I have heard of this but never really knew what it was. The other night my daughter’s friend was visiting and we were listening to some of her paranormal experiences she had since she was three years old. (I will be blogging some of those stories in a series of articles.) She said that some of her experiences could be the results of sleep paralysis for which her sister suffers from as well. Many nights they would wake up to the feeling like they were being choked and someone was pressing down on their chest. They also experienced seeing shadow figures or apparitions near them and were too paralyzed with fear to scream. She remembers one time when they were sharing an apartment that her sister experienced a terrifying night of seeing an apparition of a man standing at the end of her bed. This man appeared to be getting closer as she tried so desperately to scream April’s name. April was in her room sleeping and heard her name being called very faintly. She wasn’t sure if she was dreaming but decided to check on her sister anyway. She went in and woke her sister up who was so devastated by the frightening incident. Was she dreaming or did she experience an apparition appearing to her in her room?Sleep Paralysis occurs when the brain awakes from the REM (rapid eye movement) state, but the body paralysis persists. This will leave a person fully conscious, but unable to move. The paralysis can last anywhere from several seconds to several minutes for which a person can experience panic symptoms. The paralysis state may be accompanied by vivid hallucinations and could interpret the experience as a dream. There are a few scientists that feel those suffering from this condition could explain some stories of alien abduction and ghostly encounters. Very little is known about the functioning of sleep paralysis. Some feel it could be linked to the post-synaptic inhibition of motor neuron in the pons region of the brain. There are studies being conducted on what actually causes the paralysis and how to deal with it. Most people will experience sleep paralysis at least once or twice in their lifetime.
I had an incident that happened several years ago while I was still living at my parent’s house. I just got back from a date with my now hubby and went right to bed. I fell asleep right away but woke up hours later. I was on my back, a position I don’t normally sleep on. I opened my eyes and saw an old man looking down on me. As he appeared to be moving closer, I tried to scream but was too frightened. Finally I was able to get a scream out and my parents came running. My Dad checked over the room and found no one there. They said I was probably dreaming, but to me it seemed real. I have told this story in a couple of post but now think that experience could have been sleep paralysis.
