Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How Sleep Paralysis Works, or The Worst Thing That Can Happen While You're Sleeping

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How Sleep Paralysis Works, or The Worst Thing That Can Happen While You're Sleeping · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: it professional, make it beautiful. Welcome to you Stuff you
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Speaker 1: should Know Frondhouse Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome
0:37
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
0:40
Speaker 1: and Jerry is over there. So the stuff you should
0:45
Speaker 1: know the podcast. Something large on my chest. It's the devil.
0:52
Speaker 1: It's the devil is hey, Chuck, you okay, what happened? Uh?
0:57
Speaker 1: You were just having what's known sleep paralysis, buddy, whoa,
1:02
Speaker 1: it was close to it, but my touch, my gentle touch,
1:06
Speaker 1: broke you out of it. That actually sees me. I'm
1:10
Speaker 1: just kidding people. I was acting. That was stagecraft. Yeah,
1:15
Speaker 1: and we were well, we weren't debating because I was wrong,
1:20
Speaker 1: but we were talking about whether or not we had
1:22
Speaker 1: done this yet we have not. Uh like I said
1:25
Speaker 1: it was wrong. We've bitten around the edges of it
1:27
Speaker 1: so much they feel like, yeah, I feel like if
1:30
Speaker 1: you pulled every little bit of sleep paralysis out Of
1:33
Speaker 1: all the episodes where we've talked at it, talked at it,
1:37
Speaker 1: we talked at it, not about it, you go away
1:39
Speaker 1: sleep paralysis. Well, the most recent one was either Exploding
1:43
Speaker 1: Head or night terrors, um, and we specifically stopped talking
1:49
Speaker 1: about sleep paralysis so that we could save it for
1:51
Speaker 1: the actual episode. Those are always good ones. So finally
1:54
Speaker 1: here it is like we'll be on an interesting train
1:56
Speaker 1: of thought and say no, no, no no, no stop. Yeah,
1:58
Speaker 1: that's exactly what we did too. I remember the first
2:01
Speaker 1: time this came up was in trans magnetic stimulation, the
2:04
Speaker 1: thinking cap one. Yeah. Well, it's pretty interesting stuff and
2:09
Speaker 1: it's been around a while. You know. UM, the word nightmare,
2:13
Speaker 1: we use that to describe like bad dreams. It's actually
2:16
Speaker 1: incorrect usage. Nightmare was originally intended specifically to describe sleep
2:23
Speaker 1: paralysis because night means night, then mar a or mayor
2:29
Speaker 1: and may e r e. That extra e in there
2:32
Speaker 1: really messes it up. But it's old English, so I
2:35
Speaker 1: don't know if I pronounced it correctly. Or not. Neither
2:37
Speaker 1: does anyone else alive, so it doesn't matter. But that
2:40
Speaker 1: um that specifically means an incubus, and an incubus was
2:45
Speaker 1: a type of devil, like the one that was just
2:47
Speaker 1: sitting on your chest, A male, a sex craze male
2:50
Speaker 1: demon who would well, I'm just making assumptions here, who
2:55
Speaker 1: would come to you while you were sleeping and sit
2:57
Speaker 1: on your chest and maybe kill you, try to kill
3:00
Speaker 1: you and you couldn't do anything about it. Uh. Yeah,
3:04
Speaker 1: I'm into I'm into the succubus and the incubus. I'm
3:07
Speaker 1: I'm open minded. But that's exactly right. The incubus is
3:10
Speaker 1: the male version of the succubus, or the old sex
3:13
Speaker 1: crazed tag that sits on your chest. So this, this
3:16
Speaker 1: whole idea of of this has been around for a
3:19
Speaker 1: very long time. It's steeped in the supernatural, and we're
3:21
Speaker 1: only just now starting to figure out what sleep paralysis is.
3:26
Speaker 1: And to me, it's even more interesting now that we
3:28
Speaker 1: understand it a little more. Yeah, I did not know
3:32
Speaker 1: the exact definition of incubus until this research, and now
3:37
Speaker 1: I hate that band even more. Yeah, I think sex
3:42
Speaker 1: mail demons. I wonder if that's what they were going forth.
3:44
Speaker 1: They were just like that sounds cool. No, I'm sure
3:47
Speaker 1: they knew well. I'm hats off to them for realizing that. Yeah,
3:53
Speaker 1: you know, making a medieval era. Nod In might have
3:59
Speaker 1: just thought it sounded cool. Who knows whom you're thinking?
4:02
Speaker 1: You're right, I clearly know nothing about good band names.
4:06
Speaker 1: That's not true. I thought you always come up with
4:07
Speaker 1: good bad names. I don't know if other people agree
4:12
Speaker 1: they're good to me? Has someone been No? Okay, no,
4:16
Speaker 1: no one's talking no, no, no I should say about that. No.
4:21
Speaker 1: But my own band name is not No, I like it.
4:24
Speaker 1: But El Cheapo we're named after a gas station. Where
4:28
Speaker 1: El Cheapos are I know, in the South, like South
4:31
Speaker 1: Carolina and like I've seen him in Savannah coastal Southeast.
4:36
Speaker 1: I thought that was a coincidence, they're l cheap. No, no,
4:39
Speaker 1: it is. It is a coincidence, it is, But people
4:42
Speaker 1: send me pictures of El cheap out gas stations. Okay,
4:45
Speaker 1: the light in So you're not named after a gas
4:47
Speaker 1: station because then we would be x on Mobile because
4:51
Speaker 1: that's a great band. Everybody loves. What have they ever done? Nothing?
4:58
Speaker 1: All right? So, um, the the strict definition. I guess
5:02
Speaker 1: it's not strict, but the definition we're going to give.
5:04
Speaker 1: And where did you get this article? This is good?
5:06
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we better shout this out. This is straight
5:08
Speaker 1: out of the British Psychological Society's journal. I could tell
5:12
Speaker 1: it was British it was, yeah, because they say Wildston
5:15
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Way off. Um, but it was written
5:18
Speaker 1: by Julia Santamorrow and Christopher Cee French, and I believe
5:23
Speaker 1: they're both sleep paralysis experts. I know for sure Professor
5:27
Speaker 1: French is because I also saw a video of him
5:30
Speaker 1: on vimeo, UM, just basically talking about this and he
5:34
Speaker 1: had a sweater on. This said expert pretty much. Uh
5:39
Speaker 1: So sleep paralysis how they define it, and I agree,
5:41
Speaker 1: it's it's a period of transient, consciously experienced paralysis, either
5:45
Speaker 1: when going to sleep or waking up. And um, I
5:49
Speaker 1: think I was under the misguided notion that it was
5:51
Speaker 1: almost always in the transition of waking up. And it
5:56
Speaker 1: sounds like it's even more common when you're going uh
6:00
Speaker 1: into sleep and that is the hypnagogic stage as opposed
6:05
Speaker 1: to the hypno pompic stage coming out. So I think
6:10
Speaker 1: I don't know, Well, I got that impression, but I
6:12
Speaker 1: think I was wrong. I had the same impression. Yeah,
6:15
Speaker 1: probably came from us each other. So have you ever
6:19
Speaker 1: had sleep paralysis? No? Um, but I did want to
6:24
Speaker 1: mention that I did. I told you I had an
6:26
Speaker 1: exploding head syndrome experience. After we did that show, like
6:31
Speaker 1: two or three nights later, it happened to me for
6:33
Speaker 1: the first time ever. Yeah, I was worried about getting
6:36
Speaker 1: this last night. I don't want this. Well that that's
6:40
Speaker 1: a bad way to go about it. Yeah, because I
6:41
Speaker 1: will get it in your head. We should say it's actually,
6:44
Speaker 1: like you said, it's kind of common, right. Well, I
6:47
Speaker 1: mean it depends on who you ask. I've seen everywhere
6:50
Speaker 1: from a third a half of people that might experience
6:52
Speaker 1: this at least once. But I think as far as
6:56
Speaker 1: chronic uh, chronically, it's not nearly that common. No, it's
7:03
Speaker 1: something like, um, do we have stats on that. Yeah,
7:07
Speaker 1: they're in here somewhere something like three percent, three to
7:11
Speaker 1: six percent of the general population experience what's called isolated
7:17
Speaker 1: sleep paralysis. And that's if you don't have an arcalepsy. Yeah.
7:20
Speaker 1: That was the big thing I didn't realize is that
7:22
Speaker 1: sleep paralysis is a major symptom of narcolepsy, which we
7:27
Speaker 1: should do. And that came up and I was like, well,
7:30
Speaker 1: let's just replaced sleep paralysis as the show we gotta do. Yeah.
7:34
Speaker 1: I had a great aunt, great aunt Laura from Mississippi
7:37
Speaker 1: that had an arcolepsy No really, Yeah, and I didn't
7:40
Speaker 1: get to see her a lot in life. This was
7:42
Speaker 1: my father's mother's sister. Um, but I remember very specifically,
7:48
Speaker 1: my brother and I go in like one time to Jackson,
7:51
Speaker 1: Mississippi or Tupelow, I think where she lived when I
7:54
Speaker 1: was like twelve, and she would do that, you know,
7:57
Speaker 1: she would nod off while talking to us and back
8:00
Speaker 1: up and finish her sentence. So it was like she
8:03
Speaker 1: wasn't even aware that she doted off. No, And um,
8:07
Speaker 1: of course, you know, I thought it was funny at
8:08
Speaker 1: the time. It was a little kid, But I'm sure
8:10
Speaker 1: there's a lot more to it than that. Sure, it
8:12
Speaker 1: can probably be quite dangerous, I imagine. So yeah, I
8:15
Speaker 1: would guess kind of hard to come by a driver's
8:17
Speaker 1: license if you are diagnosed with narcolepsy. I don't think
8:21
Speaker 1: Laura drove. Yeah, she was one of those that probably
8:23
Speaker 1: wouldn't have driven anyway. You know, she's like like a
8:26
Speaker 1: Strickland type. You know, I don't want to drive, Come
8:29
Speaker 1: pick me up. She was just like we had to
8:33
Speaker 1: take the keys for my grandmother, that kind of thing
8:36
Speaker 1: when she was drinking. No, when she was when she
8:39
Speaker 1: was got to an age where she could drive safely. Yeah,
8:42
Speaker 1: it was she was were like, Grandma can't drive anymore.
8:45
Speaker 1: You know. In Japan they have these very prominent like
8:48
Speaker 1: magnets or stickers that you put on a car. Um.
8:52
Speaker 1: One's like a triangle. I can't remember what the other
8:53
Speaker 1: one is, but one means kind of um, but no,
8:58
Speaker 1: not at all. It's UM. One me this is a
9:01
Speaker 1: new driver, like usually a teen driver, so everybody steer clear.
9:05
Speaker 1: And then the other means this is a very elderly driver,
9:08
Speaker 1: so everybody's steer clear. I would love one of those
9:10
Speaker 1: in my car. It's like, I don't understand why this
9:13
Speaker 1: isn't universal. Yeah, you know, it makes perfect sense. I
9:16
Speaker 1: would like one just to keep people away from me,
9:18
Speaker 1: just to leave you alone. Yeah, you put on like, like, uh,
9:23
Speaker 1: what was the guy's name from Phantasm? I don't know,
9:27
Speaker 1: Angus something. Yeah, you put on a little wig like his.
9:30
Speaker 1: It's a little skull cap while you're driving, just to
9:33
Speaker 1: really drive at home. H that was a an accidental pun.
9:37
Speaker 1: Just now. I didn't catch it. I said, you put
9:41
Speaker 1: it on while you're driving just to drive it home,
9:44
Speaker 1: to drive the point home. Yeah, And I made a
9:47
Speaker 1: really good accidental pun when we were talking about hunting
9:50
Speaker 1: and I said, my dad didn't hunt. I said, it's
9:52
Speaker 1: not like he wasn't he was trying to take a stand,
9:55
Speaker 1: or he wasn't trying to take a stand as in
9:57
Speaker 1: a deer stand. Totally miss that, all right. So the
10:01
Speaker 1: deal with sleep paralysis is how you know that you're
10:03
Speaker 1: experiencing it is, uh, you can open your eyes, you're conscious,
10:10
Speaker 1: but you are aware that you can't you can't move,
10:13
Speaker 1: you can't move your body. I mean, it kind of
10:15
Speaker 1: varies between severity and individual experience, but the common thing
10:20
Speaker 1: is is that you can't move. You feel paralyzed. Sometimes
10:22
Speaker 1: you can't even make a noise. It's that bad. And
10:26
Speaker 1: and the problem with not being able to make a
10:28
Speaker 1: noise is that it particularly sucks in instances like this
10:31
Speaker 1: because you want to scream. Because most of the time
10:35
Speaker 1: when you are experiencing sleep paralysis, you are in the
10:39
Speaker 1: grips of terror like you wouldn't ever normally experience. You're
10:44
Speaker 1: scared out of your mind. You have an impending sense
10:46
Speaker 1: of death. Um. And you have all sorts of hallucinations,
10:50
Speaker 1: basically of every every sense could conceivably hallucinate. Right. You
10:54
Speaker 1: have auditory hallucinations where you hear something in the room
10:57
Speaker 1: with you. There's I should say, there's also like a
11:00
Speaker 1: sense of presence, like another thing. Yeah, there's something in
11:04
Speaker 1: the room. Usually it's something that means you harm, so
11:07
Speaker 1: you sentence presents. You might also hear it. You probably
11:11
Speaker 1: also see it, and it can be anything from like
11:13
Speaker 1: that succubus or incubus sitting on your chest, um, both
11:17
Speaker 1: the things. You're getting a little kinky, right, You're like,
11:20
Speaker 1: you're both here. I didn't think you'd find out about
11:23
Speaker 1: each other. And you'll let me wake my wife. But
11:25
Speaker 1: I can't move right, So you're just sitting there laying
11:28
Speaker 1: like this is getting weird. She's gonna be so mad.
11:32
Speaker 1: Uh uh. And then uh, you can smell them, you
11:37
Speaker 1: can taste them. There's something called gustatory hallucinations. Um. And
11:42
Speaker 1: then also the sense of feeling like moving and um
11:46
Speaker 1: of pressure on your chest, like you feel all this
11:49
Speaker 1: stuff like you're experiencing it. Yeah, and um, I think
11:53
Speaker 1: pressure is one of the big ones, like someone sitting
11:57
Speaker 1: on you, uh and not allowing you to move so
12:01
Speaker 1: um our own. Robert Lamb wrote an article about this
12:04
Speaker 1: oner site too, not about the full thing, but about
12:07
Speaker 1: like why is it? Uh, why are they demons usually?
12:11
Speaker 1: And that was kind of one of my questions, that
12:13
Speaker 1: why is it usually a malevolent spirit? And why isn't it,
12:17
Speaker 1: you know whatever, some fantasy which is like a rod
12:24
Speaker 1: saying like hey, you want to go play cats or
12:26
Speaker 1: something like that, that would be yours? No, okay, isn't
12:31
Speaker 1: he like the most hated man on the planet now
12:33
Speaker 1: for some reason? Oh? I mean he kind of went
12:36
Speaker 1: his end of his career. He was not very well
12:38
Speaker 1: Like why what did you do? I didn't pick up
12:40
Speaker 1: on that he did a lot of steroids and lied
12:42
Speaker 1: about it for years. Oh gotcha, Yeah, gotcha. He was
12:45
Speaker 1: like a repeat offender that consistently was like doing steroids.
12:49
Speaker 1: I see, I don't know why these drug testers saying
12:51
Speaker 1: I did. They're like you have a syringe in your arm, um,
12:57
Speaker 1: Robert said. And you know, he didn't like make the
13:00
Speaker 1: U up, but his research indicated that um, someone's beliefs
13:05
Speaker 1: going into it might conjure up these negative connotations. And
13:10
Speaker 1: when the experience itself is marked by like a pulse
13:14
Speaker 1: rate increase in labored breathing sometimes and these, it doesn't
13:18
Speaker 1: lend itself to like a good experience, right right, because
13:22
Speaker 1: um so, Professor French concurs with Robert right. He's he
13:26
Speaker 1: was saying, like the fear being usually a hallmark of
13:31
Speaker 1: the sleep paralysis. Paralysis experience is not just you're afraid
13:36
Speaker 1: because you can't move and there's something in the room
13:39
Speaker 1: with you, that's part of it. But he's saying, you're
13:42
Speaker 1: a migdala is also hyperactive, right then, So you're experiencing
13:46
Speaker 1: fear on like its own terms. It's like its own
13:49
Speaker 1: freestanding symptom that that even if like this, even if
13:54
Speaker 1: it was lucky the lepre Con, you'd still be super
13:57
Speaker 1: afraid that he was in the room with you kind
13:59
Speaker 1: of thing, because you're you're like that region of your
14:02
Speaker 1: brain that's that's delivering these jolts of fear to you
14:05
Speaker 1: is working over time. Then it becomes that bad leprechn movie.
14:09
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I was she in that. Yeah, yeah, I
14:13
Speaker 1: never saw those I never did either. Um. Well, it
14:17
Speaker 1: also said speaking of movies that like your own, like
14:21
Speaker 1: what kind of pop culture you're into, Like all this
14:23
Speaker 1: stuff can play into it because they are. It's sort
14:27
Speaker 1: of like an extension of a dream. So, um, if
14:30
Speaker 1: it's you know, agitated by like labored breathing and rapid
14:34
Speaker 1: pulse rate and a nightmare, then it's not going to
14:37
Speaker 1: be uh, you know, a rod floating in onto your
14:40
Speaker 1: chick with the baseball, unless you're super scared of him,
14:43
Speaker 1: then it might be. So let's take a break, man,
14:45
Speaker 1: then we'll come back and talk about some of like
14:47
Speaker 1: the cultural interpretations of what the heck is going on here. Okay,
14:50
Speaker 1: it sounds good. Yeah, so Chuck, remember we were talking
15:18
Speaker 1: about like how nightmare is like an old English term
15:22
Speaker 1: for sleep paralysis. It's been around for a while and
15:25
Speaker 1: there's and it's basically it seems to be universal and
15:29
Speaker 1: so since it's an interpreted by the person based on
15:35
Speaker 1: like what their culture believes in. Um, there's been like
15:39
Speaker 1: different interpretations of sleep paralysis throughout history and cultures around
15:44
Speaker 1: the world, and they're pretty interesting. Yeah, and I and
15:47
Speaker 1: most of them the common thread here is that ah,
15:51
Speaker 1: and even in modern terms, they're described this way sometimes,
15:55
Speaker 1: but definitely in the olden days, it's almost always some
15:58
Speaker 1: sort of supernatural thing like a witch or norwe I'm sorry.
16:03
Speaker 1: Newfoundland they called it the old Hag, which is creepy
16:07
Speaker 1: just hearing that. Uh. And China the ghost oppression because
16:13
Speaker 1: apparently the Chinese believe that you're you're very vulnerable your
16:17
Speaker 1: soul is when you're asleep. So I think that's sort
16:21
Speaker 1: of the common thread here there all these countries. There
16:24
Speaker 1: was I took an anthropology class and I can't remember
16:26
Speaker 1: what it was talking about in general, but one of
16:29
Speaker 1: the things that seemed to pop up around the world
16:32
Speaker 1: was something called spirit intrusion, Like when you were sleeping,
16:35
Speaker 1: your spirit got up and walked around, and if like
16:39
Speaker 1: the tether between your spirit and your body was severed,
16:42
Speaker 1: you were like anybody could come and possess you. And
16:45
Speaker 1: it was a big like that. That was a big
16:47
Speaker 1: explanation for mental illness in cultures around the world. So
16:51
Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting that that was also an
16:53
Speaker 1: explanation for um, for sleep paralysis too. Yeah. I think
16:58
Speaker 1: it kind of depends on whatever the the leading ghoul
17:02
Speaker 1: is in your country in region, because in Europe. Of
17:06
Speaker 1: course in the fifteen hundreds through the seventeen hundreds, it's
17:09
Speaker 1: gonna be witches. You were witch ridden. Uh. That was
17:13
Speaker 1: at one of the witch trials in seventy seven. Uh.
17:17
Speaker 1: This woman testified her about her husband in bed and
17:20
Speaker 1: he said he was laying there stiff, barely drawing breath,
17:23
Speaker 1: and he woke up and he said, my Lord Jesus
17:25
Speaker 1: helped me, Oh fiery, which is took me to Mara
17:28
Speaker 1: Maros and they put six hundred weight of salt on me,
17:33
Speaker 1: which we're laughing at. But if you break it down,
17:36
Speaker 1: that has all the hallmarks of all the different hallucinations,
17:39
Speaker 1: whether it's traveling or the weight on your chest or
17:44
Speaker 1: you know, the all these tactics. Yeah, hallucinations like wrapped
17:48
Speaker 1: up into one nightmare with exclamation points. Yeah, there weren't
17:54
Speaker 1: in Uh. I thought this is pretty interesting. In um St. Lucia,
17:59
Speaker 1: the Caribbean island, they have a term called Cookema and
18:03
Speaker 1: they think that it's a little unbaptized babies who are
18:07
Speaker 1: haunting the area that are that are causing sleep paralysis
18:11
Speaker 1: or doing all sorts of horrible things to you while
18:13
Speaker 1: you're sleeping. But you're not sleeping, we should be. I
18:16
Speaker 1: want to restate this again because it's a little confusing. Yeah,
18:19
Speaker 1: when you're experiencing sleep paralysis, you're laying there and your
18:23
Speaker 1: eyes are open, and you know that something's in the
18:26
Speaker 1: room with you. Maybe it comes over and climbs on
18:28
Speaker 1: your chest. When it does, you can feel its breath
18:31
Speaker 1: in your face. You can smell and taste its rank breath.
18:36
Speaker 1: You can feel the pressure of it laying on your chest.
18:39
Speaker 1: It's staring you in the eyes, and you cannot move.
18:44
Speaker 1: Not only can you not move, you can't make a
18:46
Speaker 1: sound as much as you're trying to scream your head
18:49
Speaker 1: off because you were scared out of your mind. And
18:53
Speaker 1: this experience can last from a few seconds to I've
18:55
Speaker 1: seen up to ten minutes, and from anecdotally, each second
19:01
Speaker 1: of those ten minutes feels like a decade because you're
19:05
Speaker 1: just so scared and it's just going on and on
19:07
Speaker 1: and on. So um, it makes total sense that you
19:11
Speaker 1: would say, ah, there was a spirit in my room
19:14
Speaker 1: last night. Yeah, because if not, you're you think I'm
19:17
Speaker 1: losing my mind, right, So let's blame it on. I mean,
19:21
Speaker 1: we'll get into some of the other reasons, but blame
19:23
Speaker 1: it on something else, right, Like in in Japan kind
19:26
Speaker 1: of shabari um is now they believe that it's evil
19:30
Speaker 1: spirits messing with you. Same thing in Korea with how
19:33
Speaker 1: we knew Alita, how we Nulita? Yeah, I thought that
19:39
Speaker 1: was pretty good pronunciation. And like we said, though, these
19:42
Speaker 1: are all sort of versions of the same thing, um,
19:45
Speaker 1: no matter where you go, which I always find interesting,
19:49
Speaker 1: like these sort of universal regional things. And then most
19:52
Speaker 1: recently though the and this is where I think we
19:55
Speaker 1: first came into sleep paralysis with the trans cranial me
20:00
Speaker 1: that stimulation episode. Was that, um, it's to blame for
20:06
Speaker 1: basically every UFO abduction account. Oh yeah, was that where
20:10
Speaker 1: we talked about it? For sure? Um, they have done
20:14
Speaker 1: studies and they found that if you, ah, I think,
20:19
Speaker 1: if you believe in alien abductions, if that's part of
20:21
Speaker 1: your belief system, then you're more or did they do
20:26
Speaker 1: the study of people that experienced sleep paralysis and all
20:29
Speaker 1: of them believed you know, maybe in UFOs. I think
20:32
Speaker 1: they did the reverse of people who have report having
20:35
Speaker 1: been abducted by UFOs they experienced sleep paralysis. Okay, they
20:39
Speaker 1: have a higher frequency of experiencing sleep paralysis so they
20:43
Speaker 1: just the people study this and they just fold their
20:45
Speaker 1: arms again. Okay, right, yeah it was an alien but there,
20:49
Speaker 1: I mean apparently in the UFO lore, the sleep paralysis
20:54
Speaker 1: has been accounted for. So like you when you're abducted,
20:57
Speaker 1: you remember being paralyzed before and after. Um, but you
21:02
Speaker 1: they wipe your memory of the actual like abduction out,
21:06
Speaker 1: but they leave the sleep paralysis. And like I remember
21:09
Speaker 1: an X files. I think when Fox Moulder's sister was taken,
21:13
Speaker 1: like she was levitated off the bed and like just
21:16
Speaker 1: stiff as a board, floats out the window. That's classic
21:19
Speaker 1: sleep paralysis symptoms where you can't move and yet you
21:22
Speaker 1: still feel like you're floating and you're moving your levitating,
21:25
Speaker 1: or that there's six hundredweight of salt being put on
21:28
Speaker 1: your chest. Um, I love salt, so that might not
21:32
Speaker 1: be a bad thing. He'd be like, this is delicious
21:35
Speaker 1: and terrifying. It up towards my tongue, that that'd be
21:38
Speaker 1: the part that was making you crazy. I couldn't get
21:41
Speaker 1: to it. Uh. They say it usually occurs when you
21:47
Speaker 1: are lying on your back in bed, although it can
21:50
Speaker 1: occur in any position at all. Because one of the
21:53
Speaker 1: accounts this article is school because they have first hand accounts.
21:57
Speaker 1: One of the guys was laying on his stomach and
21:59
Speaker 1: he felt the de and the incubus I think on
22:01
Speaker 1: his back um or maybe it was a succubus. I'm
22:05
Speaker 1: not sure. Um. And you can break it. Sometimes it
22:10
Speaker 1: happens on its own. Sometimes, Uh, you can break it
22:14
Speaker 1: on your own on purpose, they recommend, and this is
22:18
Speaker 1: a good idea. I think they recommend to try and
22:20
Speaker 1: like instead of saying I gotta get up and run
22:23
Speaker 1: out of here, they say to try to like just
22:26
Speaker 1: blink or like lift your little finger or just any
22:29
Speaker 1: conscious movement that you can get can break that thing. Yeah,
22:33
Speaker 1: And apparently the moment you do that, the spell is broken. Yeah.
22:37
Speaker 1: Um is how it's been put forever. Um. Herman Melville
22:41
Speaker 1: was the first, I think to write about this, and
22:44
Speaker 1: Mobi dick Ishmael recounts sleep paralysis again. Yeah. And then
22:49
Speaker 1: I think twenty five or fifty years later, the first time,
22:53
Speaker 1: um it shows up in the medical literature. Silas Weir Mitchell,
22:57
Speaker 1: who we know from The Exploding Heads and right. He
23:00
Speaker 1: also he also described that for the first time to
23:03
Speaker 1: this guy was like knocking out the paras omnia is
23:05
Speaker 1: left and right, um, but they both used this terminology
23:10
Speaker 1: that the spell is broken. All it takes is just
23:12
Speaker 1: the slightest stir and and the sleep prowsis is over with.
23:16
Speaker 1: But the problem is you can't move, you can't make
23:19
Speaker 1: a sound. Um. They said to even try to clearing
23:22
Speaker 1: your throat. Yeah, but even that can be challenging. But
23:25
Speaker 1: supposedly if you can even get just a little bit
23:28
Speaker 1: going you you wake yourself up a little bit, and
23:31
Speaker 1: then you can do it a little more and more
23:32
Speaker 1: and more, and then all of a sudden you're screaming
23:35
Speaker 1: and you've woken yourself up. Or if you can make
23:38
Speaker 1: a sound or a signal or something to get your
23:41
Speaker 1: partner help, something to notice that you are in the
23:45
Speaker 1: midst of sleep prowesses, all they have to do is
23:47
Speaker 1: just like touch you and it brings you back to
23:50
Speaker 1: reality or this reality. Yeah, and it's not one of
23:53
Speaker 1: those things where you know it's dangerous to wake someone
23:55
Speaker 1: up experiencing sleep proalysis, right, and it's like totally fine. Yeah,
23:59
Speaker 1: that's the other thing about it is as terrifying and
24:01
Speaker 1: horrifying and just what a horrible experience it is. It's
24:05
Speaker 1: physiologically it's harmless aside from raising your blood pressure. Yeah,
24:09
Speaker 1: I mean I guess you could always like trigger up
24:12
Speaker 1: cardiac arrest or something maybe. But right, well, supposedly it mimics, um,
24:18
Speaker 1: having a heart attack in some ways, so you actually
24:21
Speaker 1: could be having a heart attack and and think it
24:23
Speaker 1: a sleep paralysis or um. I think it also mimics
24:27
Speaker 1: epilepsy in some ways. Um. But if it is just
24:32
Speaker 1: actual sleep paralysis, it's harmless. Well yeah, and I know
24:37
Speaker 1: we did mention this. It might have been the trans
24:40
Speaker 1: magnetic transcranial magnetic yeah, yeah, simulation where they recommend one
24:47
Speaker 1: of the things is to just tell or it might
24:50
Speaker 1: have been night terrors. Tell people just to like learn
24:52
Speaker 1: to embrace it and go with it and then it
24:56
Speaker 1: doesn't because sometimes it can be a joyful experience. It's
24:59
Speaker 1: not always tear. Yeah, and maybe if you roll with it,
25:02
Speaker 1: you can control it a little bit more. It was
25:04
Speaker 1: it was exploding head syndrome. That's just just learning that
25:07
Speaker 1: it's actually harmless, the same thing like let people. Some
25:11
Speaker 1: people just got over it immediately, um, and then other people,
25:15
Speaker 1: um yeah with this have learned to actually enjoy like
25:19
Speaker 1: the feeling of levitating or floating, and it all comes
25:22
Speaker 1: down to hearing that it's harmless, and hearing that it's
25:24
Speaker 1: harmless relieves stress, and stress is actually what brings both
25:28
Speaker 1: of those things on. So they're related in some way,
25:31
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll get down to the scientific nitty gritty
25:34
Speaker 1: after this break. Huh chuck, sir, if you're trying to
25:50
Speaker 1: eat better, all right, tune. What's what's really going on here?
26:02
Speaker 1: Old hags aside? Uh, well, I guess we should talk
26:08
Speaker 1: about narcolepsy a little bit because this is one of
26:13
Speaker 1: the I guess side effects of narcolepsy. Um. There are
26:17
Speaker 1: actually a couple of them, sleep paralysis and then what's
26:20
Speaker 1: called vivid hypnogogic hallucinations, which is when you're falling asleep
26:25
Speaker 1: like we talked about. And apparently if you're narcileptic about
26:28
Speaker 1: seventeen of narcoleptic or people who have narcolepsy, is it
26:34
Speaker 1: wrong to say narcoleptic? Probably? Probably. I think with any
26:38
Speaker 1: any condition or disease, don't like identify the person, right, Yeah,
26:42
Speaker 1: it's somebody with it, that's right, So somebody with narcailepsy.
26:46
Speaker 1: And I want to hear from you people. By the way,
26:48
Speaker 1: some people who who have NARCOLEPSI will be like, hey,
26:51
Speaker 1: I'm an arcileptic. I don't care, and other people will
26:53
Speaker 1: say like, kudos, right for saying people with narcilepsy, UH
26:58
Speaker 1: seventeen experienced sleep paralysis. If you are stricken with narcolepsy,
27:05
Speaker 1: experience those vivid hypnogogic hallucinations and UM, it pretty much
27:12
Speaker 1: as individual as far as UH is how much you're
27:15
Speaker 1: going to have these and how much you experience it,
27:18
Speaker 1: whether you're have narcolepsy or not. UM. But if you
27:22
Speaker 1: are non narcalyptic in that population, which is most people, UM,
27:27
Speaker 1: twenty to of those folks apparently will experience it at
27:33
Speaker 1: least one pretty wide range. Some people experiencing experience it
27:38
Speaker 1: very frequently. UM. And apparently if you have basically chronic UM, Yeah,
27:45
Speaker 1: I think it's called severe and chronic sleep paralysis. So
27:49
Speaker 1: severe is UM where it happens like multiple times in
27:53
Speaker 1: a night, and then chronic is where that happens over
27:56
Speaker 1: a period of six months. If you're one of those
27:59
Speaker 1: poor s obs who has chronics of your sleep paralysis,
28:02
Speaker 1: this can happen to you like up to twelve times
28:04
Speaker 1: or more in a night. Yeah, because when you get
28:07
Speaker 1: back to sleep, it will happen all over again, right, Yeah,
28:09
Speaker 1: So that was one of the things when you're when
28:11
Speaker 1: if you're moving a finger, blinking an eye, or making
28:14
Speaker 1: a sound and you wake yourself up, you want to
28:18
Speaker 1: actually get out of bed and get up and move around,
28:20
Speaker 1: basically shake it off, because if you don't, you can
28:24
Speaker 1: fall back asleep and the same thing is going to
28:26
Speaker 1: happen again and again. Then even more mind boggling. Is
28:29
Speaker 1: this one of the other traits of um sleep paralysis
28:34
Speaker 1: or what it called false awakenings, right, which is some
28:37
Speaker 1: straight up inception stuff where you think you're awake and
28:41
Speaker 1: screaming but you're not. Right, then you wake up and realize, oh,
28:45
Speaker 1: I was dreaming that I was awake and experiencing sleep paralysis.
28:48
Speaker 1: So it's a bit of a mind bender. It is
28:50
Speaker 1: including that these false awakenings, according to Professor French in
28:55
Speaker 1: that video, can can be several layers deep. So when
28:59
Speaker 1: you have an about of sleep paralysis and you finally
29:03
Speaker 1: scream and wake up, you realize, oh I was dreaming, right,
29:09
Speaker 1: you might experience it again and then you do the
29:12
Speaker 1: same thing and you you you go through this multiple
29:14
Speaker 1: times until you finally actually do wake up. But you
29:17
Speaker 1: can go through sleep paralysis over and over again in
29:20
Speaker 1: different layers of a dream. Yeah, and then you get
29:23
Speaker 1: up and you go to work at your stupid cubicle,
29:25
Speaker 1: and no one around he has any idea that the
29:27
Speaker 1: living hell that you're experiencing or just the amazing journey
29:30
Speaker 1: you've just been on with a rod. Uh. One thing
29:34
Speaker 1: that really stinks is if you know to combat it,
29:36
Speaker 1: like you said, to get up and fully wake yourself up,
29:40
Speaker 1: that that could screw you. If you have a hard
29:42
Speaker 1: time falling back asleep, you might be up for the night. Uh.
29:45
Speaker 1: In this one person in here describe the feedback loop
29:47
Speaker 1: of stress. A lot of times stresses what brings brings
29:50
Speaker 1: it on, and then it becomes this self fulfilling prophecy
29:54
Speaker 1: that you're stressed out about what's going to happen, which
29:57
Speaker 1: makes it happen and you're just thinking, oh no, no,
29:59
Speaker 1: not not again, not again, not again, And of course
30:01
Speaker 1: that's when it happens, right right, right, So, like the
30:04
Speaker 1: stress is messing up your sleep pattern and that's where
30:08
Speaker 1: the whole thing comes from. Right. So, the first two
30:11
Speaker 1: guys who were described in the Medical Nature by Silas,
30:14
Speaker 1: we're Mitchell Um as having sleep paralysis. We're actually healthy.
30:18
Speaker 1: But it was people with narcilepsy who ultimately lead to
30:22
Speaker 1: basically the solving of the mystery of what sleep paralysis is.
30:27
Speaker 1: And one of the characteristics of narcilepsy is something called
30:31
Speaker 1: sleep on st r e M periods. Yeah that they
30:34
Speaker 1: think that may be the key there. I I think
30:36
Speaker 1: it's the key. Yeah, So what that is? Uh, you know,
30:39
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about r e M sleep that
30:41
Speaker 1: usually happens about an hour or at least an hour
30:46
Speaker 1: or more after you've fallen asleep. And what's happening here
30:50
Speaker 1: is is so imp can we call it that? Yes,
30:55
Speaker 1: sleep on st r EM periods is when you're experiencing
30:59
Speaker 1: this r e M before that hour or so has passed,
31:03
Speaker 1: Like right as you're falling asleep, you go straight into
31:05
Speaker 1: the r M sleep. So, like I think in my
31:08
Speaker 1: own private Idaho either Keyana Reeves or River Phoenix when
31:12
Speaker 1: they like fell asleep, yeah, one of those said an arcolepsy, right, yeah,
31:16
Speaker 1: one of them think so um, like their their eyes
31:19
Speaker 1: kind of fluttered, okay, So like that was a perfect
31:24
Speaker 1: perfect portrayal of narcilepsy because your eyes would flutter during
31:28
Speaker 1: ri e M sleep, and it would happen immediately if
31:31
Speaker 1: you had sudden nonset R e M periods. Right. So
31:35
Speaker 1: the idea that somebody can fall asleep and immediately go
31:38
Speaker 1: into R E M sleep rather than go through the
31:40
Speaker 1: sleep cycles and the stages like you're supposed to, that
31:44
Speaker 1: apparently is what accounts for is associated very strongly with
31:51
Speaker 1: episodes of sleep paralysis with people with narcilepsy, with people
31:54
Speaker 1: who have sore MPs. Because you don't have to have
31:58
Speaker 1: narcilepsy to have sleep on set R e M periods.
32:02
Speaker 1: It's a it's a trait of narcolepsy, but even people
32:05
Speaker 1: who who don't have narcolepsy can experience that, and usually
32:10
Speaker 1: it's when you're very stressed and your sleep pattern is
32:13
Speaker 1: out of whack. Yeah, I think what I was trying
32:15
Speaker 1: to say was that doesn't explain when you have of
32:18
Speaker 1: sleep paralysis episode coming out of sleep, right, which is
32:21
Speaker 1: the hip no pomp pick uh, But I think it
32:28
Speaker 1: was probably who is it? Dr French, Professor French. Mr
32:32
Speaker 1: French in the in the conservatory with the candlestick, uh,
32:37
Speaker 1: Professor French. I think reasons that it doesn't fully explain it,
32:41
Speaker 1: but it could relate because it's a similar state of
32:43
Speaker 1: consciousness either way falling sleep or waking up. Yeah. So
32:48
Speaker 1: basically exiting or entering R E M sleep suddenly into
32:53
Speaker 1: this reality can can be attended by an episode of
32:58
Speaker 1: sleep paralysis. Yeah. And they did some studies in Japan.
33:02
Speaker 1: They actually elicited that sore MP. These are mean, yeah,
33:06
Speaker 1: don't you think. I don't know how they would do that,
33:08
Speaker 1: but they elicited sore and participants uh, and they used
33:11
Speaker 1: sleep interruption in nine point four percent of the ones
33:15
Speaker 1: induced had an episode of sleep paralysis. Yeah, but that
33:19
Speaker 1: was that was UM going into sleep. Correct. They've not
33:23
Speaker 1: figured out how to how to like you said, created
33:25
Speaker 1: and bringing somebody out of R E M sleep, but
33:28
Speaker 1: again associated with it, and what they think is going
33:31
Speaker 1: on is basically this when you when you suddenly go
33:37
Speaker 1: into R E M sleep from waking life, your brain
33:41
Speaker 1: can get caught in this dual state of consciousness where
33:47
Speaker 1: your brain is consciously awake, but it's also in the
33:51
Speaker 1: exact same same UM state it's in when you're dreaming,
33:54
Speaker 1: which your dreams take place in R A M sleep,
33:57
Speaker 1: So you're in two states of justinus at once. That's
34:02
Speaker 1: amazing to me, that's sleep paralysis, and the paralysis is
34:06
Speaker 1: explained by the fact that another hallmark of r M
34:09
Speaker 1: sleep is that you can't move your muscles are paralyzed.
34:12
Speaker 1: It's cataplexy, right. Um, so that you don't act out
34:15
Speaker 1: your dreams, so you're dreaming while you're awake, that's sleep paralysis. Yeah, or,
34:23
Speaker 1: as Dr French says, wakefulness has occurred, but the body
34:27
Speaker 1: and part of the brain are still in r M sleep.
34:29
Speaker 1: Nuts it is, I can't. I want to have one
34:32
Speaker 1: of these, Yeah, but it sounds so scary. Panic. These
34:38
Speaker 1: are the words are used for it. I know I
34:41
Speaker 1: want to have one, and I'm not taking it lightly
34:43
Speaker 1: for people that suffer from it. I know it can
34:44
Speaker 1: be awful, but I would like to like the exploding
34:47
Speaker 1: head thing, like, now I know what that feels like. Yeah,
34:50
Speaker 1: and I kind of like having these references in life, okay,
34:54
Speaker 1: like personal references. You know. Sure, I remember we did
34:56
Speaker 1: the slinky episode. You went out and bought it slinky.
34:59
Speaker 1: That's not true. Um. So, like we said, how you
35:03
Speaker 1: can break it is by trying to move small things,
35:06
Speaker 1: clear your throat maybe. Um. Aside from that, you can
35:09
Speaker 1: try and avoid it altogether. By if you're able to
35:13
Speaker 1: have a really regular sleep schedule and stuff like that.
35:16
Speaker 1: But if you're they make a good point. If you're traveling,
35:18
Speaker 1: if you're in different time zones, if you have to
35:20
Speaker 1: work the night shift, you have a kid, yeah, exactly,
35:22
Speaker 1: waking up all night, you might uh kind of be
35:25
Speaker 1: you know, at the mercy of the sleep paralysis. God. Yeah,
35:29
Speaker 1: I was, Um. I was glad that they put that
35:32
Speaker 1: in that realism because so many times whenever you're talking
35:35
Speaker 1: about is sleep disorder, it's like the CDC recommends an
35:39
Speaker 1: apple a day, and it's just like this is not helpful,
35:42
Speaker 1: Like this isn't real. But this guy's like, yeah, you're
35:45
Speaker 1: you're in trouble when your sleep's all jacked up and
35:48
Speaker 1: you have sleep paralysis a lot. Yeah, what else is there? Oh? Um,
35:54
Speaker 1: with narcolepsy in particular, and I mean there are drugs
35:58
Speaker 1: that you can take, but they don't necessary early work
36:00
Speaker 1: with sleep paralysis with with narcolepsy. Um sodium oxybate is
36:06
Speaker 1: uh prescribed and I looked that up as g HB. Yeah,
36:09
Speaker 1: but that's just for an eclepsy, not for sleep paralysis.
36:12
Speaker 1: Right with the idea that if you cured the narcolepsy,
36:14
Speaker 1: then you won't have the sleep paralysis. That I think
36:16
Speaker 1: is how you could cure it. But that's only if
36:19
Speaker 1: you have narcolepsy, not um isolated sleep paralysis. I think
36:23
Speaker 1: the official recommendation, aside from all the little tricks that
36:28
Speaker 1: we mentioned, is, like we said, hey, it's not gonna
36:31
Speaker 1: hurt you, UM, try and reframe how this is in
36:36
Speaker 1: your brain and don't be afraid of it. Welcome the incubus.
36:41
Speaker 1: What if the band incubus was what showed up in
36:44
Speaker 1: your room while you had sleep paralysis? You know. Another
36:50
Speaker 1: way to treat this is for everybody to be nice
36:52
Speaker 1: to everybody else and cut down on everyone's stress. You
36:54
Speaker 1: never know who has sleep paralysis. They might think they're
36:57
Speaker 1: being abducted by UFOs and antally probed every night and
37:00
Speaker 1: are too freaked out to even mention it, which is
37:03
Speaker 1: another thing that UM Professor French points out, like we
37:07
Speaker 1: need to let people know about this because the more
37:10
Speaker 1: people we know that this is actually harmless and fairly common,
37:14
Speaker 1: the less stressed they're going to be about it when
37:15
Speaker 1: it actually when they go to bed. So go out there,
37:18
Speaker 1: you tell somebody about sleep paralysis, and then also be
37:23
Speaker 1: nice to everyone you meet. Yeah, I posted a there's
37:26
Speaker 1: a documentary about it. Um, I can't remember the name
37:28
Speaker 1: right now, but I posted this documentary trailer quite a
37:32
Speaker 1: while ago then Netflix. I can't remember what it's called,
37:35
Speaker 1: but I know what you're talking about, like the dream
37:38
Speaker 1: maybe something like that. It's got a pillow. But um,
37:41
Speaker 1: I posted on Facebook a while ago, and uh, a
37:45
Speaker 1: lot of people chimed in that had bouts of sleep paralysis. Yeah, yeah,
37:50
Speaker 1: apparently it's very common. Yeah. I went and look through
37:53
Speaker 1: the comments today. It was pretty interesting stuff. And my
37:57
Speaker 1: heart goes out to everybody same here. And hopefully you've
38:00
Speaker 1: learned just to sort of live with it, be a
38:02
Speaker 1: dream sailor you live with it and write it out.
38:05
Speaker 1: That would be kind of cool, though I'd be like
38:07
Speaker 1: levitation on control it, incubus out, suck, give us in. Uh,
38:16
Speaker 1: you got anything else? No, If you want to, um,
38:21
Speaker 1: learn more about sleep paralysis, we'll just type those words
38:24
Speaker 1: in the search bar because we have a very limited
38:26
Speaker 1: amount here and how stuff works. So after you read
38:30
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb's great thing, go check out stuff on the internet. Okay, okay, Uh,
38:36
Speaker 1: And since I said whatever I just said, it's time
38:38
Speaker 1: for listening to mail. Hey guys, I've been a fan
38:43
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38:45
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38:47
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38:50
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38:52
Speaker 1: we were halfway home, I'd been awake from us thirty hours.
38:55
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38:57
Speaker 1: the latest episode of Stuff You Should Know and be
39:00
Speaker 1: reveled in the glorious nous all the way there. Anyway,
39:04
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39:05
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39:10
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39:13
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39:17
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39:20
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39:23
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39:25
Speaker 1: jig at my desk when I opened my paper to
39:27
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39:31
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39:35
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39:41
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39:45
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39:47
Speaker 1: listen to all the podcast you do. Mhm. For a
39:52
Speaker 1: moment I thought that maybe I talked about you guys
39:55
Speaker 1: too much, but promptly dismiss the idea. So thanks for
39:57
Speaker 1: the show, for the awesome podcast. Four exclamation points from
40:03
Speaker 1: one academic to several others. Three exclamation points. They're starting
40:07
Speaker 1: to dwindle. Many many thanks. That is from Tigan. Thanks Tegan,
40:11
Speaker 1: who uh describes herself. I guess Tigan's a lady's name,
40:15
Speaker 1: right sure, um as a nerdy neuropsych major from Melbourne.
40:20
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Tigan. We appreciate that big time and
40:22
Speaker 1: all the exclamation points. So those were very nice. Got
40:25
Speaker 1: the lazy towards the end, but right I turned the
40:28
Speaker 1: trail off. Maybe she broke the key. Maybe she has
40:30
Speaker 1: an ecolepsy. Good point. Uh. If you want to get
40:34
Speaker 1: in touch with this, like Teagan, you can tweet to
40:37
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40:39
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