It's the middle of a peaceful night, and you are sleeping contently. All of a sudden, you awaken abruptly and cannot move, as if being held down but no one is there. You have awareness of what's going on, but your whole body, from your toes to neck, cannot move.
Breathing normally is difficult because panic strikes. It also feels like there is something pressing on your chest and, in rare cases, people report seeing demonic looking figures.
This might sound like an elaborate hoax or something from a horror film, but it's actually a very real problem that much of the world's population struggle with. In fact, as you read this, someone somewhere is dealing with this scary scenario.
Different Kinds of Sleep Paralysis.
There are 3 types of hallucinations that can occur during sleep paralysis: "incubus", "intruder", and "unusual bodily experiences".
Incubus
Here, people feel intense pressure on their chests and they feel they can not breathe, or they have great difficulty doing so. This, however, is in the mind and it seems like we can't breathe because we are afraid.
Intruder
The experience of the intruder is when we have what researchers believe to be "hallucinations". The researchers describe it as a "hypervigilant state of the midbrain," which makes people overtly sensitive to what's going on around them.
Unusual bodily experiences
These individuals feel as if they are having an out-of-body experience and feel as if they are levitating or flying around. This type of sleep paralysis is very different and is still one that scientists struggle to explain. ...read more>>>...
OPINION: Having experienced 'night terrors' for 12 years, ones which match the incubus description, I strongly beg to differ ... as none of this explains being strangled, thrown across the room, or having your feet grabbed night after night!!!