TESTIMONY. At 27, Audrey suffers from sleep paralysis. She told us about the nightmarish and hallucinatory experiences she has suffered, paralyzed in her bed, for more than 10 years.
Le Journal des Femmes: When did your episodes of sleep paralysis start?
Audrey: I realized this several years ago. I was in my early high school years, I must have been 15. This happened in certain positions, especially when I was sleeping on my back and when I was very tired.
How do these episodes manifest and how do you feel?
Audrey: I have the impression of being awake, of having my eyes open, I see the environment around me, the room in which I sleep. I feel things but I cannot move, I am like “tackled”. It’s like waking up and being paralyzed, I can’t speak or scream. Sometimes I try to scream but no sound comes out. People who have slept with me have told me that they hear a bit of “mmmm” inside me. At first when I was younger it freaked me out a bit because I thought it was a bit paranomalous but by searching the internet I saw that it was something that existed.
“I see people breaking into my room or my light turning on and off.”
What do you see at such times?
Audrey: I see unreal, often scary, things like nightmares. It’s really unpleasant. For example people who break into my room or my light that turns on and off or my door that opens and closes. When I slept with my ex, I saw him go around my bed like he was sleepwalking, I wanted to talk to him but I couldn’t, I couldn’t move and then I would wake up and ask him: “What took you doing that?” but in fact he hadn’t done anything at all yet it seemed so real.
Are you sleepwalking?
Audrey: No. On the other hand, when I was younger, I spoke a lot at night and apparently I slept with my eyes open.
Do you have any “tips” for getting out of a paralysis episode?
Audrey: I have read advice to try to get out of this, to move your feet in particular, but I cannot. I feel like I’m out of control and not being able to rationalize. I sometimes try to tell myself that it’s just a dream but I can’t really tell if it’s working or if it’s the fact that I’m waiting for it to pass that makes me wake up.
“I feel like I’m out of control, that I can’t rationalize.”
When do these episodes occur?
Audrey: I rather feel like it happens at the end of the night because after that I wake up and it’s daylight. But it does it to me less and less, once every two months. A few years ago it was much more frequent, more like once a week.
How do you explain that you are doing less today?
Audrey: I do not know. I had noticed that it did to me when I was lying on my back. So I try not to fall asleep on my back, maybe that’s it.
Are you able to tell if this is going to happen, before you fall asleep? For example if you have had a stressful day?
Audrey: Not at all. I don’t have the impression that it does to me when I’m stressed, besides it has done it to me when I was on vacation. I don’t think it’s related to the fact that I’m sleeping on my back anymore. Afterwards, I was also told that it could be linked to trauma.
“I was sexually assaulted when I was 15, maybe it’s related.”
Do you remember a significant event related to your sleep paralysis?
Audrey: When I was 15-16 years old, I suffered sexual assault by my ex. Thinking about it, I tell myself that maybe it’s related.
Do you have people in your family who also have sleep paralysis?
Audrey: My mom used to tell me that she did it when she was younger but didn’t know what it was. Talking to her about me, how I felt, she told me it was like her.
Are you worried about falling asleep at night?
Audrey: Not anymore but when it was more often, I thought about it and I was like, “I hope this doesn’t do to me tonight.” Today it worries me a little less.
And in the morning, how do you feel when you wake up after such an experience?
Audrey: When I wake up from an episode of sleep paralysis I’m quite in the clouds like when you wake up from a very long night and you’re a bit in the fog, it does that to me for a few hours.
Have you put in place solutions to stop sleeping paralysis?
Audrey: I’m a therapy, I talked about it, it helped me but without really doing any work on it. I have the impression that a lot of people have sleep paralysis without knowing it and are not necessarily going to talk about it when it is something that can potentially be worked out.