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[Zalim]

I know that in a lot of cultures, there are various inventions as to the cause of sleep paralysis. Some of the more famous ones have to do with a demon of some kind sitting on your chest.

I'm curious (and obviously too lazy to do my own research) if any of you know if there is a Japanese equivalent to those sleep paralysis demons? Also, I think a conversation about youkai used to explain other natural but previously unexplained phenomenon would be pretty interesting.

Sleep paralysis in particular strikes my interest though because I suffer from it so much. Not a week goes by where I don't enter sleep paralysis AT LEAST once... usually it's at least two times in a night. For people like me, I can understand why it was so important for explanations to be made.

[Kira]

 
I think that might happen because you're disconnected from your body.
That's an experience I've only been able to trigger recently while stretching in the mornings.
When it happens, I blank out and remember nothing but pure thoughts for who knows how long, probably only a few seconds though, then I reconnect with my senses first and can notice that I'm lying on the floor twitching and unable to really control my body at all. Until I fully reconnect and can control my body again.
I've been doing some experimenting on it and now usually manage to lie down on the floor before I disconnect. Still haven't gotten the hang on recalling much though. But I guess it's the closest thing to having a trip I'll ever feel.
 
Let's see, my sense of time is still distorted during the reconnection, but I fingure it must be a minute or so during which I'm already connected to my senses, but not the rest of my body, though I can accelerate the speed of reconnection now by sort of seizing it.
 
I really don't think it has anything to do with demons, jsut you spirit seperating from your body for a short bit. Maybe that's what happens when you wake up too. Your spirit still hasn't quite arrived back from the river of dreams, so you're only partially reconnected.

[Kyuuji]

I've experienced the same thing last morning i woke up but only my head did and i was feeling so good  so i didn't wanted to move but... if I've waited longer i could have missed the buss

Imagine you fell quadriplegic and you have a feeling that a spirit could take your body. that what it looked like that morning i wish i could experience it again

a was about to write a topic about that but you were faster [I've said somewhere in the forums "When i think of something someone else say it before me"] it's the case here  

[Zalim]

Since we're a bit off topic, I did some research...

In Japanese culture, sleep paralysis is referred to as kanashibari (literally "bound or fastened in metal," from kane "metal" and shibaru" to bind, to tie, to fasten"). This term is occasionally used by English speaking authors to refer to the phenomenon both in academic papers and in pop psych literature.

A bit more digging reveals that that the term kanachibari deals with a specific type of sleep paralysis where you sense or see a presence in the room. I don't know about you guys, but I usually have hallucinations with my sleep paralysis, and sometimes I do see figures cloaked in shadow and the like. Always with this there is an unexplainable and extreme sense of fear.

So I guess my answer to this question is that they believe it's the presence of a spirit that causes sleep paralysis, but not one specific spirit.

[tsukos]

I used to get it sometimes. I'd wake up all of a sudden, and I would try to move and get a weird feeling down my arms and legs, less like I was bound and more that my nerve impulses weren't quite in sync with my muscles yet, like I was a machine that had to unfreeze itself before I could do anything.

I haven't had it for a few years now though.

[Seeker]

my nerve impulses weren't quite in sync with my muscles yet

This is pretty much what happens. Your body still thinks you're asleep so the same mechanism that normally keeps you from flailing around in dreams keeps you from moving. Yet as soon as you manage to move, bam, it's gone. Back when I was reading about astral travel, several of the books said it's basically an easy way 'out', since you're already disconnected from your body.

I've only had it once that I can remember, but there was no feeling of dread, no hallucinations like are usually described.

[Hakuzo NightFox]

I've experienced this many times before. Most of it lasting only a few seconds, but it is a bit scary when it happens.

The feeling of trying to move and can't is very unsettling.

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