Why is sleep paralysis always negative

And as the seconds tick by, you become more and more frightened until you fall back asleep or slowly gain movement again. Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center.

Advertising on our site helps support our mission. We do not endorse non-Cleveland Clinic products or services. We talked to sleep disorder specialist Alicia Roth, PhD , about what causes these conditions and what you should know if you ever experience them.

The first component of this is sleep paralysis, a condition when a person wakes up but is temporarily unable to move. When it happens, it can feel absolutely terrifying but, Dr. Roth assures us, it is a completely benign condition. Not to be confused with deep sleep, REM sleep is a point in your sleep cycle when your brain is very active. Isolated sleep paralysis: Fear, prevention, and disruption. Behav Sleep Med. J Clin Psychol. Cheyne JA. Sleep paralysis episode frequency and number, types, and structure of associated hallucinations.

Journal of Sleep Research. Hufford DJ. Sleep paralysis as spiritual experience. Transcultural psychiatry. Sleep paralysis, sexual abuse, and space alien abduction. Ness RC. The old hag phenomenon as sleep paralysis: A biocultural interpretation.

Culture, medicine and psychiatry. Relations among hypnagogic and hypnopompic experiences associated with sleep paralysis. Journal of sleep research. Sleep paralysis and the structure of waking-nightmare hallucinations.

Jalal B, Hinton DE. Rates and characteristics of sleep paralysis in the general population of Denmark and Egypt. Culture, medicine, and psychiatry. Tan, a New York City-based writer, says that that night—with eyes wide-open and lips sealed—he struggled to move his own body. Quickly, nightmarish hallucinations began taking over his auditory and sensory perceptions, blurring the line between dream and reality. Jackie Monoson can sympathize. But unlike Tan, who is new to the experience of sleep paralysis, Monoson, a video editor living in New York City, says she has experienced it on and off for several years now, especially during times of high stress.

Not long after her first few encounters, Monoson turned to the internet for help. Per the advice of an online sleep paralysis forum, during episodes, Monoson learned to focus on moving smaller muscles—like wiggling her toes—to break from the feeling of paralysis.

Sleep paralysis affects millions every year, and studies estimate that more than half of the global population will experience at least one episode in their lifetimes. Despite the prevalence, however, the disorder is poorly understood. Baland Jalal, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge and current fellow at Harvard University, says the lack of scientific research into sleep paralysis likely stems from a place of confusion—no one really knows what to make of it.

Now, though, neuroscientists like Jalal are diving in and discovering that there may be more to sleep paralysis and its opposite—known as REM sleep disorder—than we thought. What for many years has been brushed off as no more than a bad dream or perhaps a trick of the moonlight might help us unlock what happens in our brains during sleep. It happens when falling asleep or waking up. During an episode, a person becomes aware of their surroundings but is unable to move or speak. During a sleep cycle, which typically lasts one to two hours, our brains traverse five stages.

The first four make up non-rapid eye movement NREM sleep. The fifth and final stage is when REM takes place. It is also when sleep paralysis sets in.

REM, which occurs approximately 90 minutes into a sleep cycle, is when the brain is most active, producing the most vivid and emotionally-charged dreams.

The authors of that study note that the most common instances of sleep paralysis are hypnomesic, and that they usually take place after 1—3 hours from falling asleep. In fact, these visions and sensations can seem so realistic to many people that they may think that they are having a paranormal experience, or even being subjected to strange tests and rituals.

Another person spoke of a night-time assailant that takes pleasure in tormenting her in myriad ways. This is very frustrating, since all I want him to do is help me!

Given the intensity of these hallucinatory experiences, it may come as no surprise that researchers have repeatedly argued that hallucinations linked with sleep paralysis can be held responsible for many reports of magical events , sightings of ghouls and demons, and alien abductions. Although usually people with sleep paralysis report experiencing terrifying hallucinations, a happy few actually point to a state of bliss that makes them look forward to these episodes.

A study that was conducted by James Allan Cheyne, from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, suggests that the people who most often describe experiencing positive feelings and sensations during an episode of sleep paralysis are those who are prone to vestibular-motor hallucinations. Sometimes, Cheyne continues, feelings of bliss during sleep paralysis are derived from pleasant erotic sensations that arise from vestibular-motor hallucinations.

So, what happens in the body during an episode of sleep paralysis? Essentially, during the dream phase of sleep — known as the rapid eye movement REM phase — our skeletal muscles are paralyzed.

The reasons behind this are not fully understood, though researchers have been making progress in uncovering the mechanisms attached to this process. One popular theory posits that this temporary state of paralysis is meant to prevent us from hurting ourselves, perhaps in automatic response to some violent dream.

During sleep paralysis, paradoxically, our brains — or parts of our brains — become awake and conscious, but the rest of the body is still immobilized. At the same time, during sleep paralysis, many people experience dream visions and sensations as though they were real — hence the hallucinations — and the fact that they are, in fact, partly awake and conscious blurs the line between reality and dreams.