How Hypnotherapy Can Help with Sleep Paralysis

You’re trying to sleep, and then out of nowhere you start to stir. You’re slightly conscious but there’s one problem. You can’t talk, yet you’re trying to speak. You can’t move, yet you’re trying to wiggle your arms. There’s a numbness in your body. Fear and powerlessness escalate as you try to free yourself from this strange, unusual hold your body has over you.

Sounds like something from a horror movie, right? However, this description is a valid interpretation of an experience of a sleeping disorder called sleep paralysis. It’s the condition in which one wakes up in the night, unable to move, often experiencing chilling or bizarre hallucinations. This condition can happen every once in a while, or it can be chronic.

Deep breath! It’s okay. You are not alone.

I’m here to show you how hypnotherapy can help with sleep paralysis. 

How Common is Sleep Paralysis?

Sleep paralysis is actually more common than you may realize. Episodes can occur earlier in the sleep cycle or as you are toward the end, waking up (or trying to). Our muscles are paralyzed at certain times when we’re asleep, and this is normal. 

Apart from our eyes and respiratory system, our muscles are completely paralyzed during our REM (rapid eye movement) sleep.  The assumption is that this paralysis is to keep us from acting out our dreams, based on rare cases where people have physically acted out their dreams, and the paralysis fails. When we experience sleep paralysis, it occurs when the process that causes your muscles to relax during sleep temporarily continues after you’ve awoken. 

Sleep paralysis can occur for a few seconds or minutes at most but feel longer during the episode. Some people may feel they are at risk of harm and/or suffer from scary vivid hallucinations. 

Where Hypnotherapy for Sleep Paralysis and Other Sleeping Issues Can Help

Maintaining a healthy, regular sleep pattern is a good approach to trying to curb sleep issues, with going to bed at roughly the same time every night and getting up at the same time each morning may help.

However, most sleep disorders are usually worsened by stress and anxiety, which can also interfere with your sleep pattern. Both are underlying causes that hypnotherapy can help to soothe. 

Hypnotherapy for sleep paralysis can guide you toward a calm and relaxed state of being while you experience an episode, meaning you can take back control over this unsettling situation. By learning how to stay calm, you tell your mind the episode is only passing, and you will not be held in the situation. 

Secondly, during a hypnotherapy session you can also install “trigger words” to return your mind and body to a more awake state and to fall back asleep easily after an episode, again giving you back control over this experience. 

Thirdly, hypnotherapy can help you rehearse new positive endings to your paralysis episodes that you experience. When you take control of the hallucination or dreamlike state you’re able to create an alternate narrative for yourself, a different response. For example, if someone were to come at you with a weapon, you could turn that weapon into something cartoony and morph into someone who was bringing you a gift. This way, the dream is back in your control and it ends on your terms.

Questions? Let me know

I can’t stress enough how healthy and energizing it can be to get a good night’s sleep. If this has been your struggle and you have more questions about hypnotherapy, I’d love to hear from you.

If you’re interested in learning more about other sleep disorders and hypnotherapy’s effects, feel free to check out Parasomnias: What Are They and How Can Hypnosis Help?

You can also read up on sleep and hypnotherapy’s strong ability to give you back control of your sleep pattern in Fixing Sleep Issues with the Power of Hypnosis. 

And of course, if you feel that hypnotherapy is the best course of action to resolve your struggle with sleep paralysis, you can contact me today.

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