Wake up unable to move! - Sleep Disorders Message Board

Naysmith1234 · 08-01-2008, 07:34 PM

Every few months or so, i'll wake up, barely though, but my eyes are open. I find that i can not move my body at all! The more i try the less i can move, i sweat buckets and panic. However, I find that if i try to calm myself down, and stop struggling, movement is regained, but it drains all my energy, and i fall back to sleep. I wake up unsure if it happened.

janewhite1 · 08-01-2008, 08:02 PM

It's called sleep paralysis, and it's usually harmless if scary. It's not uncommon.

Basically, when you are dreaming, your body is paralyzed normally. You think that you are walking or whatever, but you are really lying motionless. Some people occasionally suffer a... disruption in the process that makes them paralyzed while aware of the fact and partially awake. Some people also have vivid hallucinations. It's possible that people who claim they've been abducted by aliens while sleeping in fact experienced a particularly nasty episode of sleep paralysis.

Stress and irregular sleep can make it more frequent, there are medications that can help prevent it if it becomes a real problem.

carrie1987 · 08-05-2008, 04:45 AM

that happens to me sometimes but i just keep trying to move a limb and eventually i do then my feeling comes back n i wake up

SentenceDoing · 08-05-2008, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carrie1987

that happens to me sometimes but i just keep trying to move a limb and eventually i do then my feeling comes back n i wake up

Me too! I usually concentrate really hard (and I mean REALLY HARD) on trying to move a finger, and once I'm able to, I snap right out of it.

sleepyk85 · 08-06-2008, 04:55 PM

Do you have other sleep abnormalities too, like excessive sleepiness during the day?