Sleep Paralysis (SP) is a common medical condition. The symptoms can sometimes include complete to partial paralysis of arms, legs and upper torso, a tight or heavy pressure on your chest sometimes with a choking sensation and almost always experienced as you are about to fall into sleep or just come out of sleep.
The most remarkable symptoms of SP are the accompanying audio and/or visual hallucinations often causing extreme terror and panic in it's sufferers, who more often than not mistakenly believe they are being visited by aliens, malevolent beings and other evil presences.
Research shows that SP is linked with REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. When in REM sleep you are usually dreaming, your body does not act out your dreams as you will hurt either yourself, or someone else, so evolution has worked its merry little way of getting your brain to switch off your muscles (so to speak) and relax you while dreaming, essentially paralyzing you to a degree.
The cause for a state of SP is when your mind wakes up, usually still in a semi-REM state, but your body is still relaxed and semi paralyzed, bringing on a the sometimes horrifying sensation of being paralyzed while still in a semi-dream state yet awake. The consequences of this state are usually nothing short of terrifying to individuals with their dreams suddenly becoming reality as they are trapped in an inbetween sate of consciousness. The usual result is panic to try to release oneself while sleep creeps around your brain like a slow fog trying to drag you back down to it's depths again.
Of a recent survey it is suggested that between 25-30% of the general population has suffered some form of SP with 95% of these experiencing a perceived horrifying event. It is now considered to be a common disorder among the population, but not many people admit to suffering SP. Yes, it does run in the family, if you have suffered an episode, chances are there's a member within your close family who has also experienced this. People often feel they are experiencing something paranormal with SP due to the bizarre symptoms and don't realize that they are in fact suffering from something many others have experienced with a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Of course there are many other symptoms besides the paralysis and hallucinations, sometimes including shooting pains in the arms, back, neck or head, paralysis of only one limb (partial paralysis), choking and suffocating feeling, pressure on other parts of the body such as back, neck, arms or legs the feeling of someone touching you, feelings of an evil presence behind or beside you, and sometimes squeezing or hugging around your body.
The term "perception" needs to be used in the case of SP, as the feelings of a presence are usually only perceived and not actually sighted in the majority of cases reported. The presences are in fact not real and only hallucinations induced by our brains in this dream state, you could say they are in fact a waking dream. An interesting fact is that in most cases nothing is actually ever seen, and only felt. A feeling of someone watching over, lurking about, walking around, but never actually sighted, and within these cases the feeling being of a dark humanoid figure or figures.
More commonly than the visual perceptions are the reports of audio hallucinations. These include scratching, laughing, scraping, buzzing, ringing, voices, radio music and other noises all seemingly very real. We now believe that many alien abduction cases have been merely suffering an episode of SP, let alone the amazing amount of cases reporting Evil presences and ghosts.
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