What is the mysterious “sleep paralysis” (and what

Michael Taylor

Global Courant 2023-04-29 04:46:46

My room felt hot and restrictive, like the walls were closing in, and I panicked. Finally, after about 15 seconds, the paralysis disappeared.

Later, I found a name for what had happened to me: sleep paralysis.

This is a surprisingly common nocturnal condition in which part of the brain wakes up while the body remains temporarily paralyzed.

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“I woke up and I couldn’t move,” he told me.

“I saw this gremlin-like figure hiding behind my curtain. She jumped on my chest. I thought she had entered another dimension. And the scariest thing was that he couldn’t scream. He was so vivid, so real.”

Getty Images Sleep paralysis is believed to have inspired many works of fiction and art, including John Henry Fusseli’s painting “The Nightmare.”

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