Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/591015
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 25 OCTOBER 2015 17 SLEEP PARALYSIS A temporary inability to move or speak while falling asleep or upon waking Very common, chronic: can last for years or be lifelong, usually self-diagnosable Sleep paralysis most often occurs in people who have narcolepsy or sleep apnea, but it can affect anyone. Episodes involve not being able to speak or move while falling asleep or upon waking. This usually lasts one or two minutes, and is often frightening. The main treatment is improved sleep habits (sleep hygiene) including going to bed at the same time every night, ensuring a comfortable sleep environment free of distractions, and avoiding caffeine before sleeping. People may experience: paralysis, anxiety, feeling that there is an intruder, or hallucination The Nightmare ( 1781) is an oil painting by Anglo-Swiss artist Henry Fuseli and has remained Fuseli's best-known work. The canvas seems to portray simultaneously a dreaming woman and the content of her nightmare. The incubus and the horse's head refer to contemporary belief and folklore about nightmares sweet of dreams Josef, another person we spoke to about the experience, confesses that when put into the words, the experience of sleep paralysis sounds more exciting than what it feels like. "However, the horror is quite inde- scribable. The closest I can come to giv- ing you an idea of what it's actually like is… there's always somebody forcing me down, while I was doing my best to break through…" This is fact matches my own experi- ence: though many find the 'scientific' explanations and treatments for sleep paralysis from the medical field unsat- isfactory – an ineffective banalisation of a horrific, and sometimes scarring, experience – the 'paralysis' bit is cer- tainly right. You feel as though you're pinned down and can't move despite otherwise feeling like this is the one thing you must do. In fact, Josef de- scribes it as an innately "primordial" – cementing the fact that the sensations it brings out are ancient: pre-scientif- ic… and even perhaps pre-religious. In fact, one key aspect of Asher's doc- umentary is that those suffering from sleep paralysis, being frustrated by the "cut-and-paste" and ultimately ineffec- tive advice dished out to them by medial professionals, found solace online. And there's something of the Halloween spirit in that too. Random, normal people gath- ered around the digital campfire to share stories of unexplainable, but strangely common, happenings. In an effort to un- derstand. In an effort to heal. treljic@mediatoday.com.mt News Fresh off the cult hit Room 237 - which collates a number of loony interpretations of Stanley Kubrick's horror classic The Shining to unnerving effect - Rodney Asher takes one step further into the 'real' world with The Nightmare - ostensibly an exploration of the psychological effects of sleep paralysis. However, it's arguable just how grounded in reality the film is. Not because the veracity of what Asher and his interviewees are saying is suspect at any point… but because in opting to explore the world of dreams, he enters into uncertain territory by proxy. Through interviews with a clutch of subjects from America and the UK, Asher reveals how sleep paralysis can have profound effects on people's lives - sometimes to the point where they're changed forever. Some of Asher's subjects found God through their experience - discovering that the magic word "Jesus" was the only thing that kept the nightmares at bay - while others are resigned to the fact that sleep paralysis will always remain with them, no matter what they do. This is highlighted best of all by the medical world's inability to tackle the problem in any real way.