Life
Indistinct Chatter
Oct 26th
Indistinct chatter. I can hone in on one, but it doesn’t matter. Stories are all the same, I’ve heard them all before. When will they call my name? What’s the rush anyway? I have nothing but time. I should just live in the moment and get OUTSIDE of my mind. -Angie Romasanta
Photo by Angie Romasanta
David Burns
Oct 5th
I’m a big fan of self-help books. I’m currently reading “Feeling Good” by David Burns to help w/my anxiety. I always thought that I was a positive person – but it turns out, I’M REALLY NOT! The cause of my anxiety and attacks are from ME verbally abusing MYSELF. It seems as though I’ve become quite good at it. I’ve developed a distorted reality due to my misused imagination.
KIDZ LIVING THE LIFE
Sep 16th
The Devil On Your Back
Sep 2nd
Sleep Paralysis…
aka ‘The Devil On Your Back.’
I’ve had this happen to me on numerous occasions and are curious to know who else experiences ’sleep paralysis.’ It’s some crazy ass shit!! If you have this problem, wiggle your toes when paralyzed… It will work as long as u fight it off….
**Sleep paralysis is a condition characterized by temporary paralysis of the body shortly after waking up (known as hypnopompic paralysis) or, less often, shortly before falling asleep (known as hypnagogic paralysis).[1]
Physiologically, it is closely related to the paralysis that occurs as a natural part of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is known as REM atonia. Sleep paralysis occurs when the brain awakes from a REM state, but the bodily paralysis persists. This leaves the person fully aware, but unable to move. In addition, the state may be accompanied by hypnagogic hallucinations.
More often than not, sleep paralysis is believed by the person affected by it to be no more than a dream. This explains many dream recountings which describe the person lying frozen and unable to move. The hallucinatory element to sleep paralysis makes it even more likely that someone will interpret the experience as a dream, since completely fanciful, or dream-like, objects may appear in the room alongside one’s normal vision.
Symptoms
The primary symptom of sleep paralysis is partial or complete skeletal muscle paralysis during the hypnopompic or hypnagogic states. In other words, it is the sense of being aware that one is unable to move or speak while falling asleep or waking up. Sleep paralysis may also be accompanied by hypnagogic hallucinations.[2] These hallucinations can be auditory, tactile, and/or visual. If a polysomnograph is taken, at least one of the following will be shown: skeletal muscle tone suppression, REM sleep at sleep onset, or dissociated REM sleep. The paralysis can persist anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes before the person is able to either return to REM sleep or to become fully awake[2]. If the person returns to REM sleep yet remains fully aware, they are likely to enter lucid dream state.[3]
Possible Causes
Sleep paralysis occurs during REM sleep in order to prevent the body from manifesting movements made in the subject’s dreams. Very little is known about the physiology of sleep paralysis. However, some have suggested that it may be linked to post-synaptic inhibition of motor neurons in the pons region of the brain. In particular, low levels of melatonin may stop the depolarization current in the nerves, which prevents the stimulation of the muscles, to prevent the body from enacting the dreamt activity (e.g. preventing a sleeper from flailing his legs when dreaming about running).
Many people who commonly enter sleep paralysis also suffer from narcolepsy. However, various studies suggest that many or most people will experience sleep paralysis at least once or twice in their lives.
Some reports read that various factors increase the likelihood of both paralysis and hallucinations. These include: [4]
* Sleeping in a supine position (facing upwards)
* Irregular sleeping schedules; naps, sleeping in, sleep deprivation
* Increased stress
* Sudden environmental/lifestyle changes
* A lucid dream that immediately precedes the episode. Also conscious induction of sleep paralysis is a common technique to enter a state of lucid dreams, also known as WILD[1] .
* Artificial sleeping aids, ADD medications and/or antihistamines
Treatment
During paralysis episodes, patients may be advised to try moving the facial muscles and moving eyes from one side to the other. This may hasten the termination of the attack.
Clonazepam is highly effective in the treatment of sleep paralysis.[5] The initial dose is 0.5 mg at bedtime, while an increase to 1 mg per night might be necessary to maintain potency. Anecdotal reports indicate SSRIs such as fluoxetine markedly decrease the incidence of sleep paralysis. Several people who have been both on and off SSRIs have reported corresponding decreases and increases in sleep paralysis episodes. Others report no effects at all.
Cultural References
Complete references to many cultures are given in the References section
* In Japanese, sleep paralysis is referred to as kanashibari (???, literally “bound or fastened in metal,” from kane “metal” and shibaru “to bind, to tie, to fasten”). This term is occasionally used by English speaking authors to refer to the phenomenon both in academic papers and in pop psych literature.
* In Hungarian folk culture sleep paralysis is called “lidércnyomás” (“lidérc pressing”) and can be attributed to a number of supernatural entities like “lidérc”, “boszorkány” (witch), “tündér” (fairy) or “ördögszeret–”.[6] The word “boszorkány” itself stems from the turkish root “basz-”, meaning “to press”.[7]
* Kurdish people call this phenomenon a “mottaka”, they believe that some one, in a form of a ghost or perhaps an evil spirit, turns up on top the of the person in the middle of the night and suffocates him/her. Apparently this happens usually when some one has done something bad.
* In New Guinea, people refer to this phenomenon as “Suk Ninmyo”, believed to originate from sacred trees that use human essence to sustain its life. The trees are said to feed on human essence during night as to not disturb the human’s daily life, but sometimes people wake unnaturally during the feeding, resulting in the paralysis.
* In Turkey this is called “karabasan”. It is believed that it is a creature which attacks people in their sleep.
* In Mexico, it..s believed that sleep paralysis is in fact the spirit of a dead person getting on the person and impending movement, calling this “se me subió el muerto” (the dead person got on me).
* People who believe they have been abducted by aliens or visited by evil spirits during the night might have suffered from sleep paralysis, in which they can’t move and see or hear things they think are real but instead are just hallucinations.
* Ogun Oru od a traditional explanation for nocturnal disturbances among the Yoruba of Southwest Nigeria; ogun oru (nocturnal warefare) involves an acute night-time disturbance that is culturally attributed to demonic infiltration of the body and psyche during dreaming. Ogun oru is characterized by its occurrence, a female preponderance, the perception of an underlying feud between the sufferer’s earthly spouse and a ;spiritual’ spouse, and the event of bewitchment through eating while dreaming. The condition is believed to be treatable through Christian prayers or elaborate traditional rituals designed to exorcise the imbibed demonic elements. [8]
* Several studies have shown that African-Americans may be predisposed to isolated sleep paralysis also known as “the witch is riding you,” or “the haint is riding you.” [9] In addition, other studies have shown that African-Americans who have frequent episodes of isolated sleep paralysis, i.e., reporting having one or more sleep paralysis episodes per month coined as “sleep paralysis disorder,” were predisposed to having panic attacks. [10] This finding has been replicated by other independent researchers [11] [12]
