Sleep paralysis: why it happens and what to do

What it is

Dream interpretation is not prediction and not diagnosis. This article separates what sleep research observes from what popular interpretation associates with the theme.

Sleep paralysis is waking with an alert mind while the body is still in the muscle atonia of REM sleep. You take in the room but cannot move or speak for seconds or a few minutes. It is frightening and it is harmless.

Read also: Dreams about flying: what happens in the brain and Dreaming about death: why it happens and what it does not mean.

More common than it seems

A systematic review pooled studies with tens of thousands of participants and estimated that about 8% of the general population has had at least one episode, with higher rates among students and among people with psychiatric conditions.

Source: Sharpless and Barber, Lifetime prevalence rates of sleep paralysis, Sleep Medicine Reviews, 2011.

Science and belief: Freud, Jung and faith traditions

In Freud's psychoanalysis. Freud never knew about REM sleep, but he described something close to paralysis: anxiety dreams in which the feeling is set off by the body, such as difficulty breathing. In those cases, he wrote, an emotion that starts in the body receives a psychological interpretation. It is a fair description of what happens with the weight on the chest and the shortness of breath: the half awake brain looks for a story to explain the sensation, and the story is often someone sitting on top of you.

In Jung's psychology. Jung doubted the idea that dreams guard sleep: in his view, dreams are always disturbing it. Man and His Symbols illustrates the point with The Nightmare, a painting by the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli in which a creature sits on a sleeping woman, an image almost identical to sleep paralysis accounts today.

In symbols and faith. In A Dictionary of Symbols, Chevalier and Gheerbrant note that the English word nightmare contains mare, a female horse, and that in Slavic languages mora means witch or specter; in Czech, mura is the nightmare itself. The Bible describes something similar in Job 4:13-15: dread, trembling and a spirit passing before the face at night. In Spiritism, Allan Kardec's The Spirits' Book teaches that during sleep the ties between spirit and body loosen, a reading many followers apply to this experience.

Bringing both views together. Science already knows the core of it: REM sleep paralysis spilling into an awake brain, and it passes on its own. Faith can offer comfort to get through those seconds of fear, such as a prayer; it just should not keep anyone from seeking help if episodes are frequent.

Sources: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900; Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols; Chevalier and Gheerbrant, A Dictionary of Symbols; Kardec, The Spirits' Book.

The hallucinations that come with it

Many people report a presence in the room, footsteps or voices, pressure on the chest and trouble breathing. A study organised these reports into groups and showed they follow a predictable pattern tied to the brain state, not to anything outside the room. The same pattern appears in very different cultures, under many local names.

Source: Cheyne, Sleep paralysis and the structure of waking-nightmare hallucinations, Dreaming, 2003.

See also: Dreaming about angels and Recurring dreams.

What to do during and after

During an episode it passes on its own. Focusing on moving a finger or a toe and keeping your breathing calm usually shortens the feeling.

To make episodes rarer, sleep guidance points to the basics done well: similar bed and wake times, no stacking of short nights, less alcohol and caffeine at night, and, when possible, not sleeping on your back, the position most associated with episodes.

Frequent nightmares can be treated

If episodes are frequent, come with intense fear, or nightmares are wrecking your sleep, see a professional. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine published a position paper on treating nightmare disorder in adults, and imagery rehearsal therapy is among the recommended options.

Source: Morgenthaler et al., Position Paper for the Treatment of Nightmare Disorder in Adults, Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018.

See also dream meanings.

What dream dictionaries record

Livro do Sonho, a popular Brazilian dream dictionary, reads paralysis in a dream as a sign of an embarrassing situation in which you do not feel comfortable in front of others. Many spiritual traditions have their own explanations for the feeling of a presence in the room; science, for its part, describes the phenomenon as a transition state between sleep and waking.

Freud described dream books as a kind of dictionary that translates each image into another with a fixed meaning. Artemidorus of Daldis, author of the oldest complete Greek dream book that has survived, advised looking at the dreamer's life before interpreting. If you see the dream as a message, both paths suggest the same thing: ask what this image brings to mind in your life right now. See dream meanings according to science and culture.

Source: Livro do Sonho, Brazilian dream dictionary; Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900.

Read also: what to do when nightmares keep coming back; how lucid dreaming relates to sleep paralysis; what night terrors are; the difference between sleep paralysis and dreaming you are trapped; dreaming about ghosts or spirits; dreaming about demons; dreaming about a bed.