[FluffyDinosaur]

Does anyone else here experience it? I get episodes of sleep paralysis every few years or so where I see very scary stuff and can't move. Then after a few episodes it's gone again for up to a few years. I'm curious whether it might have any relation to my bipolar or not.

[Skeezyks]

When I was younger I had episodes of sleep paralysis frequently. For years I didn't know what they were about. Over time, I taught myself to focus on moving just the index finger of my right hand. And once I could do that the paralysis would dissipate.

Now that I'm older I rarely have sleep paralysis episodes. I read, somewhere, that sleeping on one's back tends to encourage episodes of sleep paralysis. This may be part of the reason I don't have them anymore because I find I can't sleep on my back. I pretty-much always sleep on one side or the other & occasionally on my stomach.

Hi FluffyDinosaur. You mean you can't move anything at all, when you experience what you refer to? That sounds rather scary. The interesting thing that sounds like a link is seeing the scary stuff. Is it always the case that you see something scary before these sleep paralysis episodes? Is it part of dreams that you are seeing these things, or do you suspect something else (hallucination, or real life scary scene)?

I think what you describe sounds concerning enough for you to mention it to your doctor. I would have no idea what its cause is. Skeezyks seems to reference how one sleeps as a possible cause. Perhaps unrelated, but I certainly have awakened to find I couldn't move an arm, but I saw that as simple cutting off blood flow to nerve fibers (my arm"fell asleep" ). I'm not sure if that is what Skeezkys is referring to.

I have experienced a brief catatonia in the past. I am still not 100% sure if that was related to the mania I was experiencing at the time, or even a seizure-related symptom. My mania was severe and I was hospitalized at that precise time for it. It was the middle of the day. The catatonia happened in the ER. They sort of concluded it was related to my mania, and yet they did order a CT scan and EEG, but they came back normal. Later down the line, I did go to a neurologist and epileptologist. The former diagnosed me with simple focal (partial) seizures, but the epileptologist said it wasn't definitive. I'm not implying your situation is neurologically-based, but rather that there could be various possibilities. Were you clearly in severe bipolar episodes when your sleep paralysis happened? That would be important for your doctor to know. I assume your doctor knows all of the medications you take, too, if you take any. I would think they would also want to know if the "scary things" you saw were related from bout to bout. One might wonder if the terror is paralyzing psychologically, in a sense.

[FluffyDinosaur]

I'm not sure to what extent it's related to my bipolar episodes, partially because I haven't experienced it that much since my bipolar diagnosis, and I wasn't paying close attention before that. I think I've noticed an increase in this sort of thing during hypomanic or mixed episodes. I don't know if there's anything neurological going on, but I do experience some other parasomnias as well, such as "exploding head syndrome."

To my understanding sleep paralysis is caused by REM cycles that continue while you start to wake up. During REM sleep the body is normally prevented from moving. With sleep paralysis, you start to wake up but you're still dreaming and your body is "locked" and can't move at all. It can be pretty terrifying and it's thought to be the explanation behind things like alien abduction stories.

I just experienced a brief episode of sleep paralysis again for the first time in a while, and I also just came out of hypomania, so maybe there's a relation there. I know that both parasomnias and manias can be triggered by stress and lack of sleep, so maybe there's only a correlation between the two and not a causal effect. On the other hand, sleep paralysis apparently has some genetic basis, so perhaps some of these genes overlap with the bipolar genes? I don't know but it's interesting to hear about other people's experiences.

[Rick7892]

Originally Posted by FluffyDinosaur

Does anyone else here experience it? I get episodes of sleep paralysis every few years or so where I see very scary stuff and can't move. Then after a few episodes it's gone again for up to a few years. I'm curious whether it might have any relation to my bipolar or not.

The most scary part about sleep paralysis is for me is when it happened, and I had no idea what was happening. That was terrifying! After I learned about it and I am not the only one to have it, I was able to cope with them by saying to myself, this is sleep paralysis, let it pass. And it did with practice.

The National Health Service has an informative page (Sleep paralysis
- NHS) and doesn't link it to bipolar. Wikipedia also gives useful information (Sleep paralysis - Wikipedia).

I had the same terrifying response to panic attacks when I first started having them, and I didn't know what they were. My terror made them more terrifying! After learning more about them, neither was as terrifying when I was having one after I recognized I was having one. Though this sometimes took some seconds to recognize. After recognizing one, I tried to relax and let it pass. This took some practice and made my experience of sleep paralysis or a panic attack annoying, but not terrifying. I see that the NHS site indicates that panic disorders can be one of many causes of sleep paralysis.

[FluffyDinosaur]

Originally Posted by Rick7892

The most scary part about sleep paralysis is for me is when it happened, and I had no idea what was happening. That was terrifying!

I agree! For me it started when I was in my teens and I didn't know what it was either. I used to see "ghosts" and thought they were real, and in hindsight that fed into some of my delusions at the time.

[sarahsweets]

Have you ever had a sleep study?

[FluffyDinosaur]

Originally Posted by sarahsweets

Have you ever had a sleep study?

I haven't, but I would consider it if it ever got as bad again as it was a few years ago. Fortunately at this point it only happens sporadically.

[Shoe]

I am kind of like Skeezyks, that infamous old troll. I used to experience it occasionally when I was younger but haven't really had to deal with it the last few years. I just turned 68. Personally, I think it has something to do with the decrease of my libido as I grow older.
I was never dx Bipolar but maybe schizophrenic. I had a half doz. episodes when I was in my 20's. Usually, I would end up in a hospital and get stabilize on some AP med. After a few months I would feel better and stop taking the meds and go back to work. It might be a year or two until something else would trigger another episode. When I turned 30 the episodes stopped for 20 years. I had another mild episode about a month after the 9/11 thing happened. Because I was familiar with what was happening I was able to make it through that episode after about 3 weeks without having to take any meds. I did seem to notice that I experienced several sleep paralysis dream type experiences during that time. It used to really freak me out too until I learn what it was and started reading books about it. Someone once said that knowledge is the antidote for fear.
Late 2002 I decided that I needed to do this combo treatment for Hep C. This gastro doctor started to interview me to see if I would be a candidate for the treatment. He wanted to know if I had any history of mental illness and I told him no because that would exclude me from trying the treatment. I needed try the treatment or I would probably be dead in a few years as my liver was really going down hill. I was one of the lucky ones and the treatment cured me.
A lot of the people that went through the treatment suffered from depression and experience some pretty strange dreams. A couple of months after I completed the treatment I really went through some strange dream type experiences ( lucid dreams, false awakenings and even an OBE ) It was a real trip. I met a couple of entities but never no aliens though. The good news is I have been doing pretty good for the last 17/18 years.

[sophiebunny]

Waking up in the middle of REM sleep can make you feel paralyzed. It's part of REM sleep to not move. If that weren't the case people would be acting out their dreams all the time. I don't think it has anything to do with being bipolar. I think its simply you are in REM sleep when you feel the paralysis. Ask a sleep expert.

[sarahsweets]

Hey @FluffyDinosaur the reason I asked is because sleep paralysis is something that can occur with narcolepsy. There are many people that have narcolepsy that do not know it. People always think of narcolepsy as falling asleep while standing there or what they see on tv. My husband has narcolepsy and will fall asleep in any type of low stimulating environment-so watching tv, sitting at the kitchen table quietly after dinner, etc. He had to have a sleep study (at my insistance) to determine the narcolepsy. It is treatable.

Originally Posted by FluffyDinosaur

I haven't, but I would consider it if it ever got as bad again as it was a few years ago. Fortunately at this point it only happens sporadically.

[*Beth*]

I'm 100% with sarahsweets. I just did a sleep study last month & was sorry I had put it off. It was so easy, no big deal at all. I'll get the results in January; I'm looking forward to that.
A sleep study will give you a lot of information.

[FluffyDinosaur]

Thanks for the replies! Sounds like a sleep study may be worth a try. I've never thought of myself as being narcoleptic, and I don't think I meet the DSM criteria, but I am tired a lot. I've always linked that to my bipolar episodes, though, since I'm generally most fatigued during depressions and not during euthymia or hypomania. I wonder if it would be difficult to separate the sleep study results from symptoms of mood episodes?

[*Beth*]

Originally Posted by FluffyDinosaur

Thanks for the replies! Sounds like a sleep study may be worth a try. I've never thought of myself as being narcoleptic, and I don't think I meet the DSM criteria, but I am tired a lot. I've always linked that to my bipolar episodes, though, since I'm generally most fatigued during depressions and not during euthymia or hypomania. I wonder if it would be difficult to separate the sleep study results from symptoms of mood episodes?

No, it wouldn't be difficult. The sleep study clinics take everything into account...meds, etc. Every person has about 80 pages that review your sleep study results.

It happened twice in my early 20s. I think it was in response to risperidone that had just been started. I found it terrifying and am so thankful it has never happened again. If it were still happening, I would definitely have a sleep study done.