Isolated sleep paralysis is a surprisingly common sleep disorder that occurs during the transition between sleep and wakefulness, either in the moments before falling asleep or upon awakening. Those who suffer from it, wake up abruptly being fully aware of their thoughts but remaining physically paralyzed. As if it were the locked-in syndrome, the person feels trapped in their own body .
Although he can open his eyes, he is unable to make a sound or move any muscles, which generates a considerable sense of anguish and fear that he is suffering from an episode of serious illness. As if that were not enough, being in a state of limbo between sleep and wakefulness, the person often suffers auditory and visual hallucinations that generally coincide in an intense sensation of presence and movement around their indolent body.
This disorder is due to an abnormal intrusion of a REM (rapid eye movement) state during a waking state: you are literally awake, but part of your brain is still engulfed in sleep . During the REM phase, the brain inhibits the movement of most of our muscles to prevent us from acting out dreams and injuring ourselves involuntarily, hence body paralysis. It tends to appear on rare occasions in individuals with full mental health but subjected to high levels of stress, fatigue and jet lag, who reach the deep phase of sleep too quickly (before the first two hours) and who tend to sleep on their backs. Getting enough rest often solves the problem. It only appears periodically in patients with anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Attacks often involve feelings of terror, anger, and impending death, as hallucinations are often sinister and malevolent in nature . The vision of a grotesque being that sits on the chest and squeezes the breath is recurrent. There is, however, no risk to life in any sense, as nothing we see and hear (or even smell) is real, and the paralysis subsides within minutes, usually due to a vast effort to sit up or contact with another person who comes alarmed. Once fully awake, it is advisable to get up and move; otherwise there is the possibility of re-experiencing a state of sleep paralysis.
This cruel brain dysfunction has occurred since time immemorial and is probably the explanation for many of the paranormal experiences that a large part of the population claims to have suffered after sunset.
