Free writing

So now I need to start my free writing assignment on sleep paralysis, I have had sleep paralysis about 10 times. starting a little over a year ago. The first time it was horrifying beacuse I had no idea what was going on. Later after some research I figured out it was a thing called sleep paraylisis that is in the parasomnia family of sleep disorders. Other disorders in this family are called sleep walking and night terrors. Sleep paralysis is often linked with narcolepsy as well. When you have sleep paralysis it is when you awake suddenly from a state of REM ( rapid eye movement) sleep and your motor functions are inactive. This is because in REM your body disables these functions to keep you from acting out your dreams physically in bed. The result of waking up in this state is being paralyzed for anywhere from 30 seconds to in some cases, hours. You can open your eyes and look around but that is about it. It is usually accompanied by a pressure on your chest a feeling of dread, feeling a presence in the room, and hallucinations. There are two types of sleep realted hallucinations, Hypnogogic and hypnopompic. The prior takes place before you go to sleep the later after you wake up. The hallucinations might manifest as the cause of your inability to move, and the pressure on your chest. There were many reports of creatures, demons, imps, even aliens, holding people down or sitting on their chests. THis is usually very frightening to most people the first and even following times. Sleep Paralysis is usually brought on by sleep deprivation, a strange sleep schedule, muscle atrophe, stress and possibly other reasons i'm not aware of.