Is it a dream? Or is it Sleep Paralysis?

Is there any chance one of your family member can sleep on the same bed which you are sleeping? Please do not sleep and stay alone in your room.Sharing room with my momma worked and completely cured my sleep paralysis.

Hello Ferny,

Yes, it's definitely sleep paralysis (SP). You've given a very good description of it.

Welcome to the club! It's not a very exclusive club. Most people will get one or two episodes of SP in their life, but about 5% of the population get it on a regular basis, and it's estimated that about half of those suffer hallucinations like yours during episodes. I've been a full "member" of the club for 50 years!

First, a word of explanation as to why it happens. As you're clearly very bright, I suspect you've looked all this up already, so skip the next two paragraphs if this is the case. However, I'll go over it again for the benefit of anyone else who might read this.

Every night we go through several sleep cycles, each lasting about one-and-a-half hours. Each consists of a non-dreaming phase and a dreaming phase, known as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. During REM sleep, the brain secretes a hormone that paralyses our voluntary muscles - all except our eyes - to stop us jumping up and acting out our dreams. It doesn't, however, paralyse the muscles controlled by the autonomic nervous system. These are the ones that take care of things like our heartbeat, breathing, digestion, the muscles in our artery walls that maintain our blood pressure, essential reflexes like swallowing, and a number of other functions. In other words, we're perfectly safe during the periods of paralysis we all go through every night of our lives.

In some of us, the production of this paralysing hormone regularly gets out of sync, and the brain either carries on producing it after we've woken up, starts secreting it before we're asleep, or both. The most common time is when we're waking, as it arises from REM sleep, and most of us go into the REM phase towards the end of each sleep cycle. However, some people go into REM sleep earlier on, so it can also occur when falling asleep, as you describe. This is particularly likely to happen when sleeping during the day - e.g. having a lie-in in the morning or taking an afternoon nap.

That tingly warning feeling you get is very common, as is an uncomfortable sinking feeling in your stomach, like when a plane falls into an air pocket. Some people also hear a buzzing sound, or a loud bang inside their head, or may even feel as if their body is vibrating. I usually experience the warning signs in a dream, from which I immediately wake into SP, but like you, I can also get it when starting to doze off again in the morning or if taking an afternoon nap. (I'm an old lady, so entitled to take afternoon naps occasionally!)

Because it arises from the dreaming phase of sleep, the unconscious tends to be very active during SP. This is why some of us hallucinate. I'd estimate that I only hallucinate in about three-quarters of my SP episodes. As you've clearly worked out for yourself, hallucinations can affect any of our senses. Mine are mainly tactile, like yours, though an episode can sometimes start out with hearing running footsteps, doors banging and taps being turned on. Not sure why I hear that last one, but we all have our own little foibles! My father's hallucinations were visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory - he used to see unpleasant things and smell them too. (And yes, it's quite strongly hereditary, though it has to start somewhere. My father, at least one of his siblings and their mother all had it.)

We can also get what I call proprioceptive hallucinations. Proprioception is the sense that tells us where the different parts of our body are in space. If you put your hand behind your back, you still know it's there, even if you can't see it. This is clearly what you're describing when you mention feeling that you're being rolled over. I've sometimes has the feeling of actually being pulled out of bed and thrown around the room. There's also what some people refer to as the "sixth-sense hallucination" - the feeling of an unseen presence you describe so well, which is very characteristic of SP.

So what can you do about it? Fortunately, SP tends to be highly susceptible to a number of triggers, which vary from one person to another. My main trigger is getting too warm in bed, and I've met others who have the same problem. Sleeping when I'm not really tired (afternoon naps and morning lie-ins) is another of mine. However, many people get SP episodes when they're overtired and not sleeping enough. Some people are triggered by certain foods, or by eating too late at night. Too much alcohol late in the evening can be another trigger, and I believe smoking weed is a powerful one, as are many other recreational drugs. I've never smoked weed or used any recreational drug other than alcohol, but I do notice that if I allow myself an extra glass of wine with my dinner I'm inclined to wake up in an SP attack in the early hours. There's some evidence that electromagnetic influences can trigger an attack - which is hardly surprising since the brain works via electrical impulses. In my own case, I always had more attacks - and more severe hallucinations - when sleeping in my parents' old house, which was quite close to overhead high-tension cables. Sleeping with electronic equipment (phones etc.!) too close to your head can be another trigger. And of course, stress and anxiety - especially the fear of having another episode - can be powerful triggers. The trick is to identify your own triggers, by keeping a journal if necessary, and then avoiding them as far as possible.

Avoiding triggers can significantly decrease the frequency and severity of attacks, but is unlikely to stop them altogether. Once you've had a few attacks, it's likely that you'll have SP for life. However, it's perfectly possible to live with it once you understand it, and the good news is that it does tend to decline with age even if it never goes away.

I'm interested to read that you're having "false awakenings" as well. These affect a significant proportion of SP experients. My father had them all the time, and I occasionally get them. This accounts for the business with your phone. False awakenings are a kind of dream that occurs when you're lying in bed in the morning, just after waking. Some of us go through the entire business of getting up, washing, getting dressed etc., only to find ourselves still back in bed, where we've been all the time. It's quite common to find that light switches and other equipment don't work during these specialised dreams - which is hardly surprising, since none of it ever happened!

I hope this reassures you. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact me, either by posting here or by sending me a private message. PMs sent via this site don't expose the email address of either party, and don't carry viruses. Just click on the little envelope icon underneath or next to my name.