Sleep Paralysis

Have you ever when sleeping, suddenly feel can not move your body even you finger whereas you try hard to wake up?  Want to scream but even for small sound is very hard to out? It means you are experiencing sleep paralysis.

Basen on wikipedia, sleep paralysis is a common condition characterized by transient partial or total paralysis of skeletal muscles and areflexia that occurs upon awakening from sleep or less often while falling asleep. Stimuli such as touch or sound may terminate the episode, which usually has a duration of seconds to minutes. This condition may occur in normal subjects or be associated with narcolepsy, cataplexy, and hypnagogic hallucinations. The pathophysiology of this condition is closely related to the normal hypotonia that occur during rapid eye moment sleep. 

Some people told this condition commonly together with hallucinations, like hearing noise voice and feel like seeing sightings or dark shadow which scary. That's why they said this condition is associated with supernatural and mystical. But according to medis, condition when people will going sleep or walking up they feel short of breath, stive, or even difficult to move and scream it called sleep paralysis. Almost of all people have experienced it at least once or twice in their life.

According to Al Cheyne who is a researcher from Waterloo University, Canada, Sleep Paralysis is like hallucination because there is malfunctions when someone in rapid eye movement phase.

Sleeping is divided on three phases, which are half conscious phase, sleep soundly phase, and rapid eye movement phase which someone is dreaming on this phase.

On sleep paralysis phase, someone don’t pass sleep soundlyphase but jump directly from half conscious phase then getting in to rapid eye movement phase. Thats why we feel like conscious and feel hearing some noises or even see scary sightings. The fact is we sleep and closing our eyes, and that case is only a dream.

Sleep paralysis could happen to everyone in the world, don't care it man or woman. Average age when the first time has this experience is between 14 until 17th years old. For your information, sleep paralysis commonly happen to someone who sleep on supine position.

There are some myths about sleep paralysis in some countries. For example in China, this situation is popular with the terms gui ya shen which mean ghost annoyance that suppress someone’s body. Whereas in turki, it called karabasan which be believed as creature that attack someone when sleeping and press their chest while taking their breath.

Believe to myth or medis, the fact is we surely have experience and it realy surprisingly at the first time. One thing we have to do to face this condition is staying relax and be calm, then make a little movement of your body little by little, and think that it just a dream and everything will be alright.