I Suffer From Occasional Bouts of Sleep Paralysis, How bout you?

One of the characters on the show “A Haunting of Hill House” suffers from sleep paralysis. Believe it or not, so do I. If you don’t know what sleep paralysis is there is a great documentary about it on Netflix Titled “The Nightmare”.

Below is a brief overview of what it actually is:

(The Week) “During sleep paralysis, a person experiences an “out of sequence” REM state. In REM sleep, we dream and our minds shut off the physical control of the body; we’re supposed to be temporarily paralyzed. But we are not supposed to be conscious in REM sleep. Yet that is precisely what happens during sleep paralysis: it is a mix of brain states that are normally held separate.”

I wouldn’t call my run-ins with sleep paralysis particularly severe but ever since I can remember there have been times where my brain has woken up before my body. While it usually only happens around once every six months, when I haven’t been getting much sleep or have been pulling all nighters it can occur as often as multiple times a month. It’s a terrifying feeling being fully conscious yet unable to move. The fact it’s hard to breathe when this happens makes it even worse. Thankfully it usually only lasts about 10 to 30 seconds. Also, it’s less scary when you actually know what’s happening and don’t attribute the feeling to an evil spirit, which is what most cultures around the world have done at some point.

(The Atlantic)“sleep paralysis is known to just about all cultures, and it is almost always associated with nocturnal evil. In Indonesia, it’s called digeunton (“pressed on”). In China, it’s bei gui ya (“held by a ghost”). The Hungarians know it as boszorkany-nyomas, “witches’ pressure.” In Newfoundland, the spirit that comes is called the Old Hag, and the experience of sleep paralysis, ag rog, “hag ridden.” The Dutch name comes closest to what English speakers know. They call the presence nachtmerrie, the night-mare. The “mare” in question comes from the German mahr or Old Norse mara, which denoted a generally female supernatural being who in Adler’s words, “lay on people’s chests, suffocating them.”

Now the REALLY scary (and most fascinating) thing about sleep paralysis, is that it was believed to be responsible for the death of over 100 Hmong immigrants from Laos back in the 70s and 80s. It’s a pretty complicated story that is explored in detail in this article but here is the SparkNotes version.

- In the late 1970s and 1980s, 116 perfectly healthy Hmong immigrants from Laos living in the United States died in their sleep and doctors couldn’t determine why so they just called it “Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome” or SUNDS.
–  All the people who died were suffering form the severe stress of being a new immigrant and having to adapt to a completely new lifestyle. Stress is one of the biggest triggers of sleep paralysis.
– Hmong immigrants are deeply spiritual and believe that if they don’t perform religious rituals properly, their ancestor spirits or the village spirits will not guard them from evil spirits. After moving to America, many of them found it hard to properly follow many of their religious traditions.
– One of the evil spirits Hmong immigrants believe in is a nocturnal pressing spirit called Tsog Tsuam. The Hmong immigrants are believed to have interpreted any bouts of sleep paralysis as an attack from this evil spirit. When interviewed, one Hmong immigrant recounted this experience:

“I remember a few months after I first came here — I was asleep. I turned out the light and everything, but I kind of think … and then — all of a sudden, I felt that — I cannot move. I just feel it, but I don’t see anything, but I — then I tried to move my hand, but I cannot move my hand. I keep trying, but I cannot move myself. I know it is tsog tsuam. I am so scared. I can hardly breathe. I think, “Who will help? What if I die?”

As a result, Shelly Adler, who researched this case and wrote the book “Sleep Paralysis: Night-mares, Nocebos, and the Mind Body Connection” came to the following conclusion:

“It is my contention that in the context of severe and ongoing stress related to cultural disruption and national resettlement (exacerbated by intense feelings of powerlessness about existence in the United States), and from the perspective of a belief system in which evil spirits have the power to kill men who do not fulfill their religious obligations, the solitary Hmong man confronted by the numinous terror of the night-mare (and aware of its murderous intent) can die of SUNDS.”

Wow. That is some real Freddie Krueger type shit. In fact, these deaths were actually what inspired Wes Craven to make Nightmare on Elm street. Now obviously no one can know for sure what caused their deaths as they are…dead, but as someone who has experienced sleep paralysis themselves I can assure you that it does feel like you’re being attacked by an evil spirit sometimes. Luckily, I ain’t afraid of no ghosts. Sweet dreams everybody.