Nikolai Gogol's account of sleep paralysis in the tale "The Portrait".

Sleep paralysis, a common and frightening experience, was vividly described in Nikolai Gogol's 1833 tale "The Portrait" long before it appeared in medical literature. The account includes motor paralysis, visual and auditory hallucinations, and autonomic manifestations, making it the earliest known description of sleep paralysis in non-medical literature. Several classical writers, including Dostoevsky, Kafka, Dickens, and Maupassant, also depicted this condition in their works.

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Abstract

Several classical writers had an impressive power of observation and often depicted medical conditions in their works long before medical literature did. Sleep paralysis is a common and frightening experience, in particular when occurring for the first time. Therefore, it is not surprising that it has been frequently described in the classical literature, eg by Dostoevsky, Kafka, Dickens, and Maupassant. In Nikolai Gogol's tale "The portrait" (1833) we could recognize an excellent description of a sleep paralysis, in which several components of this condition were depicted including motor paralysis, visual and auditory hallucinations, and autonomic manifestations. To the best of our knowledge, this account is the earliest description of a sleep paralysis in non-medical literature.