Is there a scientific/biological explanation for sleep paralysis?

Question

If you can't explain it..(what happens in the brain to cause this)...then please give us a scientific site that will explain it. Thanks!

What's the difference in this and "sleepwalking" or "talking in your sleep"?

Answer 1

Yes. When your body falls asleep it paralyzes itself to protect you (it) from injuring yourself by doing things like acting out your dreams. Sleep walking is actually a failure of this protective mechanism.
At times for reasons unknown to people (however stress reduction reduces incidents of sleep paralysis) some people become partially awake and for a few moments realize their body is paralyzed. This fades after a few seconds. This can also take place when one is first falling asleep.

The links to Wikipedia and Stanford are great so I won't repost them. I did post a link to search results at Web MD.

Answer 2

When you sleep your body's ability to move is shut down so you won't act out your dreams. Many people have problems with this working right, sleepwalking, sleep eating and talking in you sleep are examples of where its not working enough. On the other side is when it works to well and you can't move after you wake up. The fact that you just woke up and your unable to move is quite disorienting and can cause a panic attack. In this state you think some one is holding you down and your mind fills in the rest, and creates a boogie man doing this to you.

Answer 3

The general consensus from what various professors have told me is that in various stages of your sleep cycle, different parts of your brain are active almost as if that part of your brain were still "awake". During the REM cycle it is your motor function that is active but to keep you from kicking and flailing in your sleep your body stops the impulse at the spinal cord, preventing movement. It is possible to then wake up before the effect has passed.

Answer 4

As far as the brain is concerned what you are dreaming is real. So to keep you from running off a cliff in real life when you're running around in a dream your brain shuts off your motor functions. If you regain consciousness while you're in this stage of sleep you can be aware while your body is still self-paralyzed.

Answer 5

I've had a few over the years, scary to be paralyzed - usually lets go if you relax.

Sleepwalking is weird, my cousin used to do it a lot. I talk up a storm in my sleep.

Answer 6

i dont have a scientific explanation, but sleep paralysis has happened to me before( about 4 times). its not nice. but if i figure something out, i will come back and edit my answer.

Answer 7

http://www.associatedcontent.com./article/253980/old_hag_syndrom_a_look_at_sleep_paralysis.html
http://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Hag
http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/paralysis.html
http://sleepdisorders.about.com/cs/sleepparalysis//a/paralysisbasics.htm
heres a few links
sleep walking is caused usually by your sub-conscience taking control of body functions when it should be shut down. normally when sleeping, the body disconnects from the brain so you cant harm yourself. When people are doing this, the body and mind have not gone into disconnect. This is a very simple way of answering your follow up question

Answer 8

yes, brain switched to sleeping mode has a protective mechanism to prevent movement during REM sleep (dreaming)
a sudden awakeness while the body is still in sleep mode would make someone feel they are parallysed

Answer 9

Stress. I used to have it happen to me a lot. Its a psychological deal that happens in the brain is all I remember.
Look up Hag Ridden, its the samething.

Answer 10

i have read alot about it but they said they really dont now why the brain dose it.
but here are some web sites if you want to read about it,

http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/paralysis.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=9806

http://www.dreamsnightmares.com/sleepparalysis.html

hope this helped!