What is sleep paralysis?

Isolated sleep paralysis is a surprisingly common sleep disorder that occurs during the transition from sleep to wakefulness, either in the moments prior to falling asleep or at the moment of awakening. Whoever suffers it, awakens abruptly having full awareness of their thoughts but remaining physically paralyzed. As if the syndrome of closure is involved, the person feels trapped in his own body.

Although he can open his eyes, he is not able to emit sound or move any muscle, which generates a considerable sense of anguish and fear of suffering from an episode of a serious illness. As if that were not enough, in a state of limbo between sleep and wakefulness, the person usually suffers from auditory and visual hallucinations that usually coincide in an intense sensation of presence and movement around his indolent body.

This disorder is due to an abnormal intrusion of a state of REM (rapid eye movement) during a waking state: you are literally awake, but part of your brain is still engulfed in sleep. During the REM phase, the brain inhibits the movement of most of our muscles to prevent us from representing the dreams and injuring ourselves involuntarily, hence the body paralysis. It usually manifests in individuals with full mental health but subjected to high levels of stress, tiredness and jet lag, who reach the deep stage of sleep too quickly (before the first two hours) and who usually sleep on their backs. Getting enough rest often solves the problem. It only appears periodically in patients with anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Attacks often involve feelings of terror, anger and impending doom, since hallucinations are often sinister and malevolent. It is recurrent the vision of a grotesque being who sits on the chest and oppresses the breath. There is, however, no risk to life in any sense, since nothing we see and hear (and even smell) is real, and the paralysis gives in a few minutes, usually because of a vast effort to incorporate or Of the contact with another person who comes in alarm. Once awake at all, it is advisable to get up and move; Otherwise there is the possibility of experiencing a state of sleep paralysis again.

This cruel brain dysfunction occurs from time immemorial and is probably the explanation for many of the paranormal experiences that a good part of the population claims to have suffered after sunset.