• Question: why do we get sleep paralysis

    Asked by anon-189333 to Yousef, Rachel, Petrina, Michael, Jason, Emma on 12 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by anon-189492, anon-189372.
    • Photo: Petrina Lau

      Petrina Lau answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      hi there! this is a good question! we experienced paralysis as a part of our sleep. Normal sleep has two distinct states, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. During REM sleep, rapid eye movements occur, breathing becomes irregular, blood pressure rises, and these also comes with a loss of muscle tone (paralysis). Some fun fact is that the brain is highly active during REM, and the electrical activity recorded in the brain by EEG during REM sleep is similar to that recorded during wakefulness! REM sleep is usually associated with dreaming. REM sleep accounts for 20%-25% of the sleep period. 🙂

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