What Does It Mean If You Wake Up and Can't Speak or Move Your Body?

It's called sleep paralysis, and it can be terrifying

​what is sleep paralysis

As a teenager, James Allan Cheyne woke up one night unable to move or speak. He felt a presence moving around his bed, and then sitting on his chest.

Naturally, he assumed it was a demon.

“You’re there in the dark, and there’s this entity pressing down on you,” he says. “You have no idea if you’ll ever be able to move again. The depth of fear you experience is indescribable.”

Turns out, there was no demon involved. It was actually his first experience of a sleep condition called sleep paralysis. His experience was so troubling that he made it his mission to understand what the heck was actually going on—so he became a sleep researcher.

Sleep paralysis is a condition that occurs when your brain and body doesn’t quite sync up, explains Cheyne, Psy.D., now a professor of psychology at University of Waterloo.

When you sleep, your body prepares for its dream-state REM cycle by “turning off” your muscles to protect you, Cheyne says. That’s so you won’t be able to physically act out what you’re dreaming, which, of course, can be helpful if you’re throwing punches or leaping off cliffs.

So if your brain wakes up when you’re in REM sleep, your body is lagging behind. That means you could become mentally awake before you’re physically able to move again. You’re conscious, but unable to make your body follow your brain’s direction. (This common supplement can give you crazy dreams.)

In that limbo state, which can last anywhere from a few seconds to a couple minutes, you’d be completely frozen and unable to speak. Physical and auditory hallucinations—particularly pressure against the chest or the sound of footsteps—tend to be common. Cheyne attributes these to the brain, essentially, freaking out on a major scale.

“The mind is trying to figure out what’s happening, and so it fills up with outlandish potential explanations, from burglars to supernatural entities,” he says.

And while it sounds terrifying, it’s not exactly as rare as you may think. One study estimates that nearly 8 percent of the population experiences moments like these at some point. Adolescents and young adults seem particularly prone to these episodes, Cheyne notes, most likely because they tend to have the worst sleep habits—like irregular sleep schedules. In the prevalence study, just over 28 percent of students had at least one episode.

Stress and anxiety can also play a role, he adds, as well as suggestibility, meaning that if you read extensively about sleep paralysis, it may be more likely to happen. In fact, two of Cheyne’s research assistants started having episodes while studying the condition. (Here are 19 ways to live a stress-free life.)

Smash Stress Fast, Workout:

Although helplessness might wash over you during an episode, there are ways to jar yourself back to the real world, he says. Conscious, sustained focus on even a small amount of movement—for example, telling yourself to make a fist or wiggle one toe—can be helpful, since it can help the mind veer away from creating hallucinations.

Most often, though, you just have to ride it out.

“If you can, see it as a way to have an extremely unusual experience,” says Cheyne. “Of course, that’s not always easy to do if you think a demon is sitting on your chest.” (And for more health news delivered right to your inbox, sign up for our Daily Dose newsletter.)

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
More From Body Science