Intro What if you woke up one morning unable to move with a demon-like creature sitting on your chest restricting your breathing

Intro
What if you woke up one morning unable to move with a demon-like creature sitting on your chest restricting your breathing.
For around 7% of the human population this isn't just some what if scenario but instead a legitimate possibility
It's what's known as sleep paralysis and in today we're going to investigate exactly what's happening to the body during this waking nightmare.
It's going to be petrifying. let's do this.

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  Sleep Paralysis
  

Sleep paralysis belongs to the category of sleep disorders known as parasomnias which also includes sleepwalking, nocturnal seizures and night terrors to name just a few.
Specifically sleep paralysis is one of many rapid eye movement or REM parasomnia.
REM sleep is where dreaming occurs and to No Surprise the eyes move quickly and randomly beneath the eyelid so normally during REM sleep the skeletal muscles of the body become atonic meaning they're unable to move and now this is going to make complete sense to you because this prevents you from I don't know acting out your dreams and possibly injuring yourself or others as you drift into REM sleep neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine Gaba glycine norepinephrine and serotonin are released and suppressed in the basil for brain brain stem and spinal cord which you can see the brain stem transitioning into right here and this results in a brain state that resembles wakefulness at certain times and deeper sleep at other times by altering the activity of the upper motor neurons which are going to be located up in the brain stem in the spinal cord the neurotransmitter acetal choline can't be released from the spinal nerves which is what you see here meaning that the muscles that these nerves are attached to just can't contract if you're getting somewhere around 7 hours or so of sleep per night that means you're cycling in and out of a rem State four different times sleep paralysis typically occurs when you're transitioning out of a rim State Gaba and glycine are the primary neurotransmitters for muscle atonia or paralysis during REM they hyperpolarize motor neurons making it difficult for them to send signals to the muscles when you transition out of REM sleep Gaba and glycine levels should decrease in the brain and spinal cord allowing the muscles to work again in sleep paralysis the brain essentially transitions to a wakeful state but Gaba and glycine levels stay elevated in the central nervous system meaning that the peripheral nervous system still isn't able to send signals to the muscles to contract therefore the muscle atonia is still present and it's at this point things just get weird.