033 - Sleep Paralysis

 

【金縛り、kanashibari】

[Literally "Metal bindings", (The first character normally means gold or money, but the pronunciation reveals that the meaning used is metal) This term refers to three other things: "The binding of hand and foot", "A temporary feeling of paralysis", and "Being tied down by money".]

You wake up suddenly at night. Tossing and turning in your sleep, you realize something: ---You can't move your body.

As if in inverse proportion to my desire to move, my body becomes increasingly rigid and refuses to move at all. You even feel a strange sense of suffocation.

From somewhere you hear what sounds like a Buddhist prayer. The sound of footsteps approaching. As soon as you close your eyes in horror, you feel as if all your strength has been drained from your body, and your body regains its freedom.

You look around, but there is nothing.

The symptoms may vary, but during sleep, the body is immobilized against one's will. That is sleep paralysis. Scientifically, the cause of sleep paralysis is said to be the workings of the brain during slumber and the mechanism of sleep.

Sleep consists of two cycles, REM sleep, and non-REM sleep. Non-REM sleep is a state of deep sleep in which the brain is asleep but the body is awake, while REM sleep is a shallow state of sleep in which the brain is awake but the body is asleep.

The term REM is an acronym for "Rapid Eye Movement", named after the irregular wiggling of the eyeballs under the closed eyelids during sleep. REM and non-REM sleep alternate many times during the night.

Sleep paralysis is a phenomenon that occurs during this REM sleep. During REM sleep, the brain is awake but only half conscious. During this time, the brain is active, but the body is asleep and cannot move of its own volition.

Because it is a dream, one may have auditory hallucinations or see someone else, and the fear of not being able to move causes the heart rate and blood pressure to rise, breathing to become erratic, and sometimes one may feel as if someone is on top of him or her.

Especially immediately after falling asleep, the scenery seen before going to sleep remains strongly in the mind, and the scene appears in the dream, making the person feel as if it were reality. This phenomenon is said to occur more often when people are anxious, tired, or nervous.

Thus sleep paralysis is considered scientifically explained.

On the other hand, some stories go like this:

Someone who experienced sleep paralysis said that when he woke up, he felt as though someone was straddling them.

When he looked, he saw an old woman with a frightening appearance leaning over his body and squeezing his neck.

Once his body finally regained its freedom and asked for help from a friend, they found a bruise left on his neck as if he was strangled.

This experience went beyond sensations and left behind something else. Is this really something that can be explained only by the mechanisms of sleep?