Health & Medicine - Posted by A'ndrea Elyse Messer-Penn State on Friday, October 21, 2011 11:11 - 7 Comments 
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Some people who experience sleep paralysis enjoy associated sensations, but others have nightmarish hallucinations and may try to avoid sleep. Above: "The Nightmare," a 1781 oil painting by Anglo-Swiss artist Henry Fuseli. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
PENN STATE (US) — Students and psychiatric patients are more likely than others to experience sleep paralysis, a rare condition that can include hallucinations about alien abductions and demons.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
Sleep paralysis, a condition that affects less the 8 percent of the general population, is defined as “a discrete period of time during which voluntary muscle movement is inhibited, yet ocular and respiratory movements are intact,” according to a new study in the current issue of Sleep Medicine Reviews.
Some experts now suspect the townspeople involved in the Salem witch trials may have been experiencing sleep paralysis. And in the 19th-century novel Moby Dick, the main character Ishmael experiences an episode of sleep paralysis in the form of a malevolent presence in the room.
Some people who experience these episodes may regularly try to avoid going to sleep because of the unpleasant sensations they experience. But other people enjoy the sensations they feel during sleep paralysis, notes Brian A. Sharpless, clinical assistant professor of psychology at Penn State.
“I realized that there were no real sleep paralysis prevalence rates available that were based on large and diverse samples,” Sharpless says. “So I combined data from my previous study with 34 other studies in order to determine how common it was in different groups.”
He looked at a total of 35 published studies from the past 50 years to find lifetime sleep paralysis rates. These studies surveyed a total of 36,533 people. Overall he found that about one-fifth of these people experienced an episode at least once. Frequency of sleep paralysis ranged from once in a lifetime to every night.
When looking at specific groups, 28 percent of students reported experiencing sleep paralysis, while nearly 32 percent of psychiatric patients reported experiencing at least one episode. People with panic disorder were even more likely to experience sleep paralysis, and almost 35 percent of those surveyed reported experiencing these episodes. Sleep paralysis also appears to be more common in non-Caucasians.
“Sleep paralysis should be assessed more regularly and uniformly in order to determine its impact on individual functioning and better articulate its relation to other psychiatric and medical conditions,” Sharpless says.
He looked at a broad range of samples—papers were included from several different countries.
People experience three basic types of hallucinations during sleep paralysis—the presence of an intruder, pressure on the chest sometimes accompanied by physical and/or sexual assault experiences, and levitation or out-of-body experiences.
There has been little research conducted on how to alleviate sleep paralysis or whether or not people experience episodes throughout their lives.
“I want to better understand how sleep paralysis affects people, as opposed to simply knowing that they experience it,” says Sharpless. “I want to see how it impacts their lives.”
Sharpless hopes to look at relationships between sleep paralysis and post-traumatic stress disorder in the future.
Jacques P. Barber, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, contributed to the research, which was supported in part by the National Institute of Mental Health.
More news from Penn State: http://live.psu.edu/
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7 Comments
Dunemi
Many eastern cultures consider this phenomenon as body being occupied by different spirit (aka ghost), and they should know it’s explainable from medical point of view.
picklechick
I don’t understand how you survive sleep paralysis with out dyeing of a panic attack or having a life long burden of phobias and fear.
Dunemi
@picklechick – My experience was that the panic feeling I had during the paralysis stage, and my certainty that someone was going to abduct me, would leave me when I “woke up” all the way. So the carry-over into my normal life was fairly minimal.
I wrote above that this only happened in my late teens, but the more I think about it, I’ve had “unusual” sleep patterns my whole life. Even as an adult I sometimes start dreaming before I lose consciousness – it’s like the dream visuals/sounds are superimposed on the reality of my bedroom. When I realize that it’s happening I’ll close my book and turn off my light and go to sleep properly. People who have been present on these occasions have noticed me talking or reacting to the dream, and asked me questions about it, and all of the sudden I’ll realize that I’m half in a dream and half in reality. But, it’s like the opposite of the sleep paralysis. I can talk and move a little, and I don’t feel trapped or fearful at all.
I suspect that many people have these sorts of transitions into and out of sleep, but they just don’t remember them. I mean, look how many people don’t remember their dreams!
picklechick
Thanks I have sleep problems like not being able to fall asleep, waking up randomly 20 times a night and not remembering when some one woke me up previously before I actually get up. Also i am very paranoid about abduction and kidnapping and murder so hearing this has really shaken me.I noticed that I do start to “day dream” I call it, right before I go to sleep then I snap out of it and sleep but i have never experienced that kind of hallucination I usually think of my day and is become a bit of a “day dream.”… I’m glad to hear that your normal every day life is not greatly effected.
verwirrung
I experienced sleep paralysis with hallucinations in my early 20s on a nightly basis, but then it subsided. I still sometimes experience it during daytime napping. I’m aware I’m asleep, try to wake myself up by moving, but can’t. I imagine that I’ve succeeded in moving, but then discover that I actually haven’t! After awhile, it becomes frustrating rather than scary. I suspect medications with a sedative effect may contribute…
demon sitting on a humans’s chest is my association of sleep paralysis. I learned about this paralysis form and some stories about this is really scary
I used to have sleep paralysis when I was in my late teenage years. I would awaken, paralyzed, with the deep suspicion that someone was in my room to “take me”. It didn’t comfort me at all that my sister slept in the same room because I deeply felt that no one could help me. Once I was fully awake and mobile, I would feel much better, but then I would often become paralyzed again as I fell asleep. Sometimes it would happen over and over. But then I out-grew it, and it hasn’t happened in many years. It was very interesting as an experience, though.