Imagine trying to go to sleep and instead of dreaming of puppies or falling in love, you’re half-awake and terrified because there’s a creature by your bedside that looks like Coraline’s evil mom. I’ve been having sleep paralysis for a long time. I’m not exactly positive when it started but it’s definitely been happening since early in my childhood. I remember being afraid to sleep or even take naps. I don’t know why this was a common occurrence for me but I would often get sleep paralysis whenever I tried to nap. It got to a point where I just wouldn’t take naps because I was afraid of it happening. It’s rare for me to even be able to fall asleep during the day and it’s even more rare for me to be able to take a normal nap.
I don’t think about my sleep paralysis too often and, for a long time, I didn’t realize what it was. I just registered it as another dream and was unaware that I was half-awake. I didn’t realize I was experiencing sleep paralysis until I watched a Netflix show, The Haunting of Hill House. This is a thriller-type series and at one point a main character experience’s sleep paralysis and I thought, “Wait, that happens to me too!” It was an eye-opening event and from that point on, I realized that it was not what I thought it was more common than I believed. One day, I looked it up and, apparently, one of the main reasons it happens is because your sleeping schedule is off. While this makes sense, it’s kind of rude that it makes sleeping harder during a time when you need it the most. But since I haven’t research further than that I’d be interested in learning even more about sleep paralysis.
A few months ago, I was really into trying to figure out what my dreams meant and there are all sorts of ways to look that up. One of the most interesting things that I found is about car symbolism. They can mean all sorts of things depending on what kind of car, who is driving, what direction it’s going, and how many cars there are. I remember once I had a dream about a homeless man and I looked up what it meant. It talked about how you might be worried about your finances and the dream happened right when I was trying to decide what school I wanted to go to! I thought that since sleep paralysis is still technically a dream, maybe I could find out what my brain is trying to tell me when I experience these things!
So I thought I’d start my research off with the basics. What exactly is sleep paralysis? I took to google and the main source said that sleep paralysis is a feeling of being conscious but unable to move. While I liked that answer I decided to go further and search the cline library to see if I could get a better definition and grasp of why exactly it happens. I found one article and liked it however it was from 2003 so I decided to keep looking for another, more recent scholarly source. To my dismay, I kept searching but I couldn’t find an article that I liked as much as that one so I ended up choosing the relatively old but informative scholarly journal. I did find that it was published on this website in 2012 so that made me feel better about choosing it.
One thing that Cheyne described in the article is that, sleep paralysis happens when you are about to go to sleep or as you are trying to wake up. Which is similar to my experience. The article goes on to describe many things people experience during sleep paralysis such as, “rustling sounds, through indistinct voices, to daemonic gibberish, as well as visual hallucinations of humans, animals, and supernatural creatures…suffocation, choking, pain, and pressure…feelings of rising off the bed, flying, hurtling through spiral tunnels” I have experienced some of these things during my experience. The article states that it is usual that people who have experienced sleep paralysis have experienced one, if not a few of these symptoms. I continued to read to see what else I might have in common with other people who experience sleep paralysis.
The article states that sleep paralysis can be categorized into three sections, Intruder, Incubus, and Unusual Bodily Experiences. Intruder experiences usually involve you hearing and seeing things that aren’t there followed by a presence. Incubus is sleep paralysis where you can’t breathe and it feels like there is almost a presence or figure that is causing it. Incubus is similar to Intruder but is more focused on that fact that you can’t move/use your body properly. Incubus and Intruder are often experienced simultaneously. Unusual Bodily Experiences is very different from the other two. In these types of paralysis you almost feel like you are flying and is more of a blissful experience. The type of sleep paralysis I’ve had was definitely not part of the last category but a mix of the first and second. I also was curious about how rare/common sleep paralysis is so I turned to another source that might be able to tell me.
According to the article from Sleep Medicine Reviews, sleep paralysis is more common in non-caucasian males from rural areas. Which isn’t really me at all. It is also more common in those with past traumatic experiences and people who have as the article describes, “higher stress scores”. It is also common to have family history with SP. Based on this article the main reasons I frequently experience SP is because I am a ball of stress and have a lot of anxiety problems. I did not find this in the article but it would make sense that it happens when I take naps because during that time I am not taking my sleeping medication that helps with my anxiety. I probably also get sleep paralysis because of my family history with it. When I first started realizing that what I was experiencing was sleep paralysis I told my mom and she told me she gets it too. I also know that my aunt has had a lot of problems with dreams and such but that could also be associated with her multiple personality disorder and childhood trauma and not family history. However, it could be both. Since I found that most cases are associated with social anxiety I decided to find another article and look more into that.
A common sleep paralysis element is a being/presence of a male/female. (Simard & Nielson) This can manifest patient’s social anxiety in sleep form. In sleep paralysis it is common to have this figure standing over you and in a way judging you. I have definitely experienced this “figure” SP and the reasoning of the occurrence makes sense. To get a better idea of why I might get sleep paralysis I wanted to see what someone else might experience during their sleep paralysis so I interviewed my friend Sawyer.
I had a conversation with him before about getting sleep paralysis before so he was the first person I thought of for this interview. However once we started I realized that he had only gotten sleep paralysis twice and it happened one night after another two years ago. During both of these sleep paralysis cases he had seen the character Valak from the Conjuring. This was his first time watching this movie so he thinks he just got scared and that was the reason for his SP. When he saw Valak he was experiencing a mix of Intruder and Incubus sleep paralysis. I was slightly discouraged because I assumed that he had had SP more than a few times. This interview was not enough for me so I ended up interviewing another one of my friends who said she had experienced SP.
I interviewed Lili about her sleep paralysis experience and she explained to me the ONE and ONLY time she had ever gotten it. It was this last January, she saw a figure and not anything specific which is a common occurrence for sleep paralysis. She didn’t hear anything but she did say that she felt like she couldn’t move. She was dealing with a relatively stressful problem in her life and had been talking about sleep paralysis and thinks that might’ve sparked something. I was not satisfied with the result of my interviews so I went around the dorm to see if anyone else was a frequent SP victim.
To my dismay, I only met one other person that has experienced it and it was only one time. I honestly thought that SP was more common that it is and expected more people to have dealt with it more frequently. From my interviews I did gather that usually they see something they are afraid of in their SP. In Sawyer’s case it was Valak and in Lili’s it was sleep paralysis in general. So what does my sleep paralysis possibly say about me? It tells you that I have anxiety and the things I see like dreams are my fears and experiences coming out. Maybe the reason why I see my mom as Corline’s mom is because not only does the movie Corline scare me but it shows my fear of people betraying me/being evil. Since I had a traumatic experience and have trust issues with my dad it makes sense that one of the people I trust the most, my mom, is shown in this manner. Sorry if I got too deep. Now although I didn’t figure out exactly what my sleep paralysis dreams mean I did find out other things.
I found in my search that the type of SP I experience is Incubus and Intruder. I also found that the reason I get sleep paralysis is because I have a weird sleeping pattern and lots of anxiety and family history with it. I found from my interviews that although SP can be common most people experience it once and then don’t have it again. One thing that I could do to try to stop my sleep paralysis from happening so frequently is fix my sleeping habits. Which is supported by the article written by Angela Cabotaje. If I can’t fix that then I should do as the article also says, I should “seek care”. I also found that along with my anxiety another reason I could be getting sleep paralysis is because of social anxiety which is possible for me to have although I find it unlikely. My next step in my search process is to research more about social anxiety and maybe even more of the fixing of my SP problem.
Work Cited
- Cabotaje, Angela. “Why Those Late Nights Are Causing Your Sleep Paralysis.” Right as Rain by UW Medicine, 5 June 2019, https://rightasrain.uwmedicine.org/body/sleep-paralysis.
- Caldwell, Sawyer Interview 24/09/2019
- Cheyne, J. A. “Sleep Paralysis and the Structure of Waking-Nightmare Hallucinations.” Dreaming, vol. 13, no. 3, 2003, pp. 163–179. Ebscohost, doi:host10.1037/1053-0797.13.3.163.
- Denis, Dan, et al. “A Systematic Review of Variables Associated with Sleep Paralysis.” Sleep Medicine Reviews, vol. 38, 2018, pp. 141–157., doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2017.05.005.
- Hose, Liliana Interview 24/09/2019
