Is there any such thing as sleep paralysis?!
Question: If so, what exactly is it?
Answers: If so, what exactly is it?
Yes.
It is the inability to voluntarily (or consciously) move either just before you fall asleep, or just after you wakeup. In other words, for example, you wake up, and you are conscious, but for a brief few moments you can't move at all.
It usually disappears very quickly (a couple of minutes) and you can then move normally, but it frightens a lot of people who get it.
It's not known exactly why it happens to some people, but it is basically due to bad timing of the body's disconnection from the brain when you move in and out of REM sleep (the dreaming stage). During REM sleep the major muscles in your body are paralyzed because the motor neurons in your brain are essentially shut down. If they go offline too early, or take too long to come back online, that's where you get your sleep paralysis!
Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paral...