Sleep paralysis
Does anyone else experience sleep paralysis? It's kind of scary for me and it's been happening to me often within the past 12 months.
For those who don't know, sleep paralysis is when you awake from sleeping, but your brain hasn't yet sent the signal for your arms and legs to regain movement (your brain paralyzes your limbs to keep you from physically enacting your dreams).
Most of the time this happens when I'm taking naps. Rarely do I ever wake from a night's sleep paralyzed. Sometimes I'll wake up from napping, still feeling kind of groggy and I'll try to move my arm or something and nothing happens. The first time this happened to me, I freaked out. It scared the hell out of me. It still scares me sometimes, but I have to remind myself not to panic (it isn't fun to start hyperventilating when you're immoble. Trust me). Most of the time I'll just try and drop back to sleep and when I wake next everything is okay and I can move again. Other times I just lie there waiting to be able to move again. Sometimes I can open my eyes, other times my eyes are just as frozen as the rest of my body.
I wonder why this happens and if there's anything you can do to stop it. Everytime it happens I can't help but remember stories I've read about people who are fully paralyzed and spend the rest of their lives blinking out messages to people =[
ETA: This?
has to be the most hideous thing I've ever seen.
For those who don't know, sleep paralysis is when you awake from sleeping, but your brain hasn't yet sent the signal for your arms and legs to regain movement (your brain paralyzes your limbs to keep you from physically enacting your dreams).
Most of the time this happens when I'm taking naps. Rarely do I ever wake from a night's sleep paralyzed. Sometimes I'll wake up from napping, still feeling kind of groggy and I'll try to move my arm or something and nothing happens. The first time this happened to me, I freaked out. It scared the hell out of me. It still scares me sometimes, but I have to remind myself not to panic (it isn't fun to start hyperventilating when you're immoble. Trust me). Most of the time I'll just try and drop back to sleep and when I wake next everything is okay and I can move again. Other times I just lie there waiting to be able to move again. Sometimes I can open my eyes, other times my eyes are just as frozen as the rest of my body.
I wonder why this happens and if there's anything you can do to stop it. Everytime it happens I can't help but remember stories I've read about people who are fully paralyzed and spend the rest of their lives blinking out messages to people =[
ETA: This?
has to be the most hideous thing I've ever seen.