what is sleep paralysis 2?

Question

ok well last week i asked about sleep paralysis, thanks for ur answers. i have another question... is there any treatment? like i heard from sites that its just coz we are all tired ect ect..but u know what the weird thing is??i live in aust, i've only had it in austra and when i was little in malaysia, last year, i went away with my best friend to china and malaysia and i was tired most of the nites and i didnt have any sp. So im so confused, it usually happens when im alone. and another thing, its prob a psychological thing but everytime b4 i have sp, i always see a black human figure.. whereever i blink i see it all the time.

Answer 1

Sleep paralyisis doesn't need any kind of treatment. It is a normal and desirable effect of the brain putting the body to sleep, and preventing the acting out of dreams during REM stage. It usually occurs as one is deep into second stage, and nearly ready to enter REM, and is usually released again as the person enters the fourth and deepest state. It is normally not a problem for people, unless they awaken during the transition. THe brain has to convert back to a conscious state very rapidly, to allow you to take control again. Think of yourself as a computer, and sleep being the standby state. When you try to reaccess your computer, it takes a few moments for everything to power back up again so you can. When you wake up alone, it is more likely for you to be slightly disoriented because you have nothing else or no one else to fixate on, and clearing the cobwebs takes a bit longer, made worse by your concern over the reboot time. You are multitasking a sleepy brain, and jamming the neural highways. First, you are asking it to rapidly go from a standby state to fully conscious and allowing you full control, then you worry because it's not happening soon enough and try to force things.
What you really have to do is just relax about this whole thing. There is nothing deep dark or mysterious about the phenomena you describe. Not even the figure you describe is unusual. Again, you are trying to force a sleepy brain from REM sleep to fully waking state, and what you are getting are just flashes of something from dreams. The longer you stress yourself over the whole thing, the more likely it is to continue happening. Take a little more time to allow yourself to wake completely. Remind yourself it is a normal thing, and let it go at that. Don't try reading meaning into it, because you are working with a brain at half power when you are waking up- that's all the meaning there is to it.
You wouldn't want to "cure" sleep paralysis even if you could. Acting out dreams could prove to be very hazardous to one's health, and waking up to find yourself seated in your car would be even more disconcerting. Moreso if you habitually sleep in the nude. My advise is to quit trying to fight what is a normal natural process of the body. Allow yourself to wake without fighting to get complete control, especially if you are waking up when you hadn't expected to be getting up. Being jolted out of sleep is not pleasant for anyone, and you are not making things easier on yourself by stressing over it.