What exactly is sleep paralysis?

When dreams occur, your body shuts down most muscle activity. This natural mechanism prevents you from hurting yourself when you are dreaming. While sleep paralysis occurs in the typical sleeper practically every night, the phrase itself has become synonymous with Awareness during Sleep Paralysis. ASP is another matter entirely.

Awareness during Sleep Paralysis occurs when your brain is in the transition state between dreaming and waking up. Imagine awakening to discover that you cannot move a muscle! Able to see and hear, you find yourself virtually frozen in bed. You might fear that you are suffocating or dying due to a crushing weight on your chest. Mortal terror sets in when you realize that you are not alone. Some ASP experiences are accompanied by a "sensed" presence or even wild hallucinations projected on physical surroundings. There are very few things more terrifying than being helpless while unspeakable horrors stalk you in the night.

According to the medical community, nonhuman intruders in your home are nothing more than ASP waking nightmares superimposed upon our real world.

If that were true, then the following five classic symptoms of Awareness during Sleep Paralysis would not so easily negate ASP as the explanation for paranormal home invasions:

1) Waking Paralyzed -- The crucial, never changing, symptom of Awareness during Sleep Paralysis is waking up paralyzed. If you do not awaken paralyzed, then you are not experiencing ASP. Less than twenty-five percent of witnesses to genuine encounters mention an inability to move. In any case, encounters involving some paralysis after initially being able to move should not be dismissed.

2) Unseen Presence -- One of the more commonly reported symptoms associated with ASP is that of the "sensed" presence. Nothing at all is ever seen. This unseen or "just out of sight" presence is at odds with our reports of visible nonhuman intruders. Genuine encounters deal with eyewitness sightings.

3) Extreme Terror -- Terror plays an integral role in ASP. Even sufferers who are knowledgeable about sleep paralysis still experience intense fear unlike anything they experience in waking life. Some folks who meet real nonhuman intruders manage to remain quite calm and curious.

4) Folklore Symptom -- During ASP, few muscles of breathing are active. Many people have a sense of suffocating, as if someone is standing or sitting on their torso. None of our witnesses to paranormal home invasion reports this frightening signature folklore symptom of chest pressure.

5) Dream Overlap -- Auditory hallucinations are the most common. Many people are taunted by sinister voices. In a distinct minority of cases, dream overlap can result in wacky or scary illusions projected upon actual physical surroundings. These visions are vague, often described only as being blurry or shimmering. The occurrence climaxes rapidly and the "visual" hallucinations evaporate when the sufferer regains control of his or her body. ASP figments of the imagination and paranormal home invasions are two very different things.