Topic: Sleep Paralysis
Opening/Attention: Picture this, you just came back home from a long day of work/school. You are exhausted, you walk upstairs, you wash up, you hit your bedroom, you switch off the lights, you call into bed, you start to fall into slumber when suddenly you become distinctly aware that you can’t move a muscle. You panic, you try to use all you’re strength to move, scream for help but you can’t. In fear your eyes dot around the darkness and that’s when you see it. Your worst nightmare, standing across the room and starts to hit towards you. No I’m not telling you a hard story and No I’m not reading you a passage from a Stephen king book. If what I’ve just said resonate of you, then you know very well that I’m talking about Sleep paralysis. Nightmares at it sounds, Sleep paralysis is a very real sleep disorder.
Spoken Link/Transition: Unfortunately, It’s not very common either
Emotion/Story:
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As mention earlier, many people experience sleep paralysis and the hallucinations that come with it can be broken into two categories, ONE: Visual categories, when you see something or someone in the room with you. TWO: Auditory hallucinations, when you hear voices or footsteps. A quick scroll to a comment section of the article I was looking at, so lists of people providing examples of experiences of sleep paralysis, One gentleman for example woke up to find a lady in black standing at the foot of his bed, only to see the same lady in black standing right beside his bed few years later. One other lady said that she woke up to find this men screaming right in her face, but she had no idea what he was saying. Some questions for example believe that it’s a demonic
Webb, W. B., & Cartwright, R. D. (1978). Sleep and Dreams. Annual Review of Psychology, 29(1), 223-252. doi:10.1146/annurev.ps.29.020178.001255
“I became restless and was afraid to sleep for fear that my suppressed thoughts would appear in my dreams” (70).
Late one night, you’re having trouble falling asleep. It’s been storming all night, and the lightning has made it nearly impossible to lay your head down. The room is pitch black, save for the streak of moonlight streaming in through the curtains. All of a sudden, you hear something scratching at the window. You shrug it off, as it must just be a branch from the tree right outside. The sound of something shuffle around in your closet begins to echo in the room. You realize you’re standing straight up. Were you really that afraid? You lay back down, and realize you’re being an idiot. You close your eyes, annoyed at how little sleep you were going to get. You get comfy, and are finally ready to get to sleep. Gently, you roll over onto your other side. You feel breathe of warm air in your face. Your eyes pop open. A monster stands right before your eyes. Before you get the chance to scream, you’re knocked out. The bogeyman has arrived, and he’s come to put you to sleep.
Teeple, Ryan C., Jason P. Caplan, and Theodore A. Stern. Visual Hallucinations: Differential Diagnosis and Treatment. N.p.: Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc., 2009. PDF.
The victim goes in and out of consciousness, aware of some things, totally unaware of
Sleep, as a bodily function, regulates how the body heals itself and how people process events in their lives. Disruption of sleep can cause mild symptoms such as dizziness to a slight loss of fine motor skills to full on hallucinations. It is in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth that sleep plays very different roles in order to influence the plot; in this Scottish play, sleep, in its absence, is a way to express thoughts about troublesome events, a way of showing that a man has gone made, and a way to reveal truths about characters.
...ilepsy, dementia, neuro-infections. Withdrawal from substances such as alcohol and drugs such as amphetamines can also be associated with auditory hallucinations. These people without mental illness will be inclined to report that their voices will be positive and have a high level of control over the voices. They will also experience these less frequently and will have less problems with doing daily things than those who have a mental illness (Norman 2004). These Auditory hallucinations may be experienced in many different ways such as coming out of the ears, or being in the mind or anywhere outside the body. They will can occur at any time but will distance from low meaning having a experience maybe once a month or may be less to having them daily and all of the time. The voices can be very quiet like whispers or will be very loud as if someone is shouting at you.
Transition: Now that you know what the cause of narcolepsy is, let's talk about how people treat narcolepsy.
(Sacks, 2012) The person experiencing them is convinced that what they are seeing or smelling is real, and become very confused as to what is reality and what is not. These most commonly occur in people who suffer from a mental illness such as schizophrenia or various types of psychotic disorders. In this article the author discusses how hallucinations are becoming more common amongst people today, and the different scenarios where they are more present. Hallucinations can occur when experiencing migraines, seizures, or even consuming too much of a particular medication. (Sacks, 2012)
Thesis Statement: Understanding how dreams occur, how they affect our lives and what they mean help us grasp what dreams actually are.
The phenomenon of sleep paralysis can be a frightening experience: many who suffer can feel tremendous anxiety and fear, even though occurrences are considered as harmless as a bad dream. The disorder does not discriminate on the basis of race or gender, but age sometimes is a factor. Treatment for sleep paralysis is limited; in general, doctors treat the disorders linked to sleep paralysis such as sleep apnea or narcolepsy. Sleep paralysis continues to be one of the many mysteries of the human brain, which science will continue to investigate.
Sleepwalking is a sleep disorder effecting an estimated 10 percent of all humans at least once in their lives (1). This widespread phenomenon varies in its intensity and frequency. While most sleepwalking incidents are short and not dangerous, some can involve self-injury and are much more dangerous for the sleeper. Also, most interestingly, the disorder seems to stem from many different sources, not from one definable cause such as a chemical imbalance. While it is predominantly pre-adolescents who suffer from somnambulism, it is also observed in adults, although the frequency and severity of incidents increase with age. The source of the disorder was once thought to be entirely psychological and an extension of dreaming. It is now understood to be a complex combination of one or more factors, such as psychological and physiological factors as well as chemical interference (such as alcohol and drug abuse) (3). The source of the sleepwalking behavior varies according to age with the younger sufferers having more physiological problems which they grow out of, while older somnambulists, stress and substance abuse play a larger role.
"Nightmares." Psychology Today: Health, Help, Happiness. Sussex Publishers, LLC, 13 May 2010. Web. 8 Apr. 2014. .
In 2004–2005, the Penn Humanities Forum will focus on the topic of “Sleep and Dreams.” Proposals are invited from researchers in all humanistic fields concerned with representations of sleep, metaphors used to describe sleep, and sleep as a metaphor in itself. In addition, we solicit applications from those who study dreams, visions, and nightmares in art or in life, and the approaches taken to their interpretation. We also welcome proposals about the effects of dreaming on the dreamer, and the resulting emotions, behaviors, and actions taken or foregone in response to dreams. In this Forum on Sleep and Dreams, we will see how the diversity of academic disciplines can help answer important questions about sleep and dreaming—questions that may touch the basis of human intellect.
Usually when you end up drifting off to sleep, you fall into a deep sleep and begin to experience a so called dream.” However, most children, and even some adults, experience some even more terrifying so called dreams. These dreams are called nightmares. Nightmares have been occurring in people’s sleep for hundreds of years. People have been interested in them for centuries and they have quite an interesting past to them.