Ann M Cox

Sleep paralysis and folklore

JRSM Open July 1, 2015 Ann M Cox

Sleep paralysis is a relatively new term to describe what for hundreds of years many believed to be a visitation by a malevolent creature which attacked its victims as they slept. The first clinical description of sleep paralysis was published in 1664 in a Dutch physician’s case histories, where it was referred to as, ‘Incubus or the Night-Mare [sic]’. In 1977, it was discovered more than 100...