Ghosts & Hauntings

Sleep paralysis can lead to ghost sightings

By T.K. Randall
January 19, 2015 ·  106 comments

An early depiction of a hallucinated creature during sleep paralysis. Image Credit: John Henry Fuseli Most people will have experienced sleep paralysis at least once at some point in their lives - that disconcerting sensation of waking up in bed yet being unable to move or call for help.

Researchers believe that sleep paralysis occurs when a person wakes up during REM sleep, a state in which dreams are experienced but during which the muscles are paralyzed, most likely as an evolutionary mechanism to prevent us from physically acting out the movements in our dreams.While most of the time the paralysis will disappear within a minute or two of waking, for some the experience can continue for some time and bring with it a host of disturbing hallucinations.

Some of the less common symptoms of sleep paralysis can include the feeling that someone is watching you or standing over your bed. The intruder, which may take the form of any horror your mind can conceive, can even climb on top of you, producing the feeling of being crushed.

Some psychologists argue that incidents of sleep paralysis therefore may account for stories of people waking up in the night to see apparitions, dark figures, demons or other entities present in their room while being unable to move or call for help.

Source: Live Science | Comments (106)

Tags: Sleep Paralysis