Sleep Paralysis

Sleep paralysis occurs when awareness returns while the muscle inhibition of rapid-eye-movement sleep persists. A person may be unable to move or speak for seconds or minutes. Vivid dream imagery can continue into the room: sensed presences, footsteps, pressure on the chest, shadowy figures, or a feeling of threat are commonly reported. The experience is frightening but usually temporary.

Cultures interpret the experience through different supernatural figures and local narratives. Clinical sleep research explains the core paralysis through REM physiology while recognizing that culture shapes what a person perceives, remembers, and calls the event.

Horror often treats the bedside figure as an external intruder. That image can mirror a genuine, intense experience without establishing that a being was physically present.

• National Health Service, “Sleep paralysis,” reviewed December 7, 2023.
• Brian A. Sharpless and Karl Doghramji, Sleep Paralysis: Historical, Psychological, and Medical Perspectives, Oxford University Press, 2015.