During REM sleep, an interesting thing happens to our body: we become physically paralyzed. Most of the time we are unaware of it, because we are asleep and in the dream state. But occasionally a person will wake up and become consciously aware of the fact that they cannot move their body, and a state of fear and panic sets in. They are still able to move their eyes around, just as they do in REM sleep, but the body is paralyzed. It usually lasts anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, but that time can feel like a terrifying eternity.
It is believed that sleep paralysis is a protective mechanism so that we don’t physically act out our dreams; imagine the mess, bumps and bruises we would wake up to if we did! While most of the time the transition between sleeping and waking goes smoothly, it is estimated that anywhere from 20-30% of the world’s population will at some time experience the phenomenon of sleep paralysis.
The causes are generally unknown. For some people it may be triggered by factors such as increased stress, lack of sleep, a changing sleep schedule, sudden changes in lifestyle, use of certain medications, or substance abuse. For others, it can be associated with narcolepsy, or night time leg cramps. For most people there is no determining explanation.
While scary, it is only temporary, and for the majority of people it may happen once or twice in a lifetime and is nothing to worry about.
When I was a teenager I was able to learn to use sleep paralysis as a gateway to lucid dreams and out of body experiences. When I was a kid sleep paralysis was absolutely terrifying because I didn’t understand what it was. I thought I was some sort of freak and was afraid to approach adults about my experiences. But as I grew older I started going to the library to research the topic and realized that it was related to other strange, spontaneous phenomena, namely out of body experience and lucid dreaming, that I was experiencing. I soon learned to embrace these skills as gifts rather than abnormalities and have even learned to have OBEs and lucid dreams at will. As I grew into an adult, other concerns took over and I’d experienced fewer and fewer episodes of SP, OBE, and LD. Now I kinda miss them since I spend a third of my life sleeping, and I feel that a lot of that is going to waste if I cannot harness these abilities.