Went through a bout of sleep paralysis episodes many years ago. Started suddenly and stopped a few months later just as suddenly. No idea why. However, my wife now has standing orders that if I’m mumbling urgently in my sleep, she should interpret that as me screaming, “WAKE ME THE FUCK UP!”
It seems terrifying. I’ve never experienced it, but anecdotally like 90% of the people who tell me they get it frequently have a weed habit. Don’t know if there’s a connection there.
I never had them frequently, but I haven’t had a single episode since I stopped smoking.
Just adding another anecdotal data point
I used to have them frequently before I ever even so much as tried weed. But it wouldn’t surprise me if some things are more prone to trigger it in some people. I know that specifically back sleeping is a known trigger in literature.
For me, I used to get it very frequently in grad school when I was incredibly stressed out and sleep deprived much of the time. The sleep paralysis episodes were more vivid than my usual too. I even had one point where a shadow demon slowly walked toward me as I could only lay there in wait for it to kill me.
Since grad school, they dropped off a ton and I only get episodes rarely again, even if I’m very stressed out!
I shot my sleep-demon. And I put his head on a pike to warn any others that might rear their ugly heads around my house. The sheriff’s deputy assigned to my neighborhood came knocking and I said what happened, EMTs came by hauled away its headless body.
That reads like lyrics to a good song.
So found out my uncle was taking sleeping pills since his wife died, 25 years ago. He was prescribed them at the time because he predictably had issues when she was dying, and he just kept taking them ever since. So last week he sees a doc that says “those are pretty strong, maybe we should get you off those” and switches him to melatonin, which he reacts to. So he stops altogether and he says he’s feeling better than he has in decades.
Old people will just do what a doctor says without questions, and they just expect to have to take some sort of pill for anything.
Can’t really say he’s done too much damage, he is 93 now after all, and he still shovels his own snow, rides a horse for cattle moves, and feeds livestock every day.
I’m not saying there is any medically proven correlation. But I’ve never had sleep paralysis after getting tested for sleep disorders and being treated for sleep apnea.
If you are regularly having sleep paralysis go get tested.
