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NekuraHitokage t1_iu6crgg wrote

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.

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Wendals87 t1_iu6ivwp wrote

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)

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That_Box t1_iu6s7g7 wrote

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?

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hiricinee t1_iu7021b wrote

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.

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ScottIsntMyName t1_iu7cu97 wrote

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.

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NekuraHitokage t1_iu7iykx wrote

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

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[deleted] t1_iu6js4u wrote

[removed]

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explainlikeimfive-ModTeam t1_iu76l6r wrote

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Atilat1977 t1_iu6gnel wrote

I had severe paralysis.

I got cancer, and after all the trauma and I was good. I continued to have paralysis.

I was in an excellant hospital, phsycologist came around dailly, and just have conversations.

So, I shared my paralysis experiences with her.

She started to do bloodtests and other tests. I ended up at the psyciatric department.

Turns out that chemo has it's trauma on the body.

I've developed mild epilepsy, and that caused the paralysis.

I'm not saying that it could be a braod diagnosis, but that is what caused it for me.

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LeftHand_PimpSlap t1_iu6zdx3 wrote

For some reason, it only happens to me when I sleep on my back and somewhere other than my own bed. The last time it happened, I was sleeping on the sofa in the family room and I could see fingers of something coming out of the vent overhead. Of course, I couldn't move and had a serious freakout trying to wake up.

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Mass_debate123 t1_iu6cdxn wrote

I'm not sure, I found I got it after a weekend of partying, going to Google this right now lol

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