It may be helpful to have a better understanding of the symptoms of sleep paralysis. Knowing what's happening to you may give you comfort. For some people, it's enough to tolerate these infrequent episodes. For others, this information can help end triggers of sleep paralysis. If these episodes are especially disturbing to you, there are effective treatment options. Sleep paralysis happens when there's a glitch in your sleep, usually between REM sleep and waking up.
During sleep paralysis, you might hallucinate and think you're seeing, hearing, or feeling something that's isn't actually there. Sleep paralysis doesn't always happen often. Once you understand what it is and why it happens, you might forget about it. If it recurs persistently, consider ways to optimize your sleep. Make sure you're getting enough sleep with a regular sleep pattern.
Avoid alcohol in the hours before bedtime. It may also be helpful to try to sleep on your sides as much as possible. In some cases, you might have to do a sleep study.
This could find other factors that cause sleep fragmentation, like sleep apnea. If you need help, talk to a board-certified sleep doctor about your concerns.
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Sleep paralysis, a medical condition with a diverse cultural interpretation. Schizophr Bull. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellHealth.
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Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Sign Up. What are your concerns? Healthy sleep habits are not just necessary for sleep paralysis management, but for overall health and wellness. Read the article in Spanish.
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Causes Signs and symptoms Diagnosis Tips for better sleep Sleep paralysis is a feeling of being unable to move, either at the onset of sleep or upon awakening. Dreams, on the other hand, occur during sleep.
Hypnagogic hallucinations often cause confusion. This is because it can be hard to distinguish hallucination from reality. They create strong, intricate visual images in the mind that may be distorted in an unrealistic way. As a result, these hallucinations often cause fear. In some cases, they can even cause you to jump out of bed or accidentally injure yourself. Hallucinating is defined as perceiving the presence of an object or an event through any of the five senses sight, smell, taste, touch, or hearing without the actual object or event existing or occurring.
The defining symptom of a hypnagogic hallucination is imagining very realistic objects or events usually visually right before falling asleep. You may wake up in extreme fear that your hallucination was real. Auditory hallucinations are also common when the body is falling asleep. These hallucinations are more common when a person is under stress.
Examples include:. Severe cases of anxiety may produce more complex hallucinations. They may involve voices, which are sometimes associated with rapid thoughts. This can lead a person to believe the voices are real. Another common type of hallucination is the vision or sensation that bugs are crawling over your body.
This is most common in people who take or misuse certain drugs. Experiencing this sensation during sleep may cause a person to scratch, pick, or even cause harm to their body in an attempt to rid it from bugs.
Lucid dreams are very realistic dreams that occur when a person is asleep. Sleep paralysis is a separate condition from hypnagogic hallucinations. However, it may occur simultaneously. While sleep paralysis demons are definitely creepy, the explanation behind them is actually kind of boring. Sleep paralysis happens when you wake up during the dream phase of sleep. During this period, your brain turns off signals to the rest of your body to keep it from moving or acting out your dreams.
Vivid dream-like experiences, referred to as hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations, can seem real and are often frightening. During these hallucinations, you may see scary people or creatures near you or even lying in your bed. You might also see a distortion of something that really is there. For instance, the pile of clothes on your chair could turn into a person sitting there watching you sleep, or the light from your alarm clock could morph into a red-eyed monster.
When you sleep on your back, you may be more likely to be aroused from sleep or wake up during the dream phase, due to things like snoring and undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea. The following can also increase your chances of experiencing sleep paralysis and hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations:.
If you have frequent episodes or are finding them to be anxiety-inducing and disruptive to your daily life, talk with your healthcare provider.
Adrienne Santos-Longhurst is a Canada-based freelance writer and author who has written extensively on all things health and lifestyle for more than a decade. Sleep paralysis, or waking up with an inability to move or speak, can be anxiety-inducing but it isn't generally considered life-threatening.
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