Monday, September 17, 2007 | by nathan

My Sleep Is Filled With Fear, but I’m Okay

As long as I can remember I’ve had a lot of problems sleeping. Most of these are due to my severe allergies, which can render me completely unable to breathe in the night, which gives me a strange form of sleep apnea and occasionally keeps me awake.

The worst thing about night time for me, though, is sleep paralysis. There’s an article from Mental Floss linked on CNN that talks about this disorder, which apparently affects only six percent of Americans:

Sleep paralysis

During normal sleep, your brain sends a signal to your body to inhibit your movement while you’re dreaming. This keeps you from thrashing around and possibly hurting yourself.

But when Sleep Paralysis occurs, the brain either switches on your muscle inhibition feature too soon or doesn’t switch it off when you wake up, which can lead to very creepy experiences. In addition to being unable to move, many people will dream while they’re awake — basically hallucinating.

The most common hallucinations that occur with Sleep Paralysis include sensing or seeing another person in the room, being touched, hearing footsteps, floating, or even hearing someone call your name. And for some people, the sensation is so strong they think they’ve had a stroke and are really paralyzed. Episodes of Sleep Paralysis can last anywhere from 10 seconds to a terrifying 70 minutes.

But it could never happen to you, right? Wrong.

Studies suggest that about half of us have experienced at least one episode of hypnagogic Sleep Paralysis, the kind that occurs soon after we fall asleep.

Chronic Sleep Paralysis, however, only affects about six percent of adults. Generally, the disorder is related to jet lag, sleep deprivation, stress or even your sleeping position. It’s believed that supine sleep (sleeping on your back) can make a person five times more likely to have an episode of Sleep Paralysis than any other position.

If you do happen to wake one morning and find yourself paralyzed, try wiggling your toes. The paralysis seems to affect larger muscles more than smaller ones, so a good way to get out of it is to try to make small movements.

If that doesn’t work, check for a crazed Kathy Bates lurching around your room à la "Misery," and make sure your ankles are still intact.

Oh. Yeah. Gosh. Thanks.

Let me tell you the worst, though: I’ll wake up, completely unable to move, and, because of my allergies, completely unable to breathe. So I’m lying there, able to pull in only the tiniest stream of air through my immobile jaw, and unable to move so that I can take a deeper breath. It only ever actually lasts a few seconds, but each time feels like hours and hours. When I finally can get a breath I usually go right back to sleep, only to have it happen again an hour or so later. And since I naturally sleep on my back most of the time, apparently I’m more at risk for it than most. Fun.

And yes, I have dreamed while awake, and it’s terrifying. But it’s nowhere near as bad as waking from a dream where you’re drowning, only to find that you kinda really are. 

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