Dream Paralysis

Lately, I have had a few clients who reported that they have been having dream paralysis and have asked me to research it. The stories they tell me seem to follow similar patters. They describe themselves awake in the dream world for anywhere from a few seconds to 10 minutes, often experiencing hallucinations with dark undertones. As I researched this I found that cultures from everywhere from Newfoundland to the Caribbean to Japan have come up with spiritual explanations for the phenomenon.

Research strongly suggests that dream paralysis is related to REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, and in particular REM sleep that occurs at sleep onset. Shift work, jet lag, irregular sleep habits, overtiredness and sleep deprivation are all considered to be predisposing factors to sleep paralysis; this may be because such events disrupt the sleep–wake cycle, which can then cause [sleep-onset REM periods].In other words, you experience just a piece of REM sleep.

Humans tend to think about the elements of the different stages of sleep as packaged nicely together. So, in REM sleep, you’re unconscious, experiencing a variety of sensory experiences, and almost all of your muscles are paralyzed (atonia). But in reality you can disassociate those elements.

In sleep paralysis, two of the key REM sleep components are present, but you’re not unconscious.

Narcolepsy, which can be linked with sleep paralysis, has a similar pathology. For narcoleptics, some of the elements of rapid eye movement can “come out of nowhere”.Sleep paralysis was first identified within the scientific community by psychologist Weir Mitchell in 1876. He laid down this syntactically old-school, but accurate description of how it works. “The subject awakes to consciousness of his environment but is incapable of moving a muscle; lying to all appearance still asleep. He is really engaged in a struggle for movement fraught with acute mental distress; could he but manage to stir, the spell would vanish instantly.”

But the condition lived in folklore long before anyone tried to subject it to even semi-rigorous study. The various responses have fascinated some researchers and they were cataloged in the 2007 book, Tall Tales About the Mind and Brain. In Japan, the problem was termed kanashibar. In Newfoundland, people called it “the old hag.” In China, “ghost oppression” was the preferred nomenclature.

A study released in 2009, found that more than 90 percent of Mexican adolescents know the phrase “a dead body climbed on top of me” to describe the disorder. More than 25 percent of them had experienced it themselves.

David McCarty, a sleep researcher at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center’s Sleep Medicine Program, related the following personal experience he had, which prompted him to research sleep:

“Having an element of REM sleep mix with your consciousness is scarier than it sounds. I experienced sleep paralysis on several occasions when I was in college. I can testify: It’s run-to-your-mama scary. In my case, it would happen right as I was falling asleep on the two twin beds that I had taped together. The most vivid time, I 'woke up' with the uneasy feeling that something awful was to my left, on the border of my peripheral vision. I couldn’t really see it, but I knew that it was evil and coming closer to me. I felt true terror, like you experience when you are about to get in a car crash. I was sure it was going to hurt me.After a few minutes, I could finally move and took the opportunity to run across campus to a friend’s house and asked to sleep on the couch. With the lights on. It happened a few more times. Then, it just stopped. It hasn’t ever happened again. The good news, McCarty said, is that my experience is actually pretty standard. Sleep paralysis rarely persists or causes serious life damage. It’s very common, way more common than people realize, but usually it doesn’t recur, It’s not frequent enough to make people come in and ask the doctor for help.”