This may appear kind of clustered and not going straight to the point. But I just want you to see one thing or the other(maybe a pattern) to relate with which may also help. However, if you just want to see the possible causes and solutions scroll down towards the end of this post.
Introduction
I can't really recall how many sessions or different versions of sleep paralysis I've had over the years. But what I can remember is I took notice of SP when I was an eight grader. It happened that we were having the Yoruba Subject and my teacher was discussing about unnatural occurrences. At a point she talked about Sleep Paralysis. Although I didn't know it as Sleep Paralysis then and I doubt my teacher knew it also. She explained everything in Yoruba language and of course she attributed the occurrence of Sleep Paralysis to evil presence. She told us the Yoruba people refer to Sleep Paralysis as 'Oririn' meaning 'presser'. She expatiated telling us it wasn't good to experience SP, and one should be very prayerful to avoid it 'cause it is one of the ways the devil gain access to one's life. With the way she stressed on SP among other unnatural occurrences she talked about, I knew she must have experienced SP at some point in her life. Several days after the lecture, I had sleep paralysis but it probably started before then, maybe I just didn't pay attention. After, my last SP, I didn't have any again until few years later.
Now, you might ask, "why evil presence?" Well, few years later the first SP I noticed, I started having SP(without hallucinations) frequently and I needed answers. I went on the internet to get answers that 'suit' me and more than 70% of the responses(intuitive thinkers) on the internet associated SP with evil presence. The same answer I was already provided with by my immediate environment. The summary goes thus; the believe that some dark forces terrorize humans in their sleeps have always been passed across from one generation and culture to another. Since virtually every culture believes this, 'Sleep Paralysis fits in perfectly as it rarely occurs without living a feeling of terror on its victims.
What is Sleep Paralysis?
Basically Sleep Paralysis is when you feel you are awake but you can't move nor talk. The feeling may be scary as it is sometimes experienced with hallucinations. You see things that are not really present and hear things that are just creations of your imagination. A person may experience this phenomenon just once, occasionally, frequently and or even several times in a night in their lifetime. Sleep paralysis can occur in different cases either while trying to sleep or awakening from a sleep. Even though SP has been found to be harmless but nevertheless has been linked to other disorders including but not limited to narcolepsy, migraines, anxiety disorders, and obstructive sleep apnea.
To learn more about what scientists and researchers have to say about the back-end causes of Sleep Paralysis, you can search online for some of the articles created for SP.
Having talked to several people and did some internal and external digging about SP, I can rightly say that 5 out of 10 people have experienced SP at a point in their lives. Although, due to personal discretion and cultural believes some people may deny that it ever occurred to them.
My Experience and Explanation to Sleep Paralysis
To begin with, SP occur when you are about sleeping, and your mind and your body are not in the same phase. That is your body is already asleep but your mind is not, your brain is in a kind of active and at the same time inactive state. And your consciousness find a way to get a message from your subconsciousness. Now, that's where the problem arises, once your consciousness gain the awareness it becomes somewhat active but not necessarily active. Then, the panic sets in as you were sleeping earlier and your brain has already shut down the movement of your muscles to avoid you acting out your dreams. Or when you are waking up and your mind is already awake but your brain is slow in relaying the information to the necessary area to turn your muscles back on. Read on for further explanations.
I pointed earlier that I've had series of Sleep Paralysis and when it got to a point, I felt it was becoming too much. My definition of too much might be different from yours but having sleep paralysis more than 6 times in a month sometimes multiple SP successively at a particular night was tiresome to me. I needed answers not 'cause I was scared of some evil presence as that really didn't make enough sense to me. And please don't get me wrong, I'm not disputing any fact about the possibility of SP being caused by something mystical but in my opinion that would be one in a thousand. I was getting tired of it 'cause I felt I might be nearing my own death. Since I'd a feeling it was the brain malfunctioning, I thought I could be suffering from a really dangerous disorder and sooner than later my brain could shut down movement of my body permanently rendering me paralyzed.
I started reading about SP, and I started getting a little bit relieved even though a lot of people attributed SP to an evil presence(religious and cultural believes). However, evil presence or no evil presence knowing it occurs in more than few people got me relieved. Then I started talking about it to people around me which I found out most of them have experienced it at some point in their lives. But I'm a very inquisitive person and I really needed to know what triggers my series of SP. Having studied about it, I learnt it is mostly due to sleeping habits and stress. Exactly, then I knew where my problem was from, I'd a very bad sleeping habit. I barely slept for 4 hours in a day around the time I started having it recurringly but the time I noticed I didn't have it or just once in a blue moon I was sleeping better compared to my less than 4 hours sleep.
My Sleeping Habit - By the time I was 13 I was already an heavy gamer. I played games with most of my days and nights and times without number I proceeded to school the next morning without sleeping at all. I only rest and have a good proper sleep when I was done with a game and sometimes before continuing with another game, I indulged in movies too.
Later, when I became 14(10th grade), most of my time was spent on chatting online. Then I stumbled on some webmaster page, I got really interested since I'd always wanted to be a programmer(game developer) and that was related to it. Then, I spent the rest of the year on reading source codes, HTML and some web fundamentals. Of course I paid off with my night sleep, and I even started setting alarms to 2am in the morning till I didn't need the alarm anymore to wake up by 2am.
Later I stopped to focus more on my school studies which went on for my two last years in High school.
Afterwards, I left high school and everything came crashing together as I wanted to have a piece of all my interests; video games, movies, coding, social networking, reading(for pleasure,knowledge, and for pre-university exams) and so on and so forth. This left me with very little time to sleep plus a very unbalanced and irregular sleep pattern. Almost everyday I woke up more than once in the middle of the night to continue with whatever I was doing earlier and sometimes I just took 5 minutes naps.
My Sleep Paralysis - Most of the SP I experienced were not coupled with hallucinations(choking, being held down, seeing demons etc). They were just plain SP, aware you are awake but you can't just move and when I felt a presence someone was actually there but unaware of my woes. They were plain because of my believe; I didn't believe my SP was caused by evil presence but thought it was a disastrous medical disorder. However, later I had few hallucinations when I started hearing out others' stories.
Like twice or thrice I saw a kind of something I can't describe not pinning me down but hindering me to wake. But that was just my imagination at work exploiting the vivid pictures of the devil I painted in mind for the others' stories and also fears I probably had but not really aware of.
Also twice in one week few years ago I had one which was like dreaming in your dreams(I've experienced it) but this time not like a dream as I knew it was SP(with hallucinations). I would force my self out of SP, on hearing my elder sister(her room was opposite mine) was calling me for early morning devotion. Afterwards, I would walk to my door to go join her and the others, then I would notice something(the real me was still in bed, meaning I was still paralyzed) was wrong. . . till I finally woke up - This happened very much later when I wasn't really having frequent SP like before. And it was due to the fact that I started paying attention to a lot happening around me, I was configured not to sleep deep. And just like almost every human being I can actually tell the estimate of the time whenever I wake up probably cause our subconsciousness are aware of certain things that happen during specific times. That week I was actually waking up around to 6 or after 6 in the morning, the time we normally have our morning devotion. So, due to panics I've always had that someone could be hitting me to wake up while in SP, automatically my brain with my imagination projected my sister to my door like she was already at my door as she normally did and I was seeing her which I wasn't in actual fact and in other not to set an alarm I thought I had forced myself to wake.
My Sleeping Habit in relation with My SP - Some of my SP were as a result of stress; I've used up myself during the day doing a whole lot of things, rigorous exercises and work, and things that left me with little hours of sleep rendering me mentally unbalanced. - This could bring about a lag between my brain and body.
Also I've a very irregular sleep pattern; For a week my sleeping time could be 2 in the morning, another 5. It could even be different hours in different days of a particular week. So, was my waking hours which probably lead to my brain mixing things up together and generating SP.
Too much of mind control; Sometimes I was tired, but had something I must finish up but instead of living it till tomorrow or when I'd gotten enough sleep rest. I wouldn't but would either take a 5mins nap or mistakenly fell asleep. Now, that's a problem my body was weak but my subconscious was aware that I was not ready to sleep, it passes a message to part of me somehow and SP would set in as my body was already shut down for sleep.
Sometimes I force myself to sleep; When I really have nothing to do, I always like to sleep and sleep to cover for some of the sleep I've missed even when I wasn't feeling sleepy. Since I was using my mind to trick my body, my body goes down first and my mind follows but since the mind is never really down. Now, If something went wrong somewhere and I became almost fully aware of myself again when my body was down already and still not coming back then SP.
However, when I was sleeping healthily, I had little or no SP at all.
What I think
Sleep Paralysis is mostly a thing of the mind, it exploit your fears, with the help of your picture memory and vivid imaginations. This is really easy as you are in a kind of trance and not necessarily in control of yourself. And due to this whatever fear you have before that are in your memory somewhere or believes you have relating to it sets in once you are in SP. Basically it's not SP itself doing this but just your own mind playing tricks on you. All those years I didn't believe evil as a cause of SP and I never had hallucinations(at least not a bogus hallucination) but once I started listening, and reading others' stories I started hallucinating
until I purged the fears out again. One important thing you should know is most of the time you think you are actually opening your eyes and you are able to close it, it's only very few times you actually did. Most times you are just in another half dream/half reality. What you are actually seeing is what you already have stored in your brain i.e what you should see if nothing was wrong.
You may ask "how are you sure of this?" You know at a point I started paying attention to dreams, and it got to a point I could actually tell in my own dream that I was dreaming just by finding what wasn't right in the dream. I used this with Sleep Paralysis, and most time a lot were just missing; Whenever I broke myself free I try to remember what I could see and there was always something that was in the presence but was missing during my session, and also sounds that were just wrong. And sometimes I could even see the room during SP which in actual fact the room was already light out.
To add more to the above, one of the days I was writing this, I needed to feel SP again having not experienced it for several months. And of course I was able to trigger it up. What I'm saying is if you think too much about SP, or believe you are going to get into another session the next time you sleep, you are likely to have it. However, by killing off your fears, anxiety and living like there's nothing put you one step ahead in getting yourself off SP permanently. Just try to find out what triggers your SP and work around that and put something in mind the more you believe in supernatural stories relating to SP, the more you increase your chance of having highly distressed SP as was my case.
Possible Causes of Sleep Paralysis
- Stress
- irregular Sleep Patterns
- Forcing yourself to sleep or Forcing yourself to stay awake
- Others include genetic factor, use of stimulants etc.
The best way to prevent SP is by maintaining a very healthy sleep pattern, avoid sleep deprivation and other things you think are factors of SP. And be hopeful.
Breaking Out From A Sleep Paralysis
- Relax, calm down - Whenever you feel you are in SP, just relax don't panic. Sometimes, when I've SP, I just behave like it's nothing, since it's just another SP and just go like I want to get a sleep. And right about that time I just pop out of it, boom, just like that.
- The effect of faith and belief - Just like I've been saying about you believing it's not coming and nothing is wrong. Believing in an higher power also helps. Even though I know my SPs was not from unnatural occurrences but this still works perfectly for me like number 1. Normally, whenever I've a bad dream(fake or real), I just pray over it and believe everything is alright. So, whenever I'm having a very bad SP, I just do few seconds prayer, although having deep faith in it and I'm out. So, no matter what you believe in, God and if yours is stone, plastic or whatever just channel it/him/her/etc.
- Never fight it - Trying to fight Sleep Paralysis is the surest way of draining off your energy. When you are having SP especially the ones with bogus hallucinations by fighting it you tend to become more anxious which makes it difficult to get out of SP. Fighting in a one minute SP, one could notice traces of breathlessness when out. Now, if you fight it for more than five minutes, you'll end up weakening yourself 'cause you waste a lot of energy by trying to fight all those imaginary demons in which you'd get the feeling of what you think choking and struggling would do to you on a normal ground for that duration.
- Force a word out - Although, I said earlier, that SP is just a half reality half dream state. However, if you channel all your energy at making a sentence or word, you'd be out. You have to do more than try while doing else all you might be saying might just end up in your mind and not really out as your body is down already. But once the word or sentence is out you'd be free, just something real to get you connected with reality.
- Hope, for someone to call you in the real word or shake you to wake - From my experience if someone calls you out or hit you during a Sleep Paralysis session you'd be out.
- Try to move a part of your body - From other people's experience and my personal experience by trying to move a finger, toe or some part continuously you could break yourself. However, the moving might not necessarily be real.
- Also some people say sleeping with one's back could bring about it - Well, I think the simple explanation to that is; sleeping with your back to the bed makes you less deep sleep than sleeping with your sides. However, I've had SP on almost all sleeping positions.
NOTE: Anytime you just broke off from SP, never go back to sleep immediately. You could sit up, try to do something else other than sleep for few minutes, or just switch your sleeping position else you have a very high chance of going back into another SP. This has happened to me several times, I went in > got out > slept back immediately > went in again > got out > slept immediately > went in again until I do something else for few minutes. e.g. I could just pick up my phone and check some things to take my mind off.
Last Advice: I'm not disputing off unnatural causes as a factor as I believe that, 'the law that nothing is 100% assured is applicable to all things including SP'. Just live healthy, sleep healthy, and don't think of SP too much and you would be free in no time. And remember the more you read about others' stories of SP, the more you worsen your SP. Hence, the reason I didn't include my different encounters of SP (scary as fuck).
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