Aroona Kunwor, Khce
27 JUNE 2017
If the answer is "NO", then I pray that you never had one, ever in your lifetime. For those whose answer is "YES", dont worry. It's not that serious and devastating disorder of your body though. In medical language, it is called 'Sleep Paralysis'.
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| Fig:Drammatic depiction of sleep paralysis |
Yes, there are some, not so serious disorders that some percentage of people of the world are going through, right at the moment. One such is 'Sleep Paralysis'. The question may arise in the statement yet again. If the disorder is itself not serious, what makes it so special? Well, the few minutes of extreme terror and anxiety, one goes through while having sleep paralysis, and most specially a 'believe not' paradoxical state of wakefulness in sleep is what makes it distinct, likely to be avoided by all. The feeling is horror that you feel like tons of weight is upon your chest, someone is strangling your throat and, the more your urgency to bring back the mobility in your body increases, the more likely you are to remain helpless.
So, how does a sleep paralysis occur?
So, how does a sleep paralysis occur?
To know detail about the mechanism of sleep paralysis, it is more important to know about the sleep mechanism of our body at first. In human's sleep, there are two phases.
During sleep, we are continuously shifting from REM sleep to nREM sleep. nREM sleep is the state when our body muscles are fairly relaxed. We remain dreamless at this sleep.
REM sleep is the phase where we visualize vivid dreams and it generally lasts for about 90-120 minutes. The longevity of the phase depends on age. REM accounts for 20-25% of adults sleep while it accounts for 80% in newly born child. As the abbreviation suggests, REM sleep defines a rapid side to side intermittent motion of eye. We literally dream at this stage. There is high energy consumption in our body ,along with high oxygen consumption by brain often higher than when we are awake or we are solving complex problem. But the major drawback of REM stage when related to sleep paralysis is that our muscles remain totally inactive. Naturally, the body's mechanism to keep our muscles inactive during REM sleep is to make sure that the person wont be able to act out dreams with body, since REM is all about dreams and dreams are all about actions and emotions. However, anyhow, we wake up before going to REM sleep or before completion of REM sleep, we become unable to move as muscles mobility hasn't turned back yet. This actually is the point when sleep paralysis occurs.
According to Wikipedia, sleep paralysis is a phenomenon, during which an individual is unable to move during falling asleep or awakening, but is aware of their surrounding.
The major factors governing the sleep paralysis are believed to be sleep deprivation, depression, anxiety and even due to sleeping in supine position. Person suffering from narcolepsy and other mental diseases are likely to suffer from this disorder.
However, there are different myths and superstitious beliefs in different parts of countries which existed even prior to identification of this disorder as 'Sleep Paralysis'. The name varies with variation in cultural background.
In Italy it is known as Pandafeche attack. Pandafeche means evil witch.
In Cambodia, people often take it as 'the ghost pushes you down'. They have an entail belief in dangerous visitation from deceased relatives.
In Egypt, it is often termed as terrifying Jinn attack. Jinn are known for evil genies which may terrorize and even kill victim.
Similarly, in United States, the disorder is often interpreted as Space Alien abduction. In south Asian countries like Nepal, it is believed to be Chhal, which is an evil control of witch or soul of deceasedpeople who died specially by committing suicide
In whatever ways sleep paralysis may be interpreted in the world, the most important thing is its existence and ways that can likely be adopted to go easy with it, besides knowing the fact that there are no medical treatments to the disorder.
By reading the experiences and feelings of large number of sleep paralyzed, and myself including, what I can suggest to the sufferers is that, the more we tend to force ourselves to struck it off, the more it persists. So we need to take it as light as possible. Just love the way it comes, gets over your body and then leaves in tranquility. You need to have belief that it doesn't KILL YOU. Some even suggests that since it attacks chest and throat, all you need to do is shift your focus to somewhere else, as toe. Most of the suffers tell that wiggling your toe gently works sometime. I personally think that that more you resist the attack, more it dominates your body and much longer it persists. so trying to remain as calm apossible can work best to get rid of it much quicker.
There are numbers of documentaries and movies about sleep paralysis. One such documentary is 'The
Nightmare ', 2015. You may watch it and understand it more relevantly.
- nREM (non Rapid Eye Movement) sleep
- REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep
During sleep, we are continuously shifting from REM sleep to nREM sleep. nREM sleep is the state when our body muscles are fairly relaxed. We remain dreamless at this sleep.
REM sleep is the phase where we visualize vivid dreams and it generally lasts for about 90-120 minutes. The longevity of the phase depends on age. REM accounts for 20-25% of adults sleep while it accounts for 80% in newly born child. As the abbreviation suggests, REM sleep defines a rapid side to side intermittent motion of eye. We literally dream at this stage. There is high energy consumption in our body ,along with high oxygen consumption by brain often higher than when we are awake or we are solving complex problem. But the major drawback of REM stage when related to sleep paralysis is that our muscles remain totally inactive. Naturally, the body's mechanism to keep our muscles inactive during REM sleep is to make sure that the person wont be able to act out dreams with body, since REM is all about dreams and dreams are all about actions and emotions. However, anyhow, we wake up before going to REM sleep or before completion of REM sleep, we become unable to move as muscles mobility hasn't turned back yet. This actually is the point when sleep paralysis occurs.
According to Wikipedia, sleep paralysis is a phenomenon, during which an individual is unable to move during falling asleep or awakening, but is aware of their surrounding.
The major factors governing the sleep paralysis are believed to be sleep deprivation, depression, anxiety and even due to sleeping in supine position. Person suffering from narcolepsy and other mental diseases are likely to suffer from this disorder.
However, there are different myths and superstitious beliefs in different parts of countries which existed even prior to identification of this disorder as 'Sleep Paralysis'. The name varies with variation in cultural background.
In Italy it is known as Pandafeche attack. Pandafeche means evil witch.
In Cambodia, people often take it as 'the ghost pushes you down'. They have an entail belief in dangerous visitation from deceased relatives.
In Egypt, it is often termed as terrifying Jinn attack. Jinn are known for evil genies which may terrorize and even kill victim.
Similarly, in United States, the disorder is often interpreted as Space Alien abduction. In south Asian countries like Nepal, it is believed to be Chhal, which is an evil control of witch or soul of deceasedpeople who died specially by committing suicide
In whatever ways sleep paralysis may be interpreted in the world, the most important thing is its existence and ways that can likely be adopted to go easy with it, besides knowing the fact that there are no medical treatments to the disorder.
By reading the experiences and feelings of large number of sleep paralyzed, and myself including, what I can suggest to the sufferers is that, the more we tend to force ourselves to struck it off, the more it persists. So we need to take it as light as possible. Just love the way it comes, gets over your body and then leaves in tranquility. You need to have belief that it doesn't KILL YOU. Some even suggests that since it attacks chest and throat, all you need to do is shift your focus to somewhere else, as toe. Most of the suffers tell that wiggling your toe gently works sometime. I personally think that that more you resist the attack, more it dominates your body and much longer it persists. so trying to remain as calm apossible can work best to get rid of it much quicker.
There are numbers of documentaries and movies about sleep paralysis. One such documentary is 'The
Nightmare ', 2015. You may watch it and understand it more relevantly.
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