On Sleep Paralysis | How to Heal It and Its Essential Function in OBEs
Sleep paralysis is the inability to move or speak while entering or exiting sleep and it’s often accompanied by deep-seated feelings of fear, panic or helplessness, feelings of suffocating pressure on the chest, and even hallucinations (hello, sleep paralysis demons). Needless to say, sleep paralysis can be an intensely distressing experience, however, it doesn’t have to remain so.
After being subjected to frequent, terrifying episodes of sleep paralysis for over 20 years, I finally found a way to heal my relationship with the experiences in 2021. Since then, my sleep paralysis episodes have been free of debilitating fear.
In this article we’ll discuss the physical process behind sleep paralysis (muscle atonia during REM sleep), how to heal the fear attached to it, and how to re-work your relationship to sleep paralysis for expansive out-of-body experiences (OBEs).
What Causes Sleep Paralysis?
Sleep paralysis occurs when you become conscious while your body is still asleep. This often happens just before waking but can also occur as you initially fall asleep.
While modern research shows us that the paralysis of the experience is due to muscle atonia—a regular part of sleep—it remains unknown why some individuals become conscious before their bodies have woken. Despite the missing link, researchers have identified several physical conditions that seem to increase the probability of experiencing sleep paralysis such as insomnia and other sleep disorders, sleep deprivation, stress, hypertension, PTSD, and more.
Muscle Atonia During REM Sleep
During the REM sleep stage, the body enters a state of physical paralysis known as muscle atonia or REM atonia. This paralysis is an important evolutionary function designed to keep you safe by preventing you from acting out your dreams!
REM atonia engages through several chemical processes and neurological circuits which notably include the activation of GABAergic (gamma-aminobutyric acid) and glycinergic neurons in the brainstem.
Activation of Consciousness During REM Sleep
While researchers are unsure of the root cause for the activation of consciousness in sleep that leads to sleep paralysis, there are several notable factors that can increase the likelihood of experiencing it:
Sleep disorders like narcolepsy or insomnia
Sleep deprivation or an abnormal sleep schedule (i.e. working nightshifts)
Hypertension
Sleep apnea
Sleep-disrupting substances like alcohol or certain medications that affect sleep
Mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, etc.
Additionally, a leading theory suggests that an underlying state of hyperawareness can contribute to paralysis simply from an individual’s persistent response to their environment. Many of the conditions listed above can contribute to being a “light sleeper” which could, in turn, influence one’s susceptibility to sleep paralysis.
Personally, I believe that my old panic disorder combined with C-PTSD from my childhood created a state of hypervigilance that triggered consciousness during sleep. I also used to experience frequent nightmares due to these diagnoses and believe that the activation of consciousness during REM sleep combined with the feeling of my nightmares to induce fear-based sleep paralysis.
How to Heal Sleep Paralysis
It is estimated that about 7.6% of the general population has experienced at least one episode of sleep paralysis. It is also estimated that over 30% of psychiatric patients experience sleep paralysis, signifying that mental health is a significant determining factor.
Across the general population of sleep paralysis experiencers, more than 75% have fear-inducing hallucinations that accompany an episode. However, sleep paralysis does not have to be accompanied by fear or hallucinations as evidenced by the other 25%.
Current strategies for helping individuals experiencing fear-based sleep paralysis often include medications and sleep aids though cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has also been used to treat it. While these strategies may be effective in reducing the occurrence of sleep paralysis for an individual, they may not treat the root cause of the issue. It is this focus on symptoms only that often prevents the deeper resolution available to experiencers of sleep paralysis.
To heal the fear within sleep paralysis nightmares you must be willing to address and work with the root cause of the issue.
For some individuals that means getting clear on your physical health and actively making lifestyle changes to support your needs. It also may look like cutting alcohol out of your diet (if that’s your root cause) or even asking your doctor to find an alternative to your medications. But, for most people, mental health conditions seem to be the determining factor.
Addressing the Root of Fear
In my personal experience, I suffered terrifying nightmares for over 20 years of my life. Often, those nightmares would end in an episode of sleep paralysis complete with overwhelming feelings of fear and my very own sleep paralysis demon. Sometimes the demon looked like black ooze in the corner of the ceiling, sometimes it was a dark, veiled woman, but always it was terrifying.
For most of my life I suffered from major depression with suicidal ideation and developed a panic disorder in my early 20s. These conditions were born of complex PTSD that I experienced as a child and, all together, I believe this caused my frequent nightmares and sleep paralysis episodes.
My difficult early-life experiences (and even some in my early 20s) encouraged constant hypervigilance. This consistent, high level of awareness followed me into my sleep and dream space where it triggered consciousness during REM sleep.
After a while, I thought sleep paralysis was just a regular part of life and I began to fear sleep itself.
But one day it clicked: I don’t want to suffer anymore.
I was sick of the daily symptoms my mental health generated and decided to seek out a therapist. Over the course of several years I used a combination of CBT, EMDR, personal dreamwork practice, and good old-fashioned lifestyle changes to heal the root of my fears.
But how can YOU do this?
I’ll start by saying the only thing you need is to be honest with yourself.
If you have symptoms that are affecting your day-to-day life it’s time to try and get to the root of them.
For some people, there are hormonal imbalances in the brain that contribute to mental health conditions (and subsequently sleep paralysis) that medications could aid. For others, they need to dig deep and root out the difficult things that have been left untouched for too long. And yet for some it may just come down to enacting lifestyle changes.
The answer remains the same: be honest with yourself about what you need.
Then act upon it.
After healing your sleep paralysis episodes, you may find a new, exciting, and actually enjoyable function for sleep paralysis emerging: out-of-body experiences!
The Role of Sleep Paralysis in OBEs
Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are currently defined as a phenomenon in which an individual perceives that they are conscious but located somewhere outside of their physical body.
While some fear-based sleep paralysis experiencers describe being outside of their body during an episode, OBEs themselves are often free of fear and can be an incredible and empowering experience. Some out-of-body experiencers have described:
Seeing their physical body from a perspective outside of the body.
Floating up above the body or sinking through a bed or chair below the physical body.
Floating from a higher vantage point such as over a building, city, or even the planet.
Finding themselves observing real-time events in different locations (sometimes these events have actually been verified as occurring exactly as the out-of-body experiencer describes).
Leaving the planet and finding themselves somewhere else entirely (often during NDEs survivors will describe seeing their perception of the place we go after death).
Personally, the most impactful moment of my life was when I saw my body lying on the bed without me in it. As a result of that experience, I felt a deeper connection to myself, an increased drive for my work, a greater joy for life, and an expanded sense of personal spirituality.
However, I would have never been able to encounter this experience if I were still living in fear because sleep paralysis is biologically necessary for OBEs.
The Biology of OBEs
An out-of-body experience occurs during the REM sleep cycle when the brain engages the temporoparietal junction in the neocortex. This region of the brain is responsible for defining the concept of “self” as separate from others. The combination of suppressed external sensory processing as a result of the muscle atonia combined with a surge of activity in the brain’s center of self biologically initiates the OBE process.
In my personal experience, the heightened sense of self brings an element of full consciousness into the sleep paralysis of REM muscle atonia which allows me (my soul) the opportunity to unhinge from my physical body and step out into the universe. Without sleep paralysis, I would remain rooted in my body and unable to separate the two intertwined structures (physical and soul bodies).
To read more on how I consciously leave my body to engage an out-of-body experience, check out my Beginner’s and Advanced Guides to OBEs.
Transmuting Sleep Paralysis into Expansive OBEs
Sleep paralysis, at its worst, can feel like a literal waking nightmare. But once the fear or other root cause has been addressed and healed, it can become a doorway to personal transformation.
For those willing to be honest with themselves and seek the healing needed, what once felt like a never-ending horror can transform into one of the most expansive, awe-inspiring experiences available in this lifetime. The journey from terror to elation is not easy, but it is absolutely possible.
Just as REM atonia developed as an evolutionary function to keep us safe from acting out our dreams, so too may the consciousness of sleep paralysis be an evolutionary function leading us to a more personalized sense of spirituality.
To learn more about how, exactly, I healed my nightmares and sleep paralysis demons before engaging in out-of-body experiences, read my book How to Heal Your Nightmares.
