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Sleep paralysis is something that occurs for 20%-40% of people at least once in their lifetime. Individuals who have had sleep paralysis experience the phenomenon differently. Sleep paralysis is when you are stuck between the stages of being awake and being asleep; you physically can not move or talk. Even though it might seem scary at the time, it is not dangerous.  

I experience this frequently, especially when I take naps. I wake up from my nap and realize that I am not fully awake, and I cannot move. Most of the time I start to panic and try to yell someone’s name to try and wake me up. Obviously, that does not work because I cannot talk while in sleep paralysis. It definitely gets scary but I have to continue to tell myself that I will wake up soon. Most of the time, I force myself to go back to sleep and then hope that when I wake up again, I will be fully awake. Other times, I see it works to try to slowly wiggle your fingers and toes until you wake up; but that is always hit or miss.  

Former Iowa State University student Kaydi Newby also experienced this, and she was the one who actually informed me about this years before I had ever dealt with it. Newby has been dealing with sleep paralysis for years. Although she has not experienced it in a little while.   

“It was probably close to half a year ago, but I would get it every time I take naps, so probably a few times a week,” Newby said. 

Newby and I have had pretty similar experiences with this because it only happens to us during naps, but with other people it can affect them overnight as well. Just like how some people experience hallucinations, and others do not. Newby is one person who says she has never seen or heard anything.   

“I just can’t move,” Newby said. 

There have been a few times where I think I am experiencing things that are not actually happening. Some examples of this are one time I was trying to yell at my roommate, and I saw her get up, so I thought she was going to come and wake me up; but then she went and started doing something else. Then I actually woke up and saw that she had not moved a muscle and was still laying on her bed. Another example is I had thought I heard loud music and a bunch of people in my living room and I was getting really confused as to why there were a bunch of people; then I woke up and no one was there.   

“The craziest story that I have was probably when it first happened to me. I was only 16 or 17 just trying to enjoy my afternoon nap, and all of a sudden I can’t move and I was awake, but my body was not awake. I could not move and I remember hearing my sisters move around in the hallway, and I wanted somebody so bad to open the door and wake me up, but I was just stuck,” Newby said.  

Newby said that most times she just tries to force herself back to sleep when this happens to her. There are also these things called sleep paralysis demons that I have personally never experienced but a lot of people do. Newby’s mom also experiences sleep paralysis and does deal with sleep paralysis demons.  

“My mom had sleep paralysis last night,” Newby said. “Something was tugging at her feet and she was freaking out and she forced herself to go back to sleep, but then she had sleep paralysis again and same thing, something was tugging at her. Every time she has sleep paralysis something always happens to her like that. Something tugs at her, or she says something is always sitting on her chest.” 

Other people even see figures that are not actually there. A lot of people have sleep paralysis multiple times in their life, but a lot also have it only a couple times or even once. Grand View University freshman Kaylin Noll has had sleep paralysis twice in her life but she can only remember one fully. It was about a year and a half ago when this event occurred for Noll. She explains what happened before the sleep paralysis started: she was dreaming about a guy chasing her, he eventually caught up to her and put his hand on her mouth. That is when she woke up and felt stuck.  

“I was laying in my bed and then I felt like the dream was real because I had an outfit hanging up in the corner of my room so it looked like a person,” Noll said. “I think that is the most terrifying feeling I have ever felt in my life. I would rather get pulled over every day for the rest of my life.”  

Noll sat in fear for what felt like an eternity to her but had beliefs that she saw her grandpa who passed away in her house, and he woke her up. Before she woke up, she said how she was screaming for her mom, but nothing was audibly coming out. This seems to be a common occurrence among people who experience this.   

Sleep paralysis can be a very scary thing to happen to an individual. Sometimes it can make people not even want to sleep at all.  

“I always thought sleep paralysis was a joke, I didn’t think it was real and then it happened to me,” Noll said. 

If you are ever experiencing this, especially for the first time, remember to keep calm, wiggle your fingers and toes, or just try to go back to sleep; and trust that the sleep paralysis demons will not get you.