Digital Bits Skeptic

By Andy Kaiser 
Article ID: 115

 

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I’ve had at least two episodes of sleep paralysis.

No, I wasn’t captured by aliens. I wasn’t exposed to something supernatural or super-scary. This was nothing more than a misunderstood function of the human brain. This was sleep paralysis.

First, let me describe what the symptoms of sleep paralysis felt like to me.

Sleep paralysis episode one: Aliens!

Even if you looked, you’d have a hard time finding a more stereotypical alien abduction story.

I remember waking up in bed, or at least my eyes and brain turned on and started processing. But my body was frozen. I couldn’t move. I wasn’t being restrained by anything. It was like the on/off switch that gave me control over my body had been flipped to “off”. I had no physical control over my body.

I remember seeing aliens. Yep, just like from the 1950s: Big heads, big eyes, grey skin, and short. Several were clustered over me, doing something. And (as in often the case in dreams) I knew with a flash of insight that they were operating on my memories: They had abducted me, and were erasing my memory of that very abduction!

Very sneaky, aliens.

During this time, I couldn’t move. I was also very scared. Like that feeling you get in your chest when the roller-coaster is screaming towards the ground at top speed, or when you’re about to have a horrible car accident, but the only thing you can do is press as hard as you can on that brake pedal, frozen in wasted effort.

After being extremely scared, I woke up. I don’t remember much beyond the terror, the frozen body, and the aliens-erasing-my-memory plan.

Sleep paralysis episode two: Defrosting!

Years after the first episode, I woke up in bed, again frozen, again terrified. This time I was more mentally active, and wasn’t dreaming. I was simply in bed, lying there, unable to move, and (for no particular reason) scared out of my mind.

I remember staring at the ceiling, being too terrified to even look around. When my sleep paralysis started to wear off, it did so slowly. I experimented with wiggling a finger. This physical action scared me too, for some reason, but I kept on wiggling a finger because it was the only part of me I could actually move. Then I was able to move my hand. Then my eyes. Then my arm. Then my head. Then I was back to normal. The terror had passed. I was just lying in bed at night. Everything was fine.

The one thing sticking in my mind about this experience was my movement being linked to the fear. It was as if I was truly “frozen in terror”. For a while, I was simply too scared to move.

Sleep paralysis explanation and information

I have vague memories of this happening at other times in my life (nothing beyond memories of waking up, being scared and unable to move), but not with the detail of the two more emotional experiences above. The frequency is perhaps one episode every two or three years.

Each time I had these, I simply thought I’d had some really odd nightmares, and left it at that. Only until researching did I discover sleep paralysis is a known condition.

Sleep paralysis is also a more logical explanation for a host of nighttime “frozen in terror” dreamlike occurrences.

Here’s what happens during sleep paralysis: when your body sleeps, you are paralyzed already - this is why you rarely physically act out your dreams. Your body lets your mind have fun in REM sleep while your body is turned off. But sometimes the body gets confused (see below), and your dreaming mind partially wakes up while your body is still in its natural (paralyzed) sleeping state. Common symptoms of sleep paralysis are a full-body paralysis, terror and hallucinating while partially conscious.

What causes sleep paralysis? Known triggers include sleeping on your back, having odd sleep schedules, stress, a lucid dream immediately before the sleep paralysis occurs, and drugs (specifically ADD medications, antihistamines, and hallucinogenics).

Thus ends my alien abduction story. We also now have a potential explanation for others who claim being scared and paralyzed, while seeing ghosts, aliens, or other frightening boogies.

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