Sleep Paralysis

[jekylljuice]

I was wondering if anybody else here has experience with this decidedly unpleasant bodily phenomenon and, if so, if they have any suggestions for avoiding/coping with it? Somehow, I managed to get through twenty two and a half years of life without it ever happening to me, but today I drifted off to sleep and it finally happened…twice.

It’s a truly terrifying feeling, when your mind awakens in a highly alert state and the rest of your body doesn’t respond. I’m really not sure how long it lasted, but when I tried to open my eyelids, I couldn’t – it felt like they’d been sealed shut. I tried to move my limbs but they wouldn’t budge. I’m not sure if I could even feel anything physically around me, like my entire body had gone numb. Well, it wore off soon enough, but it left me pretty shaken. A little later, I was able to get back to sleep, only to wake up to the exact same state of being. This time, I found I could move my mouth ever-so-slightly, so I latched onto my pillow in the hope that it would help, but then was overcome with the overwhelming fear that if I continued to do so, my mouth would also become frozen, and I’d suffocate. Again, it wore off quickly enough, but it took me a lot longer to get over the anxiety it generated. I certainly didn’t go back to sleep after that.

Since then, I’ve done a little research on sleep paralysis, and most sources seem to link it to sleeping in a supine position (ie: on your back), which I know I wasn’t (I’d been sleeping on my side, hence how I was able to bite onto the pillow without moving the rest of my body…and besides, I’ve slept on my back many a time with no such hardship). I still have no idea why it happened today, but with any luck the two incidents today will be a one-off experience and it won’t become a regular thing.

Darn it, waking up shouldn’t have to be this difficult.