressors or sleep deprivation (like jet lag).

And if you’ve experienced sleep paralysis you may already know you can have hallucinations involving the sensation of images, smells, noises/speaking or levitation during the paralysis. Some people have reported that they think someone is standing beside them or sense a presence just out of sight and they hear strange sounds or feel a floating sensation or out-of-body experience. These may be dreamlike, possibly causing the person to think that they are still dreaming. Often it is reported as feeling a weight on one’s chest, as if being underneath a person or heavy object.

This is incredibly real—You can have a really “awake-nightmare experience” that leaves you with a long-lasting memory of the terrifying sensations felt during sleep paralysis.

Do you think this sleep paralysis could be an explanation for similar descriptions given by alien abductees, or accounts of ghost sightings and other paranormal or supernatural experiences, out-of-body experiences, or symptoms of someone attacking or suffocating you in your sleep and other frightening experiences?

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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