What is Sleep Paralysis, and is it real? 
Sleep Paralysis is the sensation of not being able to move when falling asleep or waking up. Your mind is alert and your eyes can see, but the rest of your body is paralysed. Hallucinations are very common, these range from hearing things, sensing a presence and seeing “demons” in the room. On average these experiences last anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, in some rare cases they may even last hours. Sleep paralysis is harmless but it may lead to anxiety and difficulty sleeping. Some people may experience sleep paralysis once or twice in their life, others may have it more often. It's more common among teenagers and young adults.
When you sleep your body releases chemicals to stop you from thrashing around during REM, when your experience vivid dreams. This chemical locks down everything in your body except your eyes and your diaphragm, so you won’t act your your dreams. This chemical release may still occur when you are waking up causing you to not be able to move.
There is no cure for sleep paralysis but by getting regular sleep and not using your phone or watching tv before you sleep can help relieve this.
At the beginning of this year, a documentary called The Nightmare was made, which focuses on sleep paralysis and it gives the viewer a sense of what happens when someone goes through this phenomenon.
1. Have any of you experienced sleep paralysis? If yes, can you tell what
you experienced?
2. Why do you think this affects teens and young adults more?
I would hate for this to happen to me but if it, someday, happen to me probably at first id be freaked out but then I would probably think that its cool and finally have a nice excuse to miss school.
ReplyDeleteI guess the extent to which your hallucinations effect you would be tied to your emotional state and how imaginative you are
ReplyDeleteThat's scary
ReplyDeleteJake Dunbar