I admit, I was hoping for a definitive answer when I saw it had been updated:
I’ve had this for years and years and I don’t suffer from excessive sleepiness and certainly don’t have narcolepsy. I was just hoping for some reason why it happens.
Will keep watching for an answer.
Yeah. there wasn’t really any new info there.
Wikipedia and other sites suggest that in addition to narcolepsy. it can occur in people who are otherwise just fine. Some correlation to stress, sleep position, lifestyle changes, and medication / alcohol use, perhaps.
I had a couple of bouts of it when I was a teenager and found the first one to be about the most terrifying thing I’d ever experienced. The next time or two, since I sort of knew what was going on (well, I knew I’d survived the first one anyhow) it was less so. Sorry you’re dealing with it on a longer-term basis :(.
Um, this is not a factual answer, but from all I’ve read and seen about the way sleep works, I’d suggest it’s more likely to happen when your sleep patterns are disrupted. You have a nap, you get woken up repeatedly by the cat, you’re stressed at work and keep half-waking due to stress-dreams; your body doesn’t know when to be awake and when to be asleep. IOW, your body is unsure about when to switch from sleep mode where your breathing and movements are mostly involuntary to awake mode where you have control.
I’m assuming you’ve read about it at other places, since migraines are one of the other connected conditions.
Restless legs syndrome is another cause, and despite the silly name it is an actual condition - it’s not so much about the legs twitching, as about the brain waking up to cause the legs to twitch. IOW, to test for it they check your brain patterns as well as your legs. Your legs twitch very little, so asking your sleeping partner if they were disturbed by you in the night wouldn’t necessarily tell you if you’re twitching. The constant cycle of slightly-waking up then falling asleep disrupts your sleep cycle, confusing your body and leading to things like sleep paralysis, sleeptalking and lucid dreams.
(No cites apart from the one there - I’m going on what my doctor has told me).
Cecil’s article is remarkably brief and could well do with updating.
I also get RLS, and yes, both of them are connected to stress, or weird sleep patterns, not enough vitamins, etc…and then sometimes it just happens randomly. I wonder if getting it means you are more susceptible to your body resorting to it, kind of like a failsafe switch is blown. Anyway I was very very happy to learn initially that something like 30% of people suffer from it!
I have learned ways to deal with it, and when it happens, I can manage it better, but they still are scary ass dreams.
Interesting - I’d never heard of a suggested correlation between RLS and sleep paralysis. I’ve had RLS for many years (though it definitely started after my couple of bouts of sleep paralysis, which were at age 12 or thereabouts).
What you’re describing is more along the lines of PLMD (Periodic Limb Movement Disorder), which happens while asleep. The RLS happens while trying to fall asleep (usually preventing you from succeeding), or while physically relaxed such as at the movies. PLMD is the involuntary movements while asleep or nearly so. A significant percentage of RLS sufferers also have PLMD and vice versa, but not all.
I hadn’t heard of any correlation between PLMD and sleep paralysis either. Not to say that there aren’t such correlations - a lot of us have multiple sleep disorders going on. I’m up to 3 or so at last count, what do I win? :D. And the sleep pattern disruption you mentioned would seem to make sense as a possible trigger to sleep paralysis.
And you’re correct, it’s a central nervous system issue, currently considered to be related to dopamine levels in the brain.
I hope you don’t mind my asking: Do you have the attendant hypnagogic hallucinations? If so, do they come along with every experience of paralysis? Does the paralysis also come with emotional states as described in the letter to Cecil?
Obviously, if these are overly personal questions just ignore me. I admit to mostly curiosity, but I also have unusual sleep experiences and I often wonder how “normal” they are.
I don’t mind talking about it at all. it is a weird a freaky experience, for sure. Yes, I do have hallucinations, though they are not usually as clear as is often said - I don’t feel anyone sitting on my chest, for example. Most of the time it’s weird freaky coloured lights, and often I am aware I am asleep and can’t wake up, and that I am ‘shouting’ but no one can hear me. back before I knew what was going on I used to think I was shouting, which often meant that when I did snap out of it I would cry out, scaring the bejesus out of my sleeping partner.
Used to be my main emotional reaction was fear. Terror, really. Now I am more calm about it, and sometimes even “swim” in the moment, enjoying the surrealism. I guess it’s the closest thing to a drug trip I can conceive, having never partaken! Mostly I feel something in my senses, like they are all humming or buzzing with electricity. Like the very universe is buzzing.
Maybe you’re clairvoyant and you somehow got your faculties set on vibrate? 
Thanks for your response. I’m sure I’m not alone in speculating that this type of experience sometimes leads people to believe they are being possessed or affected by spirits.
When I first learned about this (here no less!) and how prevalant it was, it was like an eye-opener. Throughout history people must have thought of demons or monsters or what-have-you when this happened, especially because science still hasn’t really explained it fully.
And if I am clairvoyant, it’d be nice if I could actually, you know, PICK UP THE VIBRATING PHONE! Instead I just have my humdrum little life. 
Yes, it is largely believed by the skeptical crowd that these experiences are behind the alien abduction and visitations by night demons phenomena.
I’ve experienced the hallucinations and paralysis. It is terrifying, and feels utterly real even with the most bizarre unreality occurring around you.
Like, for example, the time I thought I had a rattlesnake coiled around my head and ready to bite my throat if I moved. And I’m lying in bed freaking out because I can’t move and there’s a snake and there’s nobody to help me, and I don’t notice that the walls disappear and I can see cars driving by on the street. Because there’s a snake!
And yes, I also have RLS, and sleep apnea, and probably PLMD.
You know it’s just Jim Morrison, drunk-dialing again.
At times I’ve had what I might call “emotion dreams” something like an emotional hallucination. Intense emotions that don’t seem to have anything to go with them. No dream or vision or thought.
This usually happens at the very moment of falling asleep. In fact, it is usually preceded by a sense that I have realized that I have fallen asleep.
It can be very disturbing and I have, in the past, felt that emotions were being “pumped” into my head from outside.
Yup, PLMD is exactly what I meant - I was struggling to think of the term. I’d never heard of it till I was diagnosed with it a couple of months ago. When I asked the doctor to investigate my sleep problems I started specifically avoiding anything to do with sleep disorders and tried to forget what I did know, JIC it affected my answers.
To my doctor, they all seemed to be tied together, as in PLMD could cause frequent waking and sleeping which could cause sleep paralysis and also daytime sleeping (because you didn’t sleep well at all), and then that daytime sleeping is more likely to be interrupted so could cause sleep paralysis, etc.
Anaamika, you wouldn’t really know if you had restless legs while you’re asleep. I had 70 leg twitches a night under observation, when apparently anything over 12 is unusual, but I had never noticed it happening as I fell asleep and nobody who’s ever shared my bed has ever commented on it; the movements are just so small.
TBH though, I don’t get the horror of sleep paralysis. Not being able to get up and do stuff is annoying, but the suffocating feeling and the hallucinations are easy to push away. I just change it to a different dream (a boring one so I won’t get drawn in) while trying to make my body wake up.
No, I don’t mean RLS while asleep. I get it in the traditional sense, where it just won’t let me fall asleep. It is absolutely the No. 1 source of my insomnia, when I get it. I don’t get PLMD.
And I don’t understand how you can’t get the horror of sleep paralysis! I’m asleep and I can’t move and something scary is coming and I can’t tell anyone I need help. I can’t change the dream myself. I’ve tried. And I try to wake myself up, but sometimes (in the dream) it takes several minutes). Does it never occur to people, btw, that what is easy for them may not be for others? You say it’s easy to push away the suffocation - obviously it is not easy for other people.
The worst was the not knowing what was happening to me, as I said - once I read about it (in my late twenties, less than ten years ago!) it got a lot more manageable. Until then you just think you are yelling and screaming and yet no one hears you.
But it is still scary.
Just to throw in another anecdote:
I suffered from paralysis dreams for years. The thing that helped me was I noticed a few things that happen (for me) prior to a sleep onset paralysis dream.
It usually starts with me going to bed extremely tired (I mean, more tired than usual at that time of day) and falling asleep almost instantly. And I don’t so much drift off to sleep as plunge, quickly.
This is the state that often leads to paralysis dreams for me.
So now when I feel this sensation of “plunging” I actively fight it; I start thinking about real world concerns, plus the realisation that I might be about to have a paralysis dream is usually enough to shake me out of that state.
I can’t remember the last time I had a paralysis dream.
It probably sounds crazy but I thought it might help someone…
This is the part of sleep paralysis that is most remarkable to me. I have had sleep paralysis maybe 10 times in my life, and the experience has been uniformly terrifying. It is not likely that I’ll just “change” the experience to something pleasant; in the first place, it takes some time to realize that I’m not awake already, and when I finally realize I am dreaming all my focus is on getting awake to escape the terrifying situation. The fear is so powerful and wrenching that I have to take some time lying in bed collecting my thoughts and getting my brain smoothed out - I am always afraid if I go right back to sleep I’ll fall right back into the dream. Often the dreams are really silly to describe - like irishman’s snake wrapped around his head - once I dreamed there were dwarves out in the hall taunting me! And yet the terror is real and bone-deep.
I have often wondered why this is so. If these waking dreams could be pleasant, it would be a wonderful experience, but it seems like terror is actually part of the hypnagogic experience. They are just not like run of the mill dreams.
We learned in psychology that there are three components to dreams when sleeping, namely the production of a chemical that inhibits movement (so one doesn’t try to act out the dreams in a normal scenario), rapid eye movement sleep (with spiky EEG activity IIRC) and then the accompanying unconscious fantastic images being played into your mind.
I’m guessing that in sleep paralysis the chemical that inhibits movement has full effect, but the person remains conscious: brain activity is very similar during REM sleep and consciousness so perhaps the body doesn’t get it right 100% of the time.
The reverse (presumably) occurs with sleepwalking, where the conscious brain isn’t engaged but the chemical prohibiting movement isn’t produced in high enough doses.
If only I had paid more attention in lectures, I’d remember the name of it… :smack:
Seriously. If only I could waking sex dreams, I’d be all for sleep paralysis.
I also fall right back into it if I don’t turn over or sleep in a different way afterwards.
This essentially describes the sleep panics I sometimes experience. My body will be shutting off while I’m still conscious, and either that fact alone or some other random thought I have panics me and compels me to wake up. That delay between my decision to wake up and my body responding to my commands sends my heart rate way up.
I used to have that all the time, with accompanying hallucinations and altered emotional states. When I got treatment for sleep apnea it quit. I kind of miss it.
I’ve experienced sleep paralysis a few times but had no hallucinations or extreme emotional states. My thoughts were something like this:
The second time:
No alcohol/drugs/sickness/sleep deprivation/etc.