Draft of a spiritist explanation of sleep paralysis

"Nightmare" by Johann Heirich Füssli (1741-1825).

To know the effects of this unseen force that dominates and subjugates us despite our will would mean possessing the key to many issues, as well as answers for many ignored occurrences. If the consequences can be terrible, isn't recognizing the source of evil a way to protect ourselves from it, just as understanding the qualities of electricity gave us the ability to mitigate the disastrous effects of lightning? (A. Kardec, [6])

The scene is one of a delightful Saturday afternoon. I seek afternoon repose to recoup from the week's exhaustion. Sleep, however, does not come in the usual way. Just before waking up, I begin to notice everything around me. Through half-closed eyes, I observe the room's familiar decor. Panic and despair overtake me, and I am unable to rise. I hear the voices of distant family members who are aware I am asleep. I try to turn my head, but what a horrible surprise! It is made of lead. I try to raise my arm over my abdomen, but it seems like it's turned to concrete. I tried to turn my arm and torso as if I manipulated tools, not a body. How long did I stay in this state? I can't say, but when I finally wake up, for reasons I don't understand, I feel like I've returned to my own body, which gives me a sense of comfort. I just had sleep paralysis.

How many times have I experienced it? Probably three times in my life I guess. The so-called "sleep paralysis" is an uncommon event in a person's life, but it is relatively common in the population. My personal experience described above is by no means typical. In addition to the sense of powerlessness caused by being unable to "adjust" to the body, there are tales of presences, anomalous perceptions, or intrusive figures in the scene of people desperately attempting to awaken. The stories are similar and describe a common sensation: that the personality stays intact, aware of its surroundings, but for some reason, it is unable to adjust to the body and ends up perceiving what appears to be a combination of "reality" and "hallucinations".

Hallucinations. Reports of anomalous occurrences during sleep paralysis.

The term "hallucination" is something recent in the specialized literature. It was created by J. Étienne Esquirol [1] in 1845. Before that, the term used for such occurrences was "apparition". It is noteworthy that, in the works of A. Kardec, the former is used in the sense that has become dominant, while the latter has taken on another meaning. In cases of sleep paralysis, it is common to use the terms "hypnagogic" and "hypnopompic" hallucinations, which should not be frightening, as these names are not used to "explain", but only to classify or designate something. The first term represents hallucinations that occur when falling asleep, while the latter designates those that occur when waking up. Such names were created by the spiritualist philologist Frederic Meyers (1843 – 1901).

Before outlining a Spiritist explanation for the expanded sensitivity that occurs during sleep paralysis, it is worth reading some reports. These were taken from comments on the website www.nosleeplessnights.com (3, accessed September 2015), but similar ones can be found in specialized literature (4):

Margaux de Bokay (September 22, 2015 / 8:02 AM): Hi my name Margaux, and I just experienced a Sleep Paralysis last night. But this one was different. My past experiences of sleep paralysis, I usually find myself in company of a black entity, demon or maleficent form. It doesn’t hold me down, it just stares at me and watch me struggle to move my body or cry for help. I usually fight so hard to get the control of my body back. Try to open my eyes to really see the shape or face of the entity. Try to touch it, feel it. And after fighting that hard, convincing myself I am in control of my own body, I am finally relieved, and the entity floats away. (my emphasis)

Bailey (September 17, 2015 at 3:50 am): I have these experiences a few times over the course of a few months.They have been happening since I was young. Tonight was probably one of the scariest times I’ve had with the thing. I am 3 months pregnant, and very tired a lot of the time. I had dozed off in my bed a few hours ago and suddenly I couldn’t move, I could hear a noise in my right ear like a woman talking, but she was speaking so fast I couldn’t make out the words. She sounded wrong to me, almost evil. I knew what was going on having experienced it before; but it was still terrifying. I thought maybe I opened my eyes and saw a group of shadows on my ceiling standing around me. They were quiet other than the woman talking. I could feel my hand on my lower abdomen and instantly I was scared for my developing baby. I kept trying to focus my mind on something positive. I am not religious, but my head went to singing Jesus loves me. And suddenly the woman stopped talking and said “there is no love" and went on babbling. I was shocked and freaked out by the response. I came out of it sweating and freaked out in my dark room by myself. I really wish there was a way to stop these episodes from happening; they concern me.  (my emphasis)

Kevin A (September 9, 2015 / 11:29 PM): I have had experiences like this for around 9-10 years now. Not too frequently but still more times than i would like. Every time, i am lying in bed, just woke up randomly in the middle of the night and i can’t move at all. Depending on the time depended on which side of the bed out was on. But there is always a pitch black figure that was darker than the pitch black room, about 7 foot tall in a black robe with extremely long fingers/fingernails (can’t see details well without contacts so i don’t know which) and it’s face is even blacker, there’s nothing where it’s face is supposed to be and then it raises it’s hands and points one of its fingers at me. In one of them he had glowing red eyes and a scythe but not in the rest. In one of them i started repeating the Lord’s prayer and he/it growled at me and another demon looking thing appeared in my face before disappearing and i woke up. In another i just focused on moving so i could fight it and woke up/got released. I don’t know which side of things to believe but i believe that science and religion can be together to come to a logical explanation hopefully not involving demons/malevolent spirits. (my emphasis)

Perhaps the occurrence of sleep paralysis accounts for the abundance of descriptions of "incubi" and "succubi" in ancient literature. This idea has been investigated in several works (see [8]) and allows for the description of certain cultural myths [9]. 

Draft of a Spiritist explanation

Hallucinations cannot be explained because no modern theory still integrates consciousness perceptions with information reception by the brain - despite numerous conceptual proposals - even though correlations exist between drug influence and nervous system nonconformities (some mental illnesses). These correlations do not imply causation. However, in cases of sleep paralysis, it is unknown whether the patient is under the effects of drugs or is mentally sick. Although it affects between 3% and 6% of the population, it is a rare incident in a person's life, usually classified as an "uncontrollable" event. However, as previously indicated, simply referring to the phenomena with a specific term or complicated designation does not provide an explanation.

However, reports of a "malignant presence" are so frequent that scholars have sought to provide an explanation. One that mixes neurology and evolutionism was proposed by Cheyne [4] (see abstract):

It is argued that the sensed presence during sleep paralysis arises because of REM-related endogenous activation of a hypervigilant and biased attentive state, the normal function of which is to resolve ambiguities inherent in biologically relevant threat cues. Given the lack of disambiguating environmental cues, however, the feeling of presence persists as a protracted experience that is both numinous and ominous. This experience, in turn, shapes the elaboration and integration of the concurrent hallucinations that often take on supernatural and daemonic qualities. The sense of presence considered here is an ‘other’ that is radically different from, and hence more than a mere projection of the self. Such a numinous sense of otherness may constitute a primordial core consciousness of the animate and sentient in the world around us. (my emphasis)

Therefore, these figures are seen as "mind constructions" that work more than "mere projections of the self". In other words and in any way, according to [4] they are live hallucinations. However, this explanation does not appear to be consistent with reports of the paralyzed individual's interaction with the entity, with others describing various presences [5], or even with my own experience (in my case, I did not see any "mysterious threat" - in fact, most sleep paralysis experiences do not include these presences). Other interpretations for the thesis of the "mind that confabulates with itself" as a self-protection mechanism can be found elsewhere [7].

Some observations of the facts narrated during these experiences are:

• They occur more frequently when waking up (only 10% occur when going asleep, they are often classified as "hypnopompic hallucinations'').
• The incidents appear to primarily impact young adults [4].
• The subject is not under the influence of medications.
• The subject is not mentally ill (although as already suggested, see [4], mental disorders may be associated with some occurrences).
• Some experiences report breathing difficulties.
• The episodes are uncontrollable. There is no way to predict or provoke them, nor an infallible method of ending the paralysis.
• The feeling of body control loss, hence the name "paralysis". It is vital to note that consciousness is functioning during the occurrence - it is not in a dream state - while feeling displaced or disconnected from its paralyzed body. 
• The room or place where the person is resting is always present in the experience. This is referred to as the "realistic perception of the environment" [8]. In other words, most of what the individuals see during sleep paralysis corresponds to the sole "reality" that they believe in.
• Some accounts (approximately 1/4 of instances, see 4) nearly always describe the presence of a malignant entity or "thing" that is watching the person in their agony to regain possession of the body.
• A few accounts describe complete out-of-body experiences.

Spiritism (as a dualist doctrine) holds that the brain does not create consciousness, but rather serves as an interface for its manifestation. As stated by W. James (1842 - 1910) [8b], the brain is a "transmissive medium", through which consciousness flows. As a result, while physiological causes for sleep paralysis can be identified, its genesis cannot be separated from the human being's dual nature. In this way, all hallucinations, as objects tangible only to the mind, originate in the spiritual element, whether from the incarnated person who observes them (as a result of his mental activity) or from other spirit sources. Some mediumistic narratives (such as those by spirit author André Luiz) describe Spirits experiencing hallucinations, meaning that the problem does not terminate with physical death because it originates in the spirit mind, which cannot be destroyed.

"Achilles Searching for the Shade of Patrocles". Johann Heirich Füssli (1803). Source: Wikipedia.

From the Spiritist point-of-view, two main factors should be taken into account to explain sleep paralysis:

1. The dual nature of the human being: the (biological) evolution of humans predicts experiences that begin to prepare us for a split life - between the two planes of existence (dreams being one of them). This means that sleep paralysis could be viewed as routine occurrences of "training" of the incarnated Spirit within its body. Such interconnected experiences cannot be dissociated during human existence.
2. "Spirits are everywhere" [6b]. Many experiences of unusual presences, most of which are associated with negative sensations, are most likely created by disembodied entities (Bailey's instance recounted above may be indicative of an interaction with a disembodied person in a less happy condition).

As a consequence of these principles, some remarks are possible:

1. Many people who experience sleep paralysis identify as agnostic or have no religious beliefs. However, during the occurrence, they ask for God's protection (or recall having asked for protection). This may indicate that the individual is in a state close to the spirit realm where he/she thinks as a spirit rather than an incarnated person. The frequent accounts that one thinks differently than when awake, even though the state of awareness is equivalent to being awake, reveals something about such dual nature of the human mind, or the frontier between the mind (spirit) and the brain.
2. Sleep paralysis can be described as an "incomplete/partial OBE" (out-of-body experience), a threshold zone between the onset of sleep and the waking state in which typical disembodied spirit faculties operate jointly or in a disturbed manner with the sensory faculties of the incarnated state. In it, the individual begins to see or interpret the presence of spirits, which are constantly present.
3. We do not believe that sleep paralysis implies the concomitant action of obsessions (systematic spiritual evil influence) or that it should be referred to as an obsessive process/state. Obsessions rarely limit their activity to midnight/sleep events; those who suffer from obsessions also have their daytime hours affected since the subject is always under the influence of the obsessive spirit. On the contrary, obsessed subjects may experience sleep paralysis more frequently than spiritually balanced individuals.
4. Nonetheless, perceptions of hearing something or someone "breathing" nearby, feeling weight on the body, and so on can be attributed to the spirit's inability to link with its own body.
5. Certain medical or psychological conditions, such as stress, depression, or trauma, facilitate the influence of ill-intentioned spirits, which is referred to as 'spirit attraction/fascination' in the Spiritist literature. The psychological state of the stressed individual mind simply attracts such discarnate spirits without more serious consequences. As a result, during sleep paralysis, these spirits may be perceived by the paralyzed, which is the cause for the link between these psychological conditions and the onset of sleep paralysis.
6. There are several videos on YouTube with recommendations on how to get rid of sleep paralysis, but they seem suspicious to me because they ignore the spiritual character of the experiences (which makes them random) and many anomalous details. In summary: they are incomplete because they rely too heavily on "neurological explanations" or materialistic views.

How to reduce unpleasant presence during sleep paralysis.

The Spiritist explanation has one advantage: it allows us to deduce procedures that, in theory, can reduce the stress of sleep paralysis (and there are reports to support this). Given that the paralysis may be described as a "partial OBE" phenomenon, we believe that mental control and adopting a positive stance with requests for protection - which must include praying - can significantly reduce ill-intentioned influences, even if the paralysis during sleep cannot be eliminated completely (remember, it is part of Human nature). Because the individual is "awake" in the paralyzed state, he can and should request this protection. Kardec seems to have summarized this point in the following passage:

Our studies teach that the invisible world that surrounds us constantly reacts on the visible world and shows us that it is one of the forces of Nature. To know the effects of this unseen force that dominates and subjugates us despite our will would mean possessing the key to many issues, as well as answers for many ignored occurrences. If the consequences can be terrible, isn't recognizing the source of evil a way to protect ourselves from it, just as understanding the qualities of electricity gave us the ability to mitigate the disastrous effects of lightning? If we succumb, we will only be able to complain about ourselves, because ignorance is not an excuse. The risk is in the empire that bad Spirits have over people, which is not only disastrous in terms of the errors of principle that they can promote, but also in terms of material life's interests. [6]

Prayer frees oneself from oppressive influence, reduces or even eliminates the action of evil-intentioned Spirits, and serves to strengthen (positively predispose) the spirit experiencing the paralysis. We will only have an effective treatment for sleep paralysis when all of the causes (physical and spiritual) are thoroughly understood. Clearly, the spiritist contribution cannot be overlooked.

References

1 - Blom, J. D. (2009). A dictionary of hallucinations. Springer Science & Business Media.

2 - Kardec, A. See: "The book on Mediums", 2nd Part, "On spirit manifestations", Cap. VI - On visual manifestation. "Theory of hallucination ".

3 - Link (2024): https://www.nosleeplessnights.com/sleep-paralysis-stories-intruder-demon-or-delusion/comment-page-11/?mode=list

4 - Cheyne, J. A. (2001). The ominous numinous. Sensed presence and 'other' hallucinations. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8(5-6), 133-150. 

• Link (2024): http://cabinet.auriol.free.fr/Documents/ParalysieSommeil/cheyne.pdf

5 - Terrillon, J. C., & Marques-Bonham, S. (2001). Does recurrent isolated sleep paralysis involve more than cognitive neurosciences. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 15(1), 97-123. Link (2024): ResearchGate.

6 - Original in French:

Nos études nous apprennent que le monde invisible qui nous entoure réagit constamment sur le monde visible ; elles nous le montrent comme une des puissances de la nature ; connaître les effets de cette puissance occulte qui nous domine et nous subjugue à notre insu, n'est-ce pas avoir la clef de plus d'un problème, l'explication d'une foule de faits qui passent inaperçus ? Si ces effets peuvent être funestes, connaître la cause du mal, n'est-ce pas avoir le moyen de s'en préserver, comme la connaissance des propriétés de l'électricité nous a donné le moyen d'atténuer les effets désastreux de la foudre ? Si nous succombons alors, nous ne pourrons nous en prendre qu'à nous-mêmes, car nous n'aurons pas l'ignorance pour excuse. Le danger est dans l'empire que les mauvais Esprits prennent sur les individus, et cet empire n'est pas seulement funeste au point de vue des erreurs de principes qu'ils peuvent propager, il l'est encore au point de vue des intérêts de la vie matérielle.

As found in: Kardec, A. "Revue Spirite - Journal D'Étude Psychologique". July 1859. Closing speech of the social year 1858-1859. 

• Link (2024): https://www.oconsolador.com.br/linkfixo/bibliotecavirtual/frances/revue-spirite-1859.pdf (in French)

6b - Kardec A. "The Medium's book". First Part - Preliminary observations, Chapter I - Are there spirits? Translated by Darrel W. Kimble and Marcia M. Saiz. 

• Link to the English version (2024 by FEB): https://www.febnet.org.br/portal/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/the-mediums-book.pdf

7 - McNamara P (2011) Sleep Paralysis - when you wake up but can't move. Psychology Today. Disponível em: (acesso outubro de 2015)

• Link (20204): https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dream-catcher/201112/sleep-paralysis

8 - Adler, S. R. (2011). Sleep paralysis: Night-mares, nocebos, and the mind-body connection. Rutgers University Press.

8b - Taylor S. (2019). The Genius of William James. Link (2024): Psychology Today.

9 - Some myths and tales around the world that can be explained as caused by sleep paralysis (see [8] for more examples):

• In Portugal, the word "pesadelo" (nightmare) might be linked to the feeling of a weight (peso) on the body caused by the inability to move during sleep paralysis.
• The phenomenon of the pressing ghost in Hong Kong;
• Kanashibari (金縛り) in Japan;
• Dab Tsog (the oppressing demon) - Hmong;
• Ogun Oru (night guerilla) in Iorubá (southwest Nigéria);
• Ga-ui Nool-lim (가위눌림, the pressing nighmare) - Korea.