I understand not being able to move and feeling like you can’t breathe, since your body is still in sleep mode. But why do sufferers so often see or even hear things that are so absolutely terrifying? Is it something to do with REM sleep? If so, why is it always frightening things? (I don’t know about other people, but my one experience with sleep paralysis scared me way more than any nightmare I’ve ever had, although that seems to be true for most from what I’ve read of others’ experiences.)
In: Biology
A related question – I’ve had this experience and was amazed how my brain was able to overlay the nightmare onto what I was actually seeing with my open eyes, or at least that’s what it seemed to me. Anyone know how this can happen? It was basically like augmented reality. I was frozen in bed and burglars were coming through the window. It was so real and totally terrifying. The alternative would be that it was an eyes-shut dream, but my room was perfectly reproduced as far as I could tell, which is not normal with dreaming I think. Just putting this out there.
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