Cultural Variation in the Clinical Presentation of Sleep Paralysis

Abstract

Sleep paralysis is one of the lesser-known and more benign forms of parasomnias. The primary or idiopathic form, also called isolated sleep paralysis, is illustrated by showing how patients from different cultures weave the phenomenology of sleep paralysis into their clinical narratives. Clinical case examples are presented of patients from Guinea Bissau, the Netherlands, Morocco, and Surinam with different types of psychopathology, but all accompanied by sleep paralysis. Depending on the meaning given to and etiological interpretations of the sleep paralysis, which is largely culturally determined, patients react to the event in specific ways.