Do you ever have a bad dream and you realize you're asleep so you try to wake yourself up from inside your dream? It's kinda hard to do. Anyway, I was napping the other day and consciously, I was awake- I knew I was in a dream, but I couldn't make myself move. I also couldn't breathe until I finally managed to make my body move.
This happens to me like 1-3 times every month or two months (more so if I just go right back to sleep after one of these episodes because it usually just happens again unless I physically make myself sit up.) It's really scary because I can't breathe and I just have to focus all my mental effort on making my body move. Often, I mentally make my body thrash back and forth, until my brain actually lets my body move.
I looked this up on the internet. It's an actual condition found under the names "Old Hag Syndrome" and Sleep Paralysis. During normal sleep the brain paralyzes your body so you can't get up and act out your dreams (which I think is way cool). Wikipedia says that during sleep paralysis, If the person wakes up suddenly [from a dream], the brain may still think that it is dreaming, and sustains the paralysis. Wikipedia put it into better words than I could.
Wikipedia and WedMD also say this is a symptoms that narcoleptics get. I'm pretty sure I'm not narcoleptic though :-)
I've actually seen this happening to my mom when she's taking a nap - I can see that she's struggling to breathe, and eventually she'll wake herself up. It's happened to my brother before too, and to Robert. Wikipedia says its normal for this to happen a couple times in one's life. I think it happens to me so often because I take naps almost every day - which can make this happen more often than normal.
Anyway, I'd be interested to know whether this happens to anyone else!
3 comments:
It happens to me! ...but you already know that lol.
And I think it's only ever happened to me when i was napping in a moving vehicle for a long time, like a car on a long road trip or an airplane.
I've also heard of another weird sleep thing:
Sometimes when you're just about to fall asleep at night, your body jumps and you wake up. Supposedly this happens occasionally because the brain thinks you are dying. There is some response in the brain that makes your body spasm when it is dying, or in severe distress or something.
I need to be studying right now, otherwise I would research into it a little more, and provide a cool link.
yeah, i think that it's happened to me too.. i'll let you know if it happens again
I am amused that it is called "Old Hag Syndrome" haha.
Post a Comment