A Dream Cycle The Dreamer

Also known as night terrors, these episodes are often paired with other prarsomnias, such as sleepwalking. A Parasomnia is an undesired occurrence during sleep, such as sleep talking, sleep walking, and night terrors. During these sleep terror episodes, an individual might kick and thrash around while still unconscious, stare wide eyed, scream or shout, and so on. Night terrors are said to be able to occur for a period of up to 30 minutes, once about that much time has passed, the person will once again lye down and go to sleep. Once the next day comes around the corner, usually the child or adult will not have any recollection of the event, but they at times remember small fragments of the

The symptoms of sleep paralysis are often associated with REM sleep. This is because during REM sleep, except for the diaphragm, we are more or less paralyzed from the neck down as we

Some signs of cataplexy are slurred speech, weakness of muscles, and intense emotions. Cataplexy effects muscle tone while awake, effects part or all of your body, may make your head nod, ,may be hard to speak, falling (weakening at the knees), and strong emotions. During this time, you're usually awake. In addition, hallucinations are another symptom pointing towards the condition narcolepsy. These hallucinations are called hypnologic hallucinations. Due to the fact that you may be awake when you're dreaming, these dreams may seem like reality or may be nightmares. Some signs of having a hallucination are vivid dreams when falling asleep, waking up, dozing, and life-like dreams. Finally, sleep paralysis is a symptom of narcolepsy. Sleep paralysis prevents you from moving or speaking while falling asleep and waking up. During this period you are fully conscious. Some signs you have sleep paralysis is you don't sleep well at night, you have trouble falling and staying asleep, nightmares interrupt sleep, having difficulty finishing daily tasks, and being hyperactive.

The article “In the Dreamscape of Nightmares, Clues to Why We Dream at All”, written by Natalie Angier, introduces various types of insight on nightmares and the reasons behind why they occur. Nightmares are dreams, able to jolt you awake. Although few suffer from nightmares so terrifying that help is sought, dreams are a universal human experience. A majority of our dreamlike states are spent negatively. As a result, numerous people have studied dreams and discovered that there may be reasons behind the existence of nightmares and dreams overall.

Sleep paralysis episodes typically occur during transitions from wakefulness to sleep (the hypnagogic state) or from sleep to wakefulness (the hypnopomipc state) (Cheyne, 2002). Abnormalities in this transition may allow sleep and waking processes to overlap. (Cheyne, Newby-Clark & Rueffer, 1999). Sleep paralysis experiences are not always nightmarish and do not always elicit fear (Sherwood, 2002). Most episodes, however, incorporate imagery or sensations, which cause fear. Images of threatening human or human like figures such as ghosts and demons are particularly common (Powell & Nielsen, 1998). People experiencing sleep paralysis report a subjective feeling of

Narcolepsy (narco meaning “numbness” and lepsy meaning “seizure”) consists primarily of attacks of irresistible sleepiness in the daytime. The patients day is broken up by a series of brief and repetitive sleep attacks, perhaps even two hundred attacks in a single day. These transient, strong attacks may last from a few seconds to as much as thirty minutes, with an average spell lasting two minutes. When a patient suddenly gets the urge to sleep, it is practically impossible for them to ignore that they are suffering an attack, in any situation. These sleep attacks happen uncontrollably, and in any situation or place. People with narcolepsy typically fall asleep suddenly, on the job, in conversation, standing up, and even while eating, driving, or making love. (Matzen 2016, p.1) Many individuals with Narcolepsy are extremely sleepy all day, regardless of how much sleep they got the night before. One of the more prominent and troubling features of Narcolepsy is Cataplexy. Cataplexy is a sudden loss of muscle tone that causes the person to quickly collapse. More than seventy percent of people with Narcolepsy suffer from Cataplexy. Cataplexy may consist of all the muscles or only a select few, so the severity may range from total collapse to the ground to partial collapse of a limb or the jaw. The Cataplectic (patient) sometimes remains

paralysis. During an event of sleep paralysis the person is unable to speak, move their arms and

Sleep paralysis is most common in those who have narcolepsy. Some have sleep tests done, in order to find possible sleep disorders one may have, like sleep

Automatic behavior refers to the phenomenon when patients behave without conscious awareness during microsleep episodes. For example, a patient could be conversing with someone and slip in a microsleep episode. The patient would trail off in the middle of their sentence and start a completely new topic, unrelated to what they were initially talking about. Cataplexy is arguably the most important symptom of Narcolepsy as it indicates the cause of Narcolepsy. Cataplexy is a sudden loss of muscle tone and is often mistaken for a seizure. A trigger for an episode of cataplexy is any strong enough emotion such as laughter, fear, sadness, or happiness. An interesting fact to note is that a certain group of neurons in the brainstem which halt muscle activity during REM sleep become inactive during cataplectic attacks. Sleep paralysis is something that everybody experiences on a daily basis while asleep but narcoleptics experience sleep paralysis before falling asleep and after waking up. Some narcoleptics also experience hallucinations that may accompany sleep paralysis. These hallucinations are usually vivid,

Most parasomnias are genetic and can affect people of all ages, though children are more prone to it. For infants to children up to the age of twelve causes could be anything from sleep loss, fever, or anxiety. Some adults who develop somnambulism later on in life credit their sleepwalking to a mental disorder, drugs, alcohol, and even prescription medication. It is important to know there things because many Americans may be at risk and most of the causes are things we engage in ourselves. We all take some sort of medication and we all know at least one child who would much rather stay up then go to sleep at a reasonable

What is sleep paralysis? Well, sleep paralysis is the horrifying circumstance when your body is essentially disconnected from your brain. During this time period, you are unable to move any of your body parts, yet, you are conscious and able to understand

10 It is not a serious problem and is very common among people of all ages. It’s caused by a person walking up during their last stage of sleep, which is the REM stage, or also known as the rapid eye movement stage. When this happens, the person may be aware of everything happening but their body is still in sleep mode. Anyone who experiences sleep paralysis should not worry and actually try enjoying the experience. 11 Works Cited Dahlitz, M, and J.D Parkes.

Mark Mahowald and Carlos Schneck first discovered Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder in 1985 (“REM Behavior Disorder and Sleep”). People with this disorder can injure themselves or the people they sleep with while asleep (“Diseases and Conditions”). But when taking a nap, these people can sleep with others because they do not dream while taking naps (“REM Sleep Behavior Disorder-Overview & Facts”). They cannot dream until an hour and a half or so into their sleep (“What is REM Sleep Disorder?”).

The probable diagnosis for this man’s condition is narcolepsy, a neurological brain disorder that causes malfunctioning in the brain’s ability to regulate the sleep/wake cycle. Cataplexy, an abrupt loss of the voluntary muscle tone; vivid sleep or wake hallucination and episodes of paralysis while asleep are symptoms that characterized narcolepsy (Brandt, Frey & Laberge, 2012).

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTST), fatigue, heavy physical activity, extreme changes in physical activity, jetlag and other stress-related conditions may bring about sleep paralysis due to the disturbance of sleep cycles. Some researchers have also reported a link between childhood sexual abuse and sleep paralysis. Numerous researches have also been done linking final stages of pregnancy to sleep paralysis.