Disorders that Make Sleep Scary: Sleep Paralysis - Essay Example

Disorders that Make Sleep Scary: Sleep Paralysis According to Carter, when one is asleep the brain sent signals to the body top inhibit movement as one dreams. A factor which keeps one from thrashing around and hurting themselves which is opposite of sleep paralysis in which the brain from switches inhibition on the muscles once when wakes up thus leading to creepy experience. This is usually accompanied by dreaming when someone awake; hallucinations in some people. This is exhibited majorly in seeing other people in the room, touch sensation, footsteps hearing, hearing people call you among others. In the article, he identifies that chronic sleep paralysis only affect around six percent of the general adult population. Sleep paralysis is usually associated with stress, sleep conditions, jet jag and sleep deprivation. He relates the condition with large muscle and provides a solution on the management of the condition that is supine sleep. This article leaves a wide gap to complement of sleep paralysis inn the current world of psychology. But it provides an avenue for exploration withers supine sleep can help manage the disease and if so provide a solution to the six percentage of the population affected by the disease. Sleep Paralysis (Kimball). According to this article sleep paralysis is not considered a serious health problem, and it provides road to its cause and treatment. He goes ahead and claims that sleep paralysis is only a sign of immobility of the body while one is asleep and is really linked with a psychiatric problem. Sleep paralysis is defined as a feeling body’s consciousness but unable to move which occurs between the stages of wakefulness and sleep. In this period, one is usually unable to move or speak for a short duration of time with the accompaniment of chocking feeling in some people. There are two types of the condition that is predormital sleep paralysis when it occurs as you fall asleep or hypnogogic sleep paralysis when it occur as you wake up. In predormital sleep paralysis, as one fall asleep body slowly relaxes as one became less unaware thus unable to notice the change. While in hypnogogic sleep paralysis, during sleep the body alternates between rapid eye movement and non rapid eye movement. At the end of sleep, there occurs a shift from rapid to non rapid eye movement which occurs very rapidly hence dream occurring while though other parts of the main stagnant. He eludes the cause of sleep paralysis as lack of sleep, change of sleep schedule, mental state and substance abuse. The core treatment of this condition is an improvement of sleeping habit and treatment of the mental state of an individual. These articles played a critical role in the provision of background information of the management and understanding the myths behind sleep paralysis. Factors Related to the Occurrence of Isolated Sleep Paralysis Elicited During a Multi-Phasic Sleep-Wake Schedule(Tomoka 89-96) In this journal, the research studied the contributing factors in relation to the occurrence of isolated sleep paralysis exhibited during a multi phasic sleep. This area was studied because sleep paralysis is one of the crucial symptoms of narcolepsy as well as cataplexy, sleep attack and hypnagogic hallucinations. This research greatly contributes the understanding of the phenomena behind sleep paralysis and how it relates to other diseases that cause instability to persons psychologically. With the objective of investigating the mechanisms of isolated sleep paralysis in normal persons it examines the behavioral and psychological measurements related to isolated sleep paralysis which is a great contribution in understanding the psychology of sleep paralysis. This is highly relevant to psychology for it establishes the baseline for providing solutions to people with sleep paralysis though solving behavioral and psychological characters that can induce it. In the research design, a multiple phasic sleep/ wake schedule was induced at midnight and induced seven and half hours later where the participants were awaken after every five minutes. The participants of the research were thirteen healthy Japanese students who had reported high frequencies if isolated sleep paralysis without other narcolepsy related diseases or symptoms. From the study, the researcher found out that isolated sleep paralysis can be a phenotype of rapid eye movement of low tolerance participants if disrupted thus answering the hypothesis that isolated sleep paralysis is affected by other factor. Comparing the content of sleep paralysis and dream report (Perker 45-59) This journal relates the exhibit-ant of sleep and dream and how they and how they contribute to the development of personal feeling about the disease/ symptoms of sleep paralysis. The use of the Hall and Van de Castle’s method of content analysis gave the researcher upper hand, and an advantage in coming up with a better conclusion on the analysis of dream content and its relationship with sleep paralysis for it has been used by several researchers and proven efficient. The researcher correlated dream content, norms and revealed their relationship with sleep paralysis. This research contributes much to psychology for it establishes the correlation between sleep paralyses with dream norms and establishes how people believe their dreams affects their personal life. From this stand point, psychologists can put in to practice the use of people believes and perception of dreams in helping the solve dream paralysis problems. The finding of this research showed that emotionally, sleep paralysis is a unique state more of dreaming and that the interaction between character are more aggressive with the dreamer being a victim of attacker. Out of the 64 male and 52 female who took place in the research the research differentiate the genders by reporting the female with more sexual activity in their dreams than men. As a conclusion, since dream and sleep paralysis and dreams share subjective similarities they can be identified as separate sleep state. This leaves psychologist with authenticity to decide on what perspective to handle sleep paralysis; either integration of the patients dream as well as handle sleep paralysis alone. Spatial characterization of hallucination associated with sleep paralysis. (Cheyne 200-300) Spatial properties of hallucinations have received little attention in the study and investigation of sleep paralysis. Although hallucinations are more like associated with psychiatric and neurological conditions the study tries to prove that they can as well be intertwined with sleep paralysis. This study provides based for people and psychologist in the approach of sleep paralysis with the integration of hallucination with it. The study used three dimension as well as distance and dispersion measures to assess 279 experients in two general categories of hallucinations. This included intruder hallucinations ie presence, visual and auditory hallucinations and vestibular motor hallucinations that is floating, flying illusory motor movement, out of body experience and autos-copy. The research found out that intruder and vestibular motor hallucinations have distinctive factors and occurred closely. This concluded that the difference between the spatial characteristic of intruder and vestibular motor hallucinations largely collaborates prediction on the occurrence of sleep paralysis thus answering the hypothesis of the research. This research call for the psychologist to have a deeper understanding of sleep paralysis in solving it to avoid shallow interpretation of the state of the disease and the baseline of it cause. Sleep Paralysis Postepisode Distress: Modeling Potential Effects of Episode Characteristics, General Psychological Distress, Beliefs, and Cognitive Style (Cheyne et al 25-45). This journal tries to establish the distress, psychological distress, belief and cognitive styles with sleep paralysis. It provides more avenues for the perception of SP among people and its management despite the state of the client. With the objective of developing developing an integrative account of SP post episode distress, they examined the effects of several potential determinants of post episode distress taken from diverse domains Eg traits of the SP episodes, psychological distress sensitivity, supernatural beliefs about SP experiences, and cognitive style. They then tested the act derived path model integrating these separate factors and corroborated. The results indicate that different kinds of cognitive styles and the parameter tested leads to the development of sleep paralysis. Therefore, as psychologist one should consider in a broad perspective the cause of the sleep paralysis and how it relate to different stresses. Lesser-Known Sleep Disorders: Parasomnias, Sleepwalking, Teeth Grinding, and More This article page describes the diseases accompanied by sleep where sleep paralysis is not exclusion. It provides symptoms of sleep paralysis like inability to move arms legs. Body and head and sometimes inability to speak and sometimes hallucinations accompany it. It also provides the kind of specialized to see when one is affected by the disease and the time to see him/her. It provides treatment of the disease as behavioral change, sleep positioning, avoiding naps and some medications. This article provides wide information to psychologist is digesting of the kind of information to provide to their clients. Conclusion There is wide research which has been done in different date base that gives different perfectives of sleep paralysis. This has greatly contributed to the understanding and general psychological perception of the disease. Different psychologists have embarked on this research to expound the gap existing between the reality of sleep paralysis and theoretical know how. Bibliography Betsch M. Lesser-Known Sleep Disorders: Parasomnias, Sleepwalking, Teeth Grinding, and More. Halth magazine. 2013 from http://www.health.com/health/condition-article/0,,20191417,00.html viewed on 18/03/2013 Carter, K. Disorders that make sleep scary: sleep paralysis. USA, CNN. 2009 Page 2 Cheyne A.J. and Pennycook, G. Sleep Paralysis Postepisode Distress: Modeling Potential Effects of Episode Characteristics, General Psychological Distress, Beliefs, and Cognitive Style. Journal of clinical psychology science. 2012, 2(12)25-45 Cheyne J.A. spatial characterization of hallucination associated with sleep paralysis. Journal of neuropsychiarity. 2004 9(4)1-300 Kimball, J. Sleep Paralysis. Webmd. Extrated ON 17/03/20013 FROM; http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/sleep-paralysis last reviewed 24/10/2012 Perker D.J. and Blackmore J.S. comparing the content of sleep paralysis and dream report. Journal of dreaming. 2002, 12(1)45-59 Tomoka Takeuchi, Kazuhiko F., Yuka S., Maki I., and Timothy I. Factors Related to the Occurrence of Isolated Sleep Paralysis Elicited During a Multi-Phasic Sleep-Wake Schedule. Journal on sleep paralysis. 2002. 25(1)89-96 Read More