NekuraHitokage t1_iu6crgg wrote on October 28, 2022 at 9:55 PM

When you sleep, your body actually produces mild paralytics to keep you from acting out your dreams.

Sometimes, you regain consciousness before the "keep the body paralysed" system shuts off and you basically become mentally awake while physically asleep.

This is also why so many experience "sleep paralysis demons." These are usually anomolies of a partially conscious mind as it tries to take control of the body. The feeling of someone "sitting on your chest" comes from trying to wrest control of your breathing from your autonomous nervous system as panic and sleep clash.

Hallucinations can then be formed as the mind tries to rationalize why it cannot take full control. "Aha! I am pinned!" It thinks, and in a dreamlike state hallucinates... Something. A shadow, a beast, a nightmare. Surely it must be malicious if it has drained you of your ability to move and takes your very breath!

But it is not. You have merely experienced your conscious mind awaking while still having most of the "be asleep" chemicals still clearing out.

Wendals87 t1_iu6ivwp wrote on October 28, 2022 at 10:42 PM

The human mind can do some crazy things to make something that is not actually there, seem really real. Especially if you have seen or heard about other people experiencing the same thing (even if just in a movie or fictional)

I am very sceptical of anything supernatural and there is always a scientific, non supernatural explanation behind everything (even if we don't know what that is yet)

That_Box t1_iu6s7g7 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 11:58 PM

I used to get sleep paralysis a couple of times a month until I started sleeping on my side. Have never had one since. Any idea why?

hiricinee t1_iu7021b wrote on October 29, 2022 at 1:01 AM

As someone whose experienced it, I might be unique but I have a few discrepancies.

Interestingly enough I've never had the feeling I couldn't control my breathing- I've actually successfully woken up my wife by intentionally breathing extra fast and hard- but I can't talk. My hunch is that the breathing control is definitely a different mechanism than the paralytic.

The hallucinations are a definite, but it's more like lucid dreaming. Usually I've speculated something might happen, then it happens. Mine was usually a hobo that would run into my room and start stabbing me. I'm used to relatively scary dreams so they didn't disturb me much, and by the last time I was well aware of what was going on and I basically just rolled my eyes at the stupid games my mind was playing. The "paralysis" was completely distinct from the hallucination, though.

ScottIsntMyName t1_iu7cu97 wrote on October 29, 2022 at 2:47 AM

In my experience the hallucinations always come before the panic sets in during the first few episodes and were the reason for the panic, not the other way around. Once it has happened a few times and I knew what was happening I no longer panicked but still hallucinated. These hallucinations in a lot of people can be incredibly vivid and involve all of the senses.

I'm skeptical that the hallucinations would come from the mind's need to explain situations, otherwise people would hallucinate every time they came across something that they can't fully understand.

NekuraHitokage t1_iu7iykx wrote on October 29, 2022 at 3:45 AM

Indeed it can be both ways around and I shouldn't generalize.