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Sleep Paralysis, State Transition Disruptions, and Narcolepsy

James Allan Cheyne

December 21, 2006 DOI: 10.3109/9781420019254-16 (opens in new tab)

Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Review
Key findings Argues that sleep paralysis has been documented and explained in scholarly literature for over 1,500 years, historically classified as nightmare and more recently as part of the narcoleptic tetrad/pentad, with the chapter's second part addressing its relation to narcolepsy.

Abstract

Sleep paralysis (SP) is a brief period of paralysis associated with REM occurring at sleep onset (hypnagogic) or offset (hypnopompic) (1,2). Descriptions and explanations of SP experiences have appeared in the scholarly, medical and scientific literature for at least 1500 years, often under the rubric of nightmare (3) and, more recently, as part of the narcoleptic tetrad/pentad (1). The nature of the relation between SP and narcolepsy is a focus of the second part of the present chapter.