Sleep Paralysis: Petrifying Hallucinations, Waking Nightmares, Silent Screams

I’VE GOT A DATE WITH THE NIGHT
It was during one of her late nights that Jill did a search for “out-of-body experiences” which is what she believed was happening to her. Suddenly it all started to make sense, and instead of panicking during her SP episodes—which she knew from experience would come to an end sooner or later and leave her unharmed—she began to embrace and attempt to prolong them.

Jill eventually spoke to a medical doctor about what was happening. He said it was anxiety, and referred her to a therapist who then referred her to a psychiatrist who diagnosed her with an anxiety disorder. Because she was having panic attacks as well, she was put on the anti-depressant Prozac.

According to Cheyne a number of medications, usually those affecting the neurotransmitter serotonin, appear to reduce or eliminate SP episodes. Several people who have been both on and off anti-depressants have reported corresponding decreases and increases in SP episodes.

Jill no longer gets panic attacks. She also hasn’t had an SP episode since she began the medication.

But for those who live with and even cultivate their sleep experiences, it does no harm.

“Aside from many of the very disturbing features of the experience itself,” reports Cheyne, “the phenomenon is quite benign.”

General medical research shows SP will last from a few seconds to maybe a few minutes. Of course, since reality is so foggy during an SP epsiode, it can often feel like hours.

And the illusion of evil is just that—an illusion.

“The reality is that SP causes a situation where fear and terror are induced by the very condition you wake up in,” reports Gilbert. “Being immobilized with a sudden choking feeling plus hallucinations, of course the brain’s natural reaction to this is to panic.”

If you want to avoid SP episodes, the general consensus among researchers and sufferers alike is to sleep on your stomach and avoid stress.

“In our own work we have found that lying [on your back] is five times more likely during sleep paralysis that it is during normal sleep,” reports Cheyne, who says 60 percent of sleep paralysis cases are reported when people are sleeping on their backs.

Other possible causes of SP are: shift work, jet lag, irregular sleep habits, heredity, a lack of sleep, a sleep schedule that changes, mental conditions such as anxiety or bipolar disorder, other sleep problems such as narcolepsy, use of certain medications, substance abuse, excessive drinking, and eating before sleep.

Some say that trying to move fingers, toes and eyelids—the only parts of the body which remain mobile during SP—could help snap you out of it. And if that is not possible, trying “mental movements” or moving your body in your mind, if you’re unable to do so physically, has also been said to end an SP episode. There are even studies concluding that concentrating and focusing on the area around the belly button could also interrupt an intense episode. But the cures for sleep paralysis resemble the cures for hiccups. What one person swears works may not work for another. But Leah, who hasn’t had an episode in five months, isn’t concerned enough to take any precautions.

“I would have done anything to stop it, but I’m used to it now,” she says. “I don’t think of it as a disorder or a problem anymore. I mean how many other people can say they’ve truly lived their dreams?” she asks, laughing.

“I can.”

*Some last names have been omitted for privacy reasons.

Inside the Online Sisterhood of Eating Disorders