The Terrifying Effects of Sleep Paralysis

Sleep paralysis is a disease that renders the afflicted unable to move or do anything right before or right after sleep. If it occurs at a time when you are going to sleep, it’s called predormital or hypnogogic sleep paralysis. If it occurs after waking, then it’s called postdormital or hypnopompic. Apart from these two, there are other forms such as familial sleep paralysis, or isolated sleep paralysis, etc.

The usual symptoms include:

1) You are unable to move any part of your body right before or right after sleep.
2) Intermittent paralysis of skeletal muscles.
3) Usually these bouts may be accompanied by hallucinations or dream like states.

Usually a sleep recording or a polysomnography shows one or more of the following:

a) Skeletal muscle tone suppression
b) Dissociated REM sleep
c) Sleep onset REM period.

Is it harmful?

Narcolepsy is a neurological disease which renders a person unable to control his sleep and sleep paralysis is related to this. The connection is not a necessary one, you can have one without the other. It’s often genetic. Medical science has not been able to ascertain a definite cause, but it’s anyway a scary experience because being unable to move their limbs, patients often get very scared and are at a loss what to do. A sudden sound or a touch breaks them out of this condition. They are normal again. It is all very arbitrary and abrupt.

Often people hallucinate while having these attacks and these bouts of hallucinations are about things and people tying to choke and suffocate them. The presence of impending death is there. However these only cause temporary terror and paranoia, no permanent damage is caused. This is an age old affliction, called "hag Phenomena" popularly. Physically the patient is safe.

What else can you tell me about sleep paralysis?

1) Sleep paralysis is common among those who have a disrupted sleeping pattern, or an abnormal sleeping time.
2) A survey has proved that about 35% of those who are afflicted by this disease are also afflicted by regular panic attacks while they are awake.
3) About 16% of those suffering from isolated sleep paralysis also suffer from regular panic attacks, though the two are apparently unrelated.

How can I stop the sleep paralysis?

Where the attacks are very frequent, such as once a week for 6 months at a stretch, medication is necessary.

Apart from medication these attacks can be minimized by regularizing sleep patterns.

a) Get adequate sleep
b) Try to minimize stress
c) Get a work out routine
d) Regularize your time of sleep

In medicines, clonazepam is a very potent drug. You usually start out with a dose of 0.5mg before sleeping, and if required you can easily increase or even double this to achieve desired effects.

Another drug that is usually consumed during day time is Ritalin and this enables you to achieve a regular sleep pattern. Regular sleep patterns may reduce the effects of sleep paralysis in some adults. However these drugs should be administered only after the patient has been monitored closely, and his/her blood pressure and other bodily functions have been tested. This drug requires 20mg daily consumption, and it can be increased every week until the attacks are reduced in frequency.