sleep paralysis

It's terrifying, but what is it? If you've experienced sleep paralysis you know how bad it is. Is it a brain glitch? Is it a spiritual attack? Let's find out.

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Sleep paralysis is the feeling of being paralyzed while dreaming. For instance, if you are unable to move or speak while in a dream. It occurs as your brain is transitioning into or out of sleep. In this case, your mind is moving faster than your body and it is out of synch. Commonly, people with irregular sleep schedules get hit by this. It is related to being sleep-deprived and can happen to anyone. There is no cure. Basically, just sleep on a steady schedule and you can generally avoid it. 

It is more than just feeling paralyzed, however, and comes with intense fears, feeling of choking, or hallucinations (possibly like shadow people). It happens often when someone has narcolepsy. It is more frequent between ages 20-30. The intense dreams go in three categories; intruder in the room, someone on their chest trying to kill them, or feeling an out-of-body experience. 

The main causes

The natural sleeping process involves paralyzing muscles so we don't harm ourselves while we dream. When our bodies and minds don't synch we are awake but paralyzed. Fragmented sleep schedules mess with REM (rapid eye movement). Dreams occur during REM cycles. Stress makes sleeping hard, thus stressed people or sleep-deprived people run into this more often than others do. Narcolepsy also makes this happen. This can be a warning sign of an anxiety disorder or sleep apnea, though it happens to most everyone at some point in time.

The reason you get an intense rise in fear is obvious (since it is not pleasant), but there is more. Your brain assesses threats all the time and ignores little sounds more often than you know. Yet, when you are in this state everything could be a threat and your brain is hearing every little sound and seeing every shadow. Your threat assessment is no longer being accurate because it now no longer ignores small details that don't matter. 

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Please do talk to a doctor if you are consistently getting this terrifying experience, have insomnia issues, or fall asleep suddenly and feel unusually sleepy while awake. This is when you may need help. Otherwise, experiencing this is not something that warrants a doctor's call. If you address your stress, exercise 2 hours before bed, have a steady sleeping time, and generally keep good mental health you are probably going to avoid this. Curiously, not sleeping on your back may help, too.

Spiritual attack or not

Okay, so based on the science I found, this is just your brain being out of synch and trying to compensate or your brain waking up too quickly before your body does. Lots of episodes of sleep paralysis are terrifying, causing me to cry out to God in fear and choke on the words. Is it a spiritual attack or is my brain just messing with me internally? For years people have attributed this experience to spirits and demons. There is a painting of a creature that resembles something faerie sitting on a woman's chest. It is less than comforting to see and portrays an episode of sleep paralysis. It is supposed to be unsettling. I refuse to include it in my blog post because all the other google images are even worse.

The thing is we can scientifically tie it to bad sleep habits, sleep apnea, and narcolepsy, but really don't know much else. Weird? Yes, but spiritual warfare takes many forms. It is indeed possible for this to be warfare, but we will never know for sure. Your brain literally has stock images of everything you see, so it fills in random stuff while out of synch. It can turn a nun's swishing skirt (my experience last time I had this) into a shadow ghost of a woman with a swishing skirt. It took a stock image it had and filled in what it wanted to wherever. Your brain is so complex it can pull up images years later. This makes the argument that it could be spiritual warfare kind of iffy sometimes. 

There is a common thing about shadow people showing up in dreams with sleep paralysis, but they also show up when you don't sleep for days, so that may be your brain trying to compensate. Seriously, we don't know what shadow people (in fedoras and cloaks?) are and if they are just a sign you literally need to sleep and not game all night. There is a lot we don't know. Only God knows what this is. Also, seeing someone sitting on your chest (even to the point of sexually assaulting you) is common. So, yeah, the line is blurry on this front. Are we imagining it because our mind filled in blanks or is this a deliberate attack from Satan? Really, it is a coin flip. We don't know. Frankly, all I need to know is that God has my back and I'm good. 

Does it help to cry out to God? Actually, yes. He can reach out and pull you back to safety. Apparently, you are supposed to relax and let the episode end, but I can never do that. I keep screaming for God until the words come out and I wake up saying "Satan is vanquished and Christ Jesus is king" out loud. I told my husband to wake me if I ever talked in my sleep because I have had nightmares before. I have also seen unsettling things that can't be explained. Now that you know that, understand that I am not ruling out the spiritual warfare option or the scientific explanation. I am just trusting that if this is warfare God is fighting for me, the war is already won, and I am protected by God. That is all I need to know. 

Note: Please don't look up sleep paralysis on google images unless you want mentally distressing images of demons, spirits, and anything else from any horror movie you can ever imagine. I refused to put those images on my blog post today for the reason that I may not sleep after seeing those images. I won't take away your sleep by showing them to you.

Sources:

 https://www.henryford.com/blog/2018/02/sleep-paralysis-explained

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/295039

https://sleepeducation.org/sleep-disorders/sleep-paralysis/

https://www.gotquestions.org/sleep-paralysis.html

https://www.livescience.com/61227-incubus-phenomenon.html

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/sleep-paralysis-a-brain-glitch-or-an-evil-spirit-40943

What is sleep paralysis with false awakening? Is it a spiritual attack? (compellingtruth.org)