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" I&amp;#039;m sleeping. I see a faceless, dark figure\u00A0emerge from the shadows of my closet. My\u00A0body trembles, but I can&amp;#039;t move. At all.\u00A0He slowly approaches, moving closer and closer until, just like that,\u00A0he vanishes into thin air. This is exactly what sleep paralysis feels like. It&amp;#039;s as if you&amp;#039;re waking up to a real, true nightmare \u2013 one in\u00A0which you are\u00A0completely powerless. And you cannot make it stop. Some people say sleep paralysis is all about demons and ghouls and\u00A0paranormal activity. But for me, it&amp;#039;s not a\u00A0myth. It&amp;#039;s my reality, and it&amp;#039;s something that has plagued me for several years. Though it&amp;#039;s not always super eerie, it first began to haunt me in my teens during long road trips. I&amp;#039;m notorious for dozing off almost instantly when I&amp;#039;m in a car (i.e. the worst passenger ever), and I almost always find myself succumbing to sleep paralysis.  Here&amp;#039;s how it works: During rapid eye movement sleep (REM), our body&amp;#039;s muscles lock up to prevent us from acting out our dreams and moving while we snooze \u2014 this should be a good thing.\u00A0Unfortunately, if a person becomes conscious before completing this cycle of sleep, their body will experience a delayed reaction, leaving them mentally aware of their surroundings (totally conscious)\u00A0but completely incapacitated. For me, this happens most often when I&amp;#039;m sleeping on my back (this is called the\u00A0supine position, and it triggers sleep paralysis) while in bed or if something loud or bumpy\u00A0interrupts my sleep (like if I were in a car). And if my head flops over while I&amp;#039;m in an upright position?\u00A0Game over. My first experience with sleep paralysis left me feeling so\u00A0confused and totally helpless.\u00A0Imagine waking up \u2014 eyes fully glued shut \u2014 and wondering what&amp;#039;s holding you down. It&amp;#039;s as if you&amp;#039;ve suddenly woken up in the middle of a coma and you&amp;#039;re screaming out\u00A0but not a single person can hear you. I was so scared that I thought I might suffocate. Sadly, this is what happens during every attack I have, which can occur anywhere from one to three times a month.\u00A0 While it sometimes feels like it&amp;#039;s lasting forever \u2013 or at least minutes \u2013\u00A0my paralysis lasts only seconds, in reality. During it, I fight against my own body to release itself, doing anything I can to bring about feeling in my limbs. Even when it seems as though I&amp;#039;m making noises to alert the people near me, no one I know has claimed to hear my loud\u00A0cries for help. In fact, I&amp;#039;m pretty sure any noise I hear or make is\u00A0in my head. Maybe that&amp;#039;s because you&amp;#039;re still partially on the edge of sleep.\u00A0 The worst part of it all? My sleep paralysis can transpire multiple times as I sleep.\u00A0While I might bring movement into my body during the first attack, when I&amp;#039;m extremely drowsy I end up closing my eyes and falling right back into it. Despite the years I&amp;#039;ve endured this, it doesn&amp;#039;t get any easier to cope with. But I have a feeling I&amp;#039;m\u00A0one of the lucky ones, if you can imagine that. For many who experience sleep paralysis, those\u00A0hallucinations of demons and apparitions are not uncommon. They might even\u00A0occur every single day.\u00A0While this is rare for me, it was only the other week that I thought an invader was in my house as I napped in broad daylight.  As my mind came to, I thought I heard the sound of someone opening my front door \u2013 only to walk straight into my room and hover over me. It felt as if my entire bed was shaking as a loud rumbling noise echoed throughout. Even though I could clearly comprehend that I was going through yet another moment of sleep paralysis, I couldn&amp;#039;t shake the idea that someone might actually be in my room. That these\u00A0scenarios can happen\u00A0every\u00A0time someone falls asleep is completely unfathomable to me. While I have spoken to a sleep doctor about my condition, there is no cure for the problem. There are ways to prevent sleep paralysis (like not sleeping on your back) and things you can do to make the incidents less alarming. Some of us just lull ourselves\u00A0back to sleep (that has never worked for me), while others focus on moving one body part, like a toe.\u00A0I personally\u00A0work on moving either one or both of my hands to escape the paralysis.\u00A0 Now that this has become a &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; part of my life, I&amp;#039;ve slowly learned to internally talk myself out of it, telling myself not to panic. However, when it looks like there&amp;#039;s a stranger standing in your room, it&amp;#039;s really\u00A0easy to ignore your own rational thoughts.\u00A0 I wish that there was something that I could do to end my sleep paralysis forever, but there probably isn&amp;#039;t.\u00A0All I know is that I would never wish this upon anyone. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/a36968/symptoms-of-sleep-paralysis/>