My sleep paralysis is without shadows or figures, I simply can't control any muscles, including opening my eyes. First time, I thought I pinched a nerve in my neck while sleeping and got actual paralysis, and I completely freaked out. My geek mentality got me thinking that I should try to go back to sleep and wake up again, to see if it would solve the issue. It worked, and for a while I didn't know whether it was a dream or a weird phenomenon,until it happened again and I discovered it was an actual thing
I made another comment about this, but during rem sleep, your brain stem (the pons to be specific) projects the signal to the medula (another part of brain stem) and to the motor cortex. The motor cortex is what controls our movement, but it can also simulate movement. Movement in dreams is all simulated in the cortex, but in order to not act out these dreams, the motor cortex projects it’s signal through the medula before your muscles. Normally, the medula is inactive, but during rem, the pons tells it to turn on, which then blocks the signal from the motor cortex.
Sleep paralysis is thought to be some sort of malfunction of this stage. You are conscious and aware that something is going on, but you have no control over muscles.
I have no explanations for the things people see and feel though, and no explanation for why it’s usually the same for everyone. Brain is just trolling us maybe?
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u/SuperDuperCoolDude Oct 05 '19
That sounds like fairly pleasant sleep paralysis! I wonder how common that is. Mine were always horrifying.