There seems to be a huge misconception about what sleep paralysis is. Sleep paralysis is NOT having a nightmare that you can't wake from. That is a nightmare. Sleep paralysis is when the wakening cycle of an individual is disrupted. Typically when you sleep, your brain shuts down various parts of the body. During a normal wakening, those functions slowly come back on line. Sleep paralysis is when your brain wakes fully before your body comes back online and you cannot move. It DOES NOT HAPPEN WHILE YOU ARE ASLEEP. You are completely awake. It is not a matter of controlling your dreams to stop it from happening. It is common for a person experiencing sleep paralysis to have hallucinations during it, usually of an intruder in the room or of being attacked, because they feel like their body is being pressed down upon, because they cannot move.

To say it's caused by depression or stress is BS. Doctors DO NOT know what causes sleep paralysis.

"It maybe unpleasant but it is always created by the subconscious to help the sleeper wake up from a problem that he/she is experiencing during sleep. As I said earlier stress and depression are the main causes, but sleeping positions and breathing difficulties during sleep are also factors." None of this is true. This is all incorrect information. It is not caused by the subconscious, it has nothing to do with dreams, and we have no information that sleep positions, breathing difficulties, or nightmares are a factor. There is no scientific evidence of that. And even people who experience sleep paralysis will tell you that they weren't even dreaming before it happened. And since it has nothing to do with dreams, as sleep paralysis is a condition that occurs when waking from sleep, not during sleep or during dreams, this idea that know you are having a nightmare so that will solve everything is both irrelevant and inaccurate.

Dreams may be a work of art but they have very little to do with sleep paralysis.

To the person experiencing sleep paralysis, to say to them "just roll over" or "just know you're dreaming" is of little comfort and very patronizing. Rolling over or sleep position has no known causality. Experiencing sleep paralysis is terrifying and the amount of strength and adrenaline it takes to get your body to respond again is immense. Most people, when finally able to move, are in "fight" mode. They need to do things to calm down to get back to sleep. They cannot just roll over and go back to bed.

To those having nightmares they can't wake from or in which they describe that they cannot move or react. That is not sleep paralysis. While very disturbing, it is not sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is about the functioning of your brain and how it turns off the pathways to your body while you are asleep. It does this to protect you so when you dream, you won't physically react and hurt yourself. Sleep paralysis occurs when you have awakened and your brain has not turned back on the pathways to your body yet, and so even though you tell your arm, for example, to move, it does not.

As I said, the cause is unknown and there is no known cure. Most people will experience it at least once in their lifetime, while a small amount of the population will experience it in a recurring fashion.