The five senses are our gateway to the world; they are the only way through which we can know what is going on around us. We believe that they accurately show us the truth; however, they can sometimes betray us.
When you open your eyes in the morning, what do you expect to see? You expect to see a normal scene; perhaps the inside of your room. So, unless your room is a messy disaster, or there has been a natural disaster while you were sleeping, all should seem well in the morning. For people like me, it does not always go this way.
As someone who considers sleeping the most important part of my day, it was odd that there were days when I was terrified of sleeping. Some people have nightmares, but what makes them feel safe is that they know when they wake up it will all be fine. Unfortunately, I wake up to see my nightmares in front of me.
The Witch Riding Your Back
It starts with a tingling sensation; you cannot move your legs or arms, you feel paralyzed. You see your room clearly but you are incapable of talking; you want to call out, to scream, but you are unable to. There is an ominous presence in the room; you may see or hear it, you may feel it is going to attack you, abduct you. It might even sit on your back and smother your breathing.
How long are you going to stay this way? Who is this evil presence and what is it going to do to you? Will this paralysis ever end? It does in a few minutes; it is fine now, but what was that? That was a condition called “sleep paralysis”.
Sleep paralysis—a condition more common than you might think—affects about 6% of the general population; it is one of several phenomena that occur during hypnagogia; the transitional state between wakefulness and sleeping or vice versa. It happens either when you are entering sleep or waking up, due to a disruption in one of the stages of sleep known as Rapid Eye Movement (REM).
REM sleep is the stage in which you have most of your dreams. To protect you from acting them out and possibly hurting yourself, your nervous system shuts down most of your muscles in this stage by deactivating the release of certain neurotransmitters. The absence of these transmitters render you almost completely paralyzed in a state known as REM atonia.
Normally, when you wake up, your body will snap out of the REM atonia and you will be able to move. In cases of sleep paralysis, however, you wake up, but you are still partly in REM sleep. The two phases—sleep and wakefulness—overlap, leading your body to take more time than expected to release the neurotransmitters, the absence of which is paralyzing you.
This is how a sleep paralysis episode starts. Aside from the paralysis, you will probably hallucinate and feel a sense of danger, or imagine a heavy presence suffocating you. Some people even imagine leaving their bodies and floating above them!
I have had this condition ever since I was young, and I never understood it until recently. Thanks to the Internet, now I know what it is and how it happens, and I have understood what behavior aggravates it.
First of all, sleep paralysis is increased by stress and irregular sleeping. Secondly, its frequency is higher when you are sleeping on your back. Thirdly, it can be brought on by the overuse of stimulants such as coffee. In the end, scientists have discovered that it exists in some of us for purely genetic reasons.
Around the world and throughout history, sleep paralysis has been known and recorded. It has always been connected to paranormal explanations such as magic and demonic possession. The most common connotation it has is with a maleficent being suffocating a person on their back; this being has been named a mare, from which the world nightmare emerged. In Arabic it is called Al-Gathoom; African and Southern American cultures call the phenomenon “The witch riding your back”.
Wizard of Oz Mornings
Another even more common hypnagogic hallucination that occurs due to an eye phenomenon not involving paralysis is “phosphenes”. This phenomenon involves seeing light, and by extension, images where there is none; it is possible that your eye may see things that do not exist at all.
Phosphenes exhibit themselves in the most normal of circumstances, such as when you apply a little bit of pressure on your closed eyes and see moving patterns in front of you. You may have also experienced “seeing stars” when you sneeze or stand up too fast; these are the typical, expected manifestations of phosphenes. The unexpected one is, however, when you have just woken up.
It can take any form your brain fathoms; a small dark spot or a colorful detailed image akin to something from the fantasy world of the Wizard of Oz. You are not paralyzed this time, and there is nothing pressing against your back; you can even get up. It will not last very long and you are not expected to panic as much as you would with sleep paralysis.
Sleep Crashing
You may not only see things during hypnagogia; there are also common cases in which one hears things. Have you ever gone to sleep and heard a sound as if someone was calling you? Has this feeling been possibly accompanied by a sensation that you are falling, after which you jerked yourself awake?
Auditory hallucinations occur while going to sleep, and can range from light music, to a loud crash or bang, or speech of course. An associated phenomenon to hypnagogia is the hypnic jerk, which is like that dream in which you keep falling and wake up before hitting the ground, except that it usually happens when you are still entering sleep and your body will jerk waking you up.
It is not exactly known why a hypnic jerk occurs, but there is a theory about it. When you are drifting into sleep, your body undergoes a few changes; your breathing starts to become rhythmic, your body temperature drops, and your muscles start to relax as well, which is not the same as the paralyzed state of REM sleep. In fact, some of those changes are very similar to what happens to someone who is falling; the theory suggests that this tricks your brain into thinking that you actually are falling, startling you into waking up.
It is a scary world out there; with all these diseases and possible causes of hallucination, it is a wonder that most of us lead normal lives. You could go crazy just worrying about the numerous things that may go wrong with your brain. So, instead of worrying, just let it be! If something happens, it happens; you will deal with it if the time comes.
References
www.wisegeek.com
www.schizophrenic.com
www.huffingtonpost.com
www.mentalhealth.org.uk
The article was first published in print in the PSC Newsletter, Summer 2013 issue.
Cover image source: @BinauralniT on X