Sleep paralysis

So there's a phenomenon known as "Sleep Paralysis" that often occurs when people are going to sleep or just waking up. Normally, when people are asleep, the brain remains active, so a special center in the brainstem turns on to block any outgoing neural signals. That prevents you from acting out your dreams (sleepwalking, among other things). This center prevents you from using all your voluntary muscles except for the muscles around your eyes and your breathing muscles.

Sometimes, this center turns on a bit prematurely, or fails to turn off for a little bit after we wake up. In that case, we are awake, but we are completely paralyzed. It tends to happen to people who are chronically sleep-deprived (like medical students...).

I had a horrible bout of this this morning. I couldn't open my eyes, I couldn't lift my head, I could scream to try to wake myself up, nothing. It's terrifying to be completely paralyzed like that.

This happen to other people?

A few times.... its weird tho aint it?

ya i've had that happen to me, it was horrible.

never happened to me as far as i can remember. heard about the phenomenon though.
reminds me of a good documentary on tv the other night about encephalitis lethargica

I used to get it quite alot when i was little, but i don't get it as much now. I didn't think it was scary, just a little strange.

its happened to me - about the only thing I can do at that time is to modify my breathing - faster or harder. I've gotten it to the point that I can wake myself up with the breathing (or get the person next to me to wake me up, hee hee!

Supposedly if you know what you're doing you can enduce an astral projection from that... Never actually managed it though

I never stop moving long enough for that to happen. I moove aaaallll night long, no joke!

~ Bobo

My father has serious sleeping problems. he has had this problem a few times before.

fortunatly I have not.

I have severe sleep apena and this happens all the time If I dont use my cpap machine. Its bloody horrible.

It's happened to me a few times... Every time it does I freak out so badly... Thanks for explaining what it was, at least if it happens again, I know what's going on.

yes it has several times and it freaked me out bad.
i also have sleep apina and every know and then i waske up and i still cant breath for a couple of minutes a freaked out bad last time

yeah its friggin weird hey but it only happens to me when ive been on the piss

like this morning i woke up from 4 hours sleep half drunk and i couldn’t feel my left hand and to make matters worse because i couldn’t feel it i had it in a weird pos and when it finally woke up it caned like all hell

then there was this other time when my whole right side of my body was asleep i had to use my left arm to move my right left and right arm around so i could become comfortable and trying to wake them up the odd thump and general movement

the closest thing to being wheelchair bound its pretty scary

Can't say it has happened to me.

I do however, hate waking up with the 'sleepy arm' where it's all floppy and numb. I hate that feeling. It happens occasionally. Feeling eventually comes back and everything but at the time...I hate it.

and the feeling when you get up too fast and everything fades to black and you get dizzy too. Lol. You stand up and within seconds you fall back onto your bed. It's funny.

i don't think i've ever had that before!! sounds kinda freaky!

i wish i had it this morning tho...you now that brief second after waking up the morning after a big night out and your bladder is screaming so you jump out of bed quite quickly? yeah, paralysis would have been good, so then i wouldn't have had that horrible feeling of all the blood rushing to my head and the after-effects of alcohol nearly knocking me out!!

but - i have been deprived of decent sleep for a long while now...so the paralysis thing may happen yet!! i need a good nights sleep...badly! i just can't fall into that lovely deep sleep...dang...

I first read the title as Sheep paralysis which sounded like Lightning branching into Vitinery..
..sounds like you got nipped by a blue ring octopus..
..I think they have an effect similar, without maybe the breathing bit. Which is quite important
Wanders off to bed

I'd been wondering about that... I've had it happen a lot. First time it happened I was really little and it scared the c*** outta me. Never had it happen after that until this past year. I guess I'm more sleep deprived than I thought.

Hay lightning the stuff about the section of the brain stem switching on and of, could this explain what happens to those people who claim to be awake during general anaesthesia?? When I was on my theta placement I was working in the recovery room looking after a woman who had just come had a total Knee replacement just as I was removing the incubation tube she jumped up screaming totally awake claming she was awake throughout the whole operation. Totally freaked me out on discussion with the anaesthetists he said he had never come across anything like that before.

Any ideas

Mint Sauce, I don't think so because if you were awake, you'd probably feel the pain...and that would increase your heart rate and blood pressure, so the anesthiologist would know about it, seeing as how he's got a monitor in just about every hole you've got and even in some holes that aren't normally there.

However, some patients have some rather disturbing dreams while they are anesthetized. A friend of mine who had to have an operation (and who was a resident at the time) dreamed that she arrested (cardiac) and had to be resuscitated while in the OR. She woke up going "oh my god, I arrested! Am I OK??" and the surgical staff was all "what the HECK are you talking about?!?!?"

This is especially problematic if they use ketamine as one of the induction agents.

i woke up once with deaden limbs. i dunno if it was a form of sleep paralysis or the effects of carpal tunnel or just sleeping on my arm wrong. but i couldn't move my arm to save my life. didn't even have pins and needles feeling. it was like it was entirely paralyzed. picking it up with my other arm and trying to move it was really scary. never knew my arm weighed that much.