Talk:Sleep paralysis

Name?

This article is about Awareness during Sleep Paralysis (ASP), and while I've seen many places where people call it just 'Sleep Paralysis', I believe that is a form of shorthand. The full name more properly describes the phenomena, and distinguishes it from normal REM atonia. --Telecart (talk) 18:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Most scientific literature refers to ASP as simply "Sleep Paralysis", as it only physiologically similar to muscle atonia. SP is essentially a sleep pathology. Am I understanding your statement correctly? Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 18:28, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Common experiences

From personal experience and articles I've read elsewhere, I thought that there was a frequent association between sleep paralysis and dreams of a black figure - I can see a lot of people describing these experiences in results for a google search of 'sleep paralysis "black figure"', but was wondering if anyone's aware of a formal citation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.27.38.40 (talk) 02:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

cleaning up talk page

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Sleep paralysis article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.

Can we just remove those comments? maybe move them? The S/N is getting pretty high here. Kl4m 04:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the recommended Wiki course of action is simply to archive the heck out of this discussion page and 'start over'. But personally, I hope Wiki in general would give a little slack to this discussion page since it -is- such an intense topic. I've had it before and it isn't fun at all. Lots42 13:21, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

There, how's that? We can't keep all the issues here forever. Archiving makes them still available, but this (now shorter) page more accessible to the greatest number of users. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 11:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

What about OBE's? What about felt presences?

Why is there no mention of the effects of SP that the sufferer experiences? The majority of experiences report at least one of the following: out of body experience, loud buzzing in the ears, pressure on the body as if being pushed into the bed, malevolent presence, extreme feeling of dread...

How can you have an article on SP without its non-physical effects? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.131.71.70 (talk) 16:20, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Globalize tag

I've marked a section globalize/USA because of this fragment: "... in African-Americans panic disorder often co-occurs with sleep paralysis." The article African-American itself discusses at length the intended referents of the term, but the conclusion seems to be that it refers to people living in the USA who have some black African ancestry. There are several possibilities about the sleep paralysis statement:

1. it co-occurs with panic disorder in Africans and people of African descent
2. it for some reason only occurs in such people when they live in the USA
3. it's only been studied in the USA

Probably it should be stated which holds. Thayvian 04:20, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear that the article is referring to people of african extraction in the USA. It's in the first couple of paragraphs

62.31.228.92 (talk) 20:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

reference not found - see LOC and WorldCat

Provide ISBN to the "Notes"

• Parker Johnston, states after his encounter with sleep paralysis, "I can tell you right now, if I hadn't read about this type of thing earlier, mainly the part about the hallucinations, and known exactly what was going on, what was causing it and what to expect, this would've easily been one of the most nightmarish experiences of my life" and goes on to say that "knowing is half the battle".

Jclerman 11:22, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Nothing more than a dream

In my experience I find it difficult not to panic even though i know that it's just a dream. Recently, I find myself avoiding the actual seperation (i.e. mind and body) by turning over. I don't how to describe it, yet i feel my body sink gradually and immediately turn over as this feeling semi-wakes me. it generaaly occurs when i'm stressed and sleeping on my back.Fabulus (talk) 22:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I dispute the claim made in the article that "More often than not, sleep paralysis is believed by the person affected by it to be no more than a dream". There's no citation and "it's only a dream" has not been my experience or the experience of anyone I've ever read about. My experience is that SP is so potent because it doesn't feel like a dream and it takes a great deal of mental self-convincing to decide that it really was just a dream and not, for example, a reason to sleep with the lights on and a knife under the pillow and perhaps a nice exorcism of the surrounding area (just in case). --TheCynic (talk) 19:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

No, it definitely doesn't feel "like a dream" to the person experiencing it. It feels like being physically attacked or suffocated. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 20:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Of course this is all anecdotal - But I concur - I have never mistaken the phenomena for a "dream" - I am fully aware and panic internally. Wisdom89 (talk) 20:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I know it isn't a dream because I can defeat the paralysis when it happens to me. I take the slowest deepest breath and then I force it out as hard as I can while physically trying to move as hard as I can. Usually, I flail my arm and my body "snaps to." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.168.15.166 (talk) 02:35, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I experience this quite frequently. Often I'll be awake, but unable to move. It sometimes feels like I can't breathe either. It is the scariest thing, especially as you almost have to force your body out of it, I sometimes find this painful almost. I perspirate with the effort of moving out of it, and worst of all, if my mouth and nose are partially covered by my pillow, I feel like I'm about to suffocate. Hypnogogia is one of the scariest things I've ever encountered, simply because you are literally unable to do anything about it. Wissam24 (talk) 12:30, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I only get this when I am sleeping under the Supine position. Theseven7 (talk) 23:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I remember as a child falling in dreams from scaling a cliff or from a rail-less balcony, and waking up as I impact. The funny thing is, I distinctly recall at least once being in anticipation of that seized chest sensation as I slowly fell, overshadowing the mild relief at realizing that my fatal descent wasn't reality and I'd be in bed shortly. --Falos (talk) 15:10, 1 October 2008 (UTC) It is more than a dream.

It is not nothing more than a dream.There is a new </ref>hypothesis on scribd, 'A way to clean the human body and mind?" says it is purly external. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Molngl (talk • contribs) 17:44, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

When I regain use of my body, I recognize the paralysis to be the end stage, or result, of a dream. During the episode I fear suffocation and am usually trying to scream or call out for help but can't. I can often see objects in front of me - pillows or lights, but I can't move at all, nor can I force my face into a position to take a breath. Hallucinations are common, but they seem to be an extension of what I was dreaming about.Dallasmax (talk) 20:18, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Observations: sleep paralysis while asleep

Tripping in a dream

I just encountered an xkcd comic[1] that duplicates my own personal experience, and which I assume can't be too uncommon - while in normal people sleep paralysis prevents all normal walking motions, when reacting to a stumble the mechanism seems to be bypassed. I've been woken a dozen times myself this way, from the sensation produced after actually moving in response to a dreamed stumble (though I suppose I can't rule out that some spasm only occurring while asleep simply resembles a stumble and is interpreted as such in the dream just prior to causing wakefulness, though it seems less likely)

Is paralysis a misnomer?

To me the word "paralysis" seems altogether inappropriate for this situation. Far from going limp, the muscles work, sometimes overwork, to maintain a fixed position. Perhaps this phenomenon once served to hold our ancestors safely in trees? I remember one occasion during which I took a moment to rest my eyes while reading a textbook, and held it open, balanced on the flat of my hand. Two hours later I was awakened when it fell on me. It is possible for this to cause muscle soreness, should I happen to fall asleep while in the process of trying to get up out of bed or holding up bedding in my arms, for example, and I assume that the phenomenon of a "stiff neck" happens the same way for people who experience it often. I assume also it is the means by which storied sleeping Western gunslingers kept weapons or treasure firmly in hand, if such stories are based in reality.

Anaesthetic properties

The ability of this phenomenon to cause soreness depends on the lack of sensation. Actually, it has been my perception that a broad variety of aches and pains one might have before falling asleep are relieved while this is active.

Not all or nothing

I've noticed that upon awakening, it seems I can retain the "paralysis" in some limbs and not others, simply by not choosing to put forward the mental effort to initialize their movement at first. I haven't put this to any rigorous experiment, but it would seem to be a useful way of narrowing down the biological mechanisms.

Of course, I can't dump comic strips and unsourced musings into the article, but perhaps better info will turn up. Wnt (talk) 00:14, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Did you have anything to contribute to the article? Personal experiences are original research and can't be used in articles. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 13:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

As I said... but perhaps observations of this type are tucked away in some of the published literature, so I mentioned these things in the hope I'd jog someone's memory. They're not the sort of thing you can search for quickly at NCBI. Sorry... Wnt (talk) 04:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Added my workaround

After many years of waking up terrified as a child thanks to this condition, I realized that it never occured when I slept in a particular way. Have not had a bad night for about a decade. Added a short sentence to the Treatment section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.33.11.70 (talk) 19:45, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but we cannot accept information based on personal observations, as that would be original search.--Drat (Talk) 22:23, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

A study charting a very strong link between paralysis and the supine pose is accessible via one of the article's existing references ( http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/prevent.html ). Given the amount of trauma that knowledge of such details could conceivably prevent, maybe more detailed coverage of this article's findings is in order. K2709 (talk) 17:25, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Affected famous people

-Napoleon Bonaparte-Quote: "Ah, my friend, I have had a frightful dream; a bear was tearing open my breast, and devouring my heart!" told his servant. 71.99.110.187 (talk) 13:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, but is it paralysis? I'd classify this as Shamanic dismemberment experience. K2709 (talk) 22:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Another workaround

I suffered from this quite often before I was diagnosed and treated for sleep apnea. I found that if I crossed my eyes, the sensation would stop immediately. Should/can I add this to the article? It may help some people. If so, then where in the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.245.37.82 (talk) 19:51, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry but no, as it would be original research. If you can find a reliable source that has written about it, however, you can add the info and cite the source.--Drat (Talk) 06:22, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I understand now. Thanks for the insight Drat!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.245.37.82 (talk • contribs)

Lucid Dreams Associated with Sleep Paralysis

Can something be added about lucid dreams associated with sleep paralysis? When I relax during an episode and just 'go with it' instead of fighting it, I often fall into a sleeping dreamstate where I am aware that I'm dreaming and that my body is at home in sleep paralysis mode. The dreams are vivid and intense and I am totally lucid and have partial control over what is happening. The dreams are often highly symbolic with themes such as my own personal power and ability to overcome beings/people who try to exert control over me. I have always won so far. Anyway, I've heard other people on various sleep paralysis forums discuss this connection between sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.13.78.54 (talk) 18:32, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

You can't use your personal experiences as sources in the article. These things need to have been written about by reliable, independent sources, otherwise you'll be engaging in original research.--Drat (Talk) 18:53, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I dont know how to format my comment properly (can someone fix it please), but I would like to say this can be most important information about SP. I found this article by reading about lucid dreams and when I saw this page, I made completely wrong conclusion! What I can say from my experience is that SP is a fear of lucid dreams and/or astral projections. If you have it, you should get rid of it ASAP and have a nice life. There's no real reason to be afraid of it and you shouldn't trust them when they say its a ghost or witch or demon or evil spirit...

BTW Google both phrases: "Lucid Dreams" "Sleep Paralysis" and you will have ~10K results, so I would say that these terms are connected even I don't know about reliable sources. 83.12.183.178 (talk) 15:37, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

If you had a point, I missed it. Did you have anything to discuss about the article? — Frecklefσσt | Talk 20:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

wrong citation in note 16

note 16 says something about clonazepame being a good treatment for sleep paralysis and refers to Wills, L., & Garcia, J. (2002, December). Parasomnias: Epidemiology and Management. CNS Drugs, 16(12), 803-810. First of all, the citation is incomplete as you can see from the correct citation above. Secondly, I am looking at the article right now and clonazepame is only suggested for Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep Behaviour Disorder (RBD) and disorders of arousal. Both have in common that people MOVE without wanting to while sleep-onset paralysis is about being not able to move when wanting to. I am rewriting the note on how to treat citing this article correctly.

Removed: Paralysis alleviation

Many sufferers report that when in a state of sleep paralysis, focusing on moving a single body part, e.g. tip of index finger, then finger, then hand, etc, quickly alleviates the paralysis in an accelerated fashion.

I'm sure I've got refs for this somewhere so have fished it out to stop it getting lost. Googling "sleep paralysis finger" certainly backs it up so scientific sources probably aren't too hard to find. K2709 (talk) 17:27, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Folklor

Hi, I'm Polish and in our folklor we call it "zmora". When somebody have 7 daughters, the last one is "her". Zmora during he day is beautiful, but seams absent, but during the night she ripps her cloths, pleats horses' tails and attacks someone, who did something wrong to her, eg. a man, who didn't find her attractive or chose some other woman, or the very woman, which was chosen instead of her. There should be something in old, Polish books, so you could verify this. That's quite old story. Oh, and you can sleep straight with your face up. Aldona, 19/05/09 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.94.82.65 (talk) 17:38, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Potential Contradiction to SOME of the Sleep Paralyzed People...

131.191.69.28 (talk) 00:25, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Andrew Frisina 06/04/09 "I cant remember if I was asleep or wake but I did see something it looked like shadows of people on the wall lined up, and was feeling like I couldn't breathe like a pressure on top of me . I looked up on the ceiling and there was a shadow with a sneaky smile and I said leave me alone go away and they were gone. I am Catholic and I believe in god , Jesus and it seems like when I go to church a few days later is when I have a bad dream, or I awake with an uncomfortable feeling, I feel scared like someone is watching me, and when I try to go to sleep and turn my head towards the left I hear like a light flick on the wall wall when IIturn my head the other way and I hear it on the other wall. I haven't gone to church in months, but I still pray and believe. Strange. maybe this is all in my mind, maybe I am nuts."

From Strange Things Anywhere I go

Either way, it was from awhile ago, but it was still one of the real experiences nonetheless. I think one of the experiences on that same page (if I remember correctly) was actually a case of sleep paralysis, and there may've been a few other cases of sleep paralysis amidst these, but nonetheless. Besides, apparently ghosts suck energy or whatever out of their surroundings, so it's possible there are other things they are capable of doing...

(as good music vibrations are capable of changing around the bodies physiology and/or chemical distribution or whatever and other such things, and bad music is also capable of things, but really good and bad are being used subjectively here, not from the PoV of a creator)

... capable of doing other things we are not aware of, such as mess around with the brain signals that are occuring. Anything is possible, is it not?

From the same site... (theshadowlands.net)

"This is not a personal experience, but my brother told me the story and I can vouch for his credibility. My brother made artificial rock work for water features and pools. He went to go do a job for a guy on a farm near Tabazimbi, South Africa. He wasn't staying in the main house but was staying in a sort of servant lodging outside the house, which was a big old house in itself. He woke up in the early hours of the morning to the sound of somebody very hard at work. If you know my brother you should know that it takes a BIG racket to wake him. Any way he tried to ignore this noise and go back to sleep, but it wouldn't go away. Till the point where he lost his temper. Who the hell works at this time of morning anyways when people are trying to sleep? He said he could distinctly hear the sound of sawing wood, as well as someone hitting in nails and all sorts of sounds associated with wood-work. When he got up to quiet the person, he could not find the location of the noise. At first he thought it was the foreman in his room but when getting to his room he had already passed the sound. When he walked back the way he came it sounded like it was coming from his room. And getting there he passed it again. After about 15 min of searching he decided to give up and go back to bed. The next morning at the breakfast table he enquired the house owners to who was making that noise last night, and what they were building at that time? To which they answered "oh, you heard Him"! Apparently there is some ghost that shows up all over the farm in the old buildings, doing some sort of woodwork. Nobody has actually seen him but they hear him quite often, working away. Maybe it's some person who really wanted to build something but died before they could complete it, and is now restless to complete their project. I do believe that there is a spiritual world that we don't know anything about, except that it's there. All religions on earth believes this to some degree or another. I also believe that there are other spiritual beings in existence, good and evil. Ghosts? Maybe some of them are ghosts, but there is also beings that never lived lives on this planet, that were "created" in spiritual form. All religions talks of them too. But I think my brother's experience, and most of those written on these pages are those of ghosts "ex-living people"." From Working Ghost

"When I was about 7 or 8 I saw a little boy that was at least 6. He Had Brown Hair And It Was Short But Old Fashion. He was all white and glowing white. he stood at my door faceing me while i was sleeping. The thing that is odd about is that I don't know how I woke up in the middle of the night. I was toooo frightened to look at the boy, so I pulled the Covers over my head and tryed not to think of it and fell asleep and kept the cover's over my head till I did." From Scary

"Really very simple, i havent had the misfortune of seeing my "GHOST", but on two seperate occasions, while sleeping in my sons room I was awakened unable to breath. And it felt like something was wrapped around my neck. Once I got my composure It went away except for an eerie chiil the air. Noone else in the house has had any unexplained expeiriences other than myself, needless to say I dont sleep in my sons room anymore." From Choking —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.191.69.28 (talk) 00:46, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Paralysis

Unsolicited good faith contribution of a primary source testimony. Whether or not this ends up helping the article, it is not obviously intended as a bad faith edit nor is gross negligence shown by this edit. WP:NEWCOMER. And speaking personally, as a human being, that was an incredibly dickish thing to do, to delete without counsel, explanation, or even comment, this person's hard-earned story given to us in the spirit of a desire to share information, Wisdom89. The following information Restored by Anarchangel (talk) 17:02, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

The above information Restored by Anarchangel (talk) 17:02, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

No offense, Anarchangel, but what does the experience add to the article? It's someone's first-hand experience, with no references or anything verifiable. It reads like a very accurate description of some sleep paralysis sessions, but none of it can be added to the article.

For the record, I did not remove the content and am not inclined to do so. I simply would've commented on what talk pages are really for: improving the article. But Wisdom89 did explain why he removed the content: "this is not a forum". — Frecklefσσt | Talk 17:21, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I am not obligated to to thoroughly explain such actions as I indicated the rationale in the edit summary. This is not a WP:FORUM. This isn't the place to chat about personal experience, and I think you know that. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 20:31, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

dose it run through familys

dose Sleep paralysis run through family's, cuz 2 of my brothers have had it once or twice and my mom had it once but I have had it many time too many to count. I have had sleep paralysis for a long time, the first time that I can remember was when I was 7 yrs old and it lasted about 30sec. and then it didnt happen again till I was 12yr but it happened at least 1 to 2 times a week till I was 15 and then maybe every three to four months till I was about 17 and my mom passed away and I had it less like every six months till I got married and since I have only had it once.... I also wont to know if there is any one else that has had it a lot like me? I hate it and it makes me paranoid and scared to go to sleep I will cry for hours after words, is there also anything I can do to make sure that it goes away?

                                                   24.177.178.160 (talk) 06:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)Mara Smedley24.177.178.160 (talk) 06:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

inaccurate analysis of Chinese character

Under Folklore, the analysis of the character 魇 in the sentence below is incorrect, or at the least very misleading:

A more modern term is "夢魘/梦魇" (pinyin: mèng yǎn); notice that the character "魘/魇" (pinyin: yǎn) is composed of "厭/厌" (pinyin: yàn), "to detest", and "鬼" (pinyin: guǐ), "ghost, demon".

In the character 魘/魇, the 厭/厌 component is the phonetic element, i.e. it suggests the pronunciation of the character. 鬼 is the semantic element. To use the standard term, 魘/魇 is a phono-semantic compound. I just confirmed this with a dictionary. The analysis in the article implies that the 厭/厌 component contributes in some way to the meaning, which is false. Especially given this fact, any analysis of this character is of no intrinsic interest. I have thus been bold and removed the incorrect information.

--ZheXueJia (talk) 01:54, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Questions

I'm curious why it doesn't mention sleep paralysis not affecting the eyes. Hence, you being able to open them and look around and realise you can't move. Also, does the paralysis only affect your mind rather than your body, since your only half awake and half asleep and you can't control your body, like you wouldn't be able to when your asleep. That could explain why dreams mesh with reality. Its similar to drunks saying they see things when they are seperated from their senses and the mind is open to influence. Also why is the Folklore section not called the Theory section. The reasons they put out are based on their folklore, but the events aren't fiction.