Sleep paralysis: why it happens, why you sense a “demon” and what helps

During REM sleep, when most vivid dreaming happens, the brain relaxes the muscles so that you stay still; this keeps you from acting out your dreams (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2020). Sleep paralysis is when this muscle paralysis briefly carries over into wakefulness, as you fall asleep or wake up (Sharpless, 2016). You are clearly aware but cannot move, speak or open your eyes, and you may feel as if someone is in the room or something is pushing you down; these feelings can last up to several minutes (NHS, 2026a).

You can still breathe. Eye movements and breathing carry on (Sharpless & Barber, 2011); the muscles between the ribs are affected but the diaphragm is not, which is why a feeling of pressure on the chest is common (Stefani & Högl, 2021). An episode usually ends on its own, and it may also end when someone touches you or speaks to you, or when you make an intense effort to move (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2020). It can be scary but it is harmless (NHS, 2026a; Stefani & Tang, 2024) and not a serious medical risk on its own (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2020). A minority of people, though, are seriously distressed or disrupted by it (Sharpless & Kliková, 2019).

In Korean it is called gawi-nullim; gawi originally meant a frightening dream, or the frightening thing that appears in one, and being “pressed by a gawi” means being unable to move freely out of fear from a frightening dream (National Institute of Korean Language, n.d.). The medical term is sleep paralysis; in Japan it is called kanashibari, and in French paralysie du sommeil. The World Health Organization’s ICD-11 classifies recurrent isolated sleep paralysis (7B01.1) as a parasomnia related to REM sleep, alongside nightmare disorder. It refers to repeated episodes that cause clinically significant distress, such as anxiety at bedtime or fear of sleep (WHO, 2026); “isolated” means it happens without another condition such as narcolepsy (Sharpless, 2016).

mind.io does not offer a sleep paralysis test, and this guide is not a diagnosis. It sets out, from research and official sources, how common sleep paralysis is, where the sense of a presence and the ghost stories come from, why it happens, how it differs from other problems such as narcolepsy, how to make it less likely and what you can try in the moment.

In a systematic review of 35 studies (36,533 people), 7.6% of the general population, 28.3% of students and 31.9% of psychiatric patients had experienced sleep paralysis at least once; among people with panic disorder the figure was 34.6% (Sharpless & Barber, 2011). The numbers depend heavily on how people are asked: in a meta-analysis of South Asian studies, those using a questionnaire specific to sleep paralysis found 46%, against 7% with general questionnaires (Jain et al., 2026).

In Korea, a 2002 study that interviewed 142 adults living in Busan found that 38.7% had experienced it at least once; it was a small sample from one city, so it is not a national figure (Park & Yang, 2002). In Japan, about 40% of 635 university students (Fukuda et al., 1987) and 39.6% of 8,162 citizens said they had experienced it, with first episodes peaking at age 16 (Kotorii et al., 2001). It usually first appears in the teen years (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2020).

Frequent episodes are rare. In a general-population survey in Germany and Italy, 0.8% had an episode at least once a week and 1.4% at least once a month but not every week (Ohayon et al., 1999). In a US general-population survey, 9.7% had had sleep paralysis in the past year, and of these, 29.9% were still having episodes three years later (Ohayon & Pakpour, 2022). For many people, sleep paralysis is a passing phase.

Hallucinations during sleep paralysis fall into three broad groups: an “intruder” type, with a sensed presence, fear, and sounds or figures; an “incubus” type, with pressure on the chest, difficulty breathing and pain; and “unusual bodily experiences”, such as floating or leaving the body (Cheyne et al., 1999). Of people with sleep paralysis, 57.84% sensed a presence in the room and 21.62% saw figures of other people (Sharpless & Kliková, 2019). In a large international online survey, 76.0% reported fear that was moderate or worse (Rauf et al., 2023), and in the Busan study 85.5% of those who had had it reported hallucinations and 80.0% reported fear (Park & Yang, 2002).

Researchers proposed that on waking from REM sleep, a threat-detecting vigilance system switches on and the sense that “someone is there” sits at the centre of the experience; reports from 383 people were broadly consistent with this (Cheyne & Girard, 2007). These experiences are described in remarkably similar ways across times and cultures, and fit what is known about REM sleep (Cheyne et al., 1999).

That is why cultures have stories to explain it. Japan’s kanashibari is linked to tales of a vengeful spirit sent to suffocate an enemy, and the French word cauchemar (nightmare) is said to come from an old verb meaning “to press” (de Sá & Mota-Rolim, 2016). Of 89 people from the general population in Cairo who had had it, 48% believed it was caused by the Jinn, a spirit-like being (Jalal et al., 2014); in Italy, earlier research found that over a third of those who had had it thought a creature called the Pandafeche might be the cause (Jalal et al., 2021a); and among 59 university students in Istanbul, 17% believed it might have been the Karabasan (Jalal et al., 2021b). Chinese tradition calls it “ghost oppression”, yet among Chinese psychiatric patients in China and the US, only two named supernatural causes (Yeung et al., 2005), and in the US, cases interpreted as alien abduction have been studied (McNally & Clancy, 2005).

How people interpret it goes together with how frightening it feels. In the international survey, 63.3% of people with sleep paralysis thought it was caused by something in the brain and 7.1% by something supernatural (Rauf et al., 2023). In Egypt, those who believed in supernatural causes reported more fear and longer immobility, but because it was a one-time survey, it cannot show which came first (Jalal & Hinton, 2013). Where there is a common name for it, as kanashibari in Japan, more people recognised it as different from a dream (Fukuda et al., 2000). Science explains the experience as a state where REM sleep and wakefulness overlap. This guide is not here to judge anyone’s beliefs.

It is more likely with sleep loss, irregular sleep schedules and jet lag (Stefani & Högl, 2021). Shift workers reported sleep paralysis more often than others (48% vs 36%; Denis et al., 2018), and a Japanese survey also found it more often in shift workers and in nursing (Kotorii et al., 2001). An experiment supports this: when 16 healthy people had their sleep interrupted and then went back to sleep, REM sleep began straight away in 71.9% of cases, and sleep paralysis followed 9.4% of the interruptions (6 episodes) (Takeuchi et al., 1992).

Sleep quality, position and timing matter too. In a study of 862 UK twins and siblings aged 22 to 32, poorer sleep quality went with higher odds of having had sleep paralysis (Denis et al., 2015), and in the international survey, people who had had it took longer to fall asleep, slept less and had more insomnia symptoms (Rauf et al., 2023). It was reported most often when lying on the back, and lying on the back was 3 to 4 times more common during sleep paralysis than when normally falling asleep (Cheyne, 2002). Episodes were most common in the first 2 hours after going to bed (Girard & Cheyne, 2006).

Stress, anxiety and trauma also go with it. In the twin study, more anxiety symptoms and more threatening life events went with higher odds of sleep paralysis (Denis et al., 2015). In a meta-analysis of 11 studies (5,568 people), those who had had sleep paralysis had slightly higher anxiety scores (standardised mean difference 0.35), but the difference in the rate of diagnosed anxiety disorders was not significant in the main analysis (Garrido et al., 2026). Among Cambodian refugee patients who had been through severe trauma, 67% of those with PTSD had sleep paralysis, but it is still unclear whether PTSD causes it or whether the disrupted sleep that comes with PTSD does (Hinton et al., 2005; Sharpless, 2016).

There is an inborn element as well. In the twin study, about 53% of the variation in having had sleep paralysis was linked to genes (Denis et al., 2015), and it is more likely if someone in your family has it (NHS, 2026a). Results for alcohol and smoking were mixed across studies (Denis et al., 2018), and in the twin study caffeine showed no link (Denis et al., 2015). Most of these studies looked at a single point in time, so they cannot say what causes what (Denis et al., 2018).

Sleep paralysis can be one sign of narcolepsy. Its other signs are excessive daytime sleepiness, fragmented sleep, hallucinations when falling asleep or waking, and cataplexy (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2020): sudden muscle weakness that can make you fall, which may be triggered by emotions such as anger or sadness, or by laughter (NHS, 2026b). Narcolepsy is rare, affecting about 42 in 100,000 people (Ohayon et al., 2025); Seoul National University Hospital puts it at about 0.02 to 0.18% of adults and says it mostly starts in adolescence or early adulthood (Seoul National University Hospital, n.d.). It is told apart from sleep paralysis alone by cataplexy and severe daytime sleepiness (Sharpless, 2016). In Korea, cases have been reported of people who came to a clinic because of sleep paralysis and were diagnosed with narcolepsy (Choi et al., 2018). Students with very irregular sleep can look like they have narcolepsy on tests, though, so the diagnosis needs care (Fukuda, 2018).

It is not the same as nightmares either. In nightmare disorder, awareness of your surroundings and muscle paralysis are missing; and while night terrors do not end easily when someone comforts the person, sleep paralysis often ends when someone comes over and soothes them (Sharpless, 2016). Nightmares are covered in the dream and nightmare guide. Night-time panic attacks, waking in a state of panic, have no paralysis and no dream-like images (Sharpless, 2016); see Panic attacks: what to do.

Hallucinations in sleep paralysis happen only at the boundary between sleep and waking, and reality testing is otherwise intact (Sharpless, 2016). Hallucinations when falling asleep or waking can also happen without paralysis (WHO, 2026). But if you hear voices or see things when you are fully awake too, or your thoughts and beliefs change, see Schizophrenia and early psychosis and talk to a professional.

Protecting your sleep matters most. The NHS advises getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep a day, going to bed and getting up at roughly the same times, exercising regularly but not in the last hour before bed, avoiding a big meal, smoking, alcohol and caffeine shortly before bed, and not sleeping on your back (NHS, 2026a). Specialists likewise put sufficient sleep and a regular schedule first (Stefani & Högl, 2021). Simply knowing what sleep paralysis is, and being reassured, is the most basic help (Sharpless, 2016). Sleep problems are covered in Insomnia: what helps and stress in How to relieve stress.

No way of ending an episode has yet been proven to work (Sharpless & Grom, 2016). In an international online survey of 3,523 people who had had sleep paralysis, though, recognising that it is sleep paralysis and thinking positive thoughts, and focusing on breathing, were rated the most effective ways of ending an episode, though few people named them (Rauf et al., 2023). Trying to move small body parts such as fingers and toes is also used (Rauf et al., 2023), and episodes may end when someone touches or speaks to you, or when you make an intense effort to move (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2020). These are all self-reported ratings, not evidence of effect.

Some approaches are being studied. “Meditation-relaxation (MR) therapy” has been proposed, with four steps: rethinking the meaning of the attack, distancing yourself psychologically and emotionally, focusing attention inwards in meditation, and relaxing the muscles (Jalal, 2016). In a pilot study of 10 people with narcolepsy, the 6 who had MR therapy had 50% fewer days with sleep paralysis, but it was a small study without random allocation, so the result is provisional (Jalal et al., 2020). Because it was done in people with narcolepsy, it is not known whether it helps sleep paralysis on its own. A five-session cognitive behavioural therapy manual also exists, but it has not yet been tested, and no treatment for sleep paralysis has yet been tested in a randomised controlled trial (Sharpless, 2016).

Most people do not need medical help. But if you often have sleep paralysis and feel very anxious or scared to go to sleep, or are tired all the time from lack of sleep, see a doctor (NHS, 2026a). If you fall asleep suddenly during the day or your muscles go weak when you laugh, you may need to be checked for narcolepsy (NHS, 2026b). A doctor may first treat a condition that could be triggering it, such as insomnia or PTSD, and may suggest cognitive behavioural therapy or a low dose of a medicine usually used for depression (NHS, 2026a). Medicine is rarely needed (Stefani & Högl, 2021). Stopping such a medicine suddenly can bring a rebound of REM sleep and more episodes, so talk to the doctor who prescribed it (Sharpless, 2016).

In Korea, you can talk to a psychiatry or neurology clinic that sees sleep problems, or a sleep clinic; if narcolepsy is suspected, sleep tests such as a multiple sleep latency test, a series of daytime naps in a sleep lab, are used to check (Seoul National University Hospital, n.d.). What happens at a first visit is described in Seeing a psychiatrist for the first time. In the UK, a GP can refer you to a sleep specialist if narcolepsy is suspected (NHS, 2026b). Elsewhere, start with your family doctor.

If poor sleep has left you exhausted and low, and you have thoughts of harming yourself, please do not carry them alone. Reach out to a crisis line right away: call or text 988 in the US and Canada, call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland, or find a line at findahelpline.com elsewhere. If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services. In Korea, call 109 (24 hours, free).

Q. Is sleep paralysis caused by ghosts? A. Science explains it as the muscle paralysis of REM sleep carrying over into wakefulness as you fall asleep or wake up (Sharpless, 2016). Sensing a presence in the room is common, reported by more than half of the people who have it (Sharpless & Kliková, 2019), and similar experiences have been interpreted through different stories in many cultures (Cheyne et al., 1999).

Q. Can I suffocate and die during sleep paralysis? A. No. The diaphragm, a breathing muscle, is not paralysed, so you can still breathe; that is also why your chest can feel pressed (Stefani & Högl, 2021). It is scary but harmless (NHS, 2026a).

Q. I have sleep paralysis often. Is it an illness? A. Having it every week is rare, at 0.8% (Ohayon et al., 1999). If it keeps happening and is distressing enough to make you afraid of going to sleep, it can be diagnosed and treated (WHO, 2026). If you are very sleepy in the day or your muscles go weak when you laugh, get checked for narcolepsy (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2020).

Q. How can I stop getting sleep paralysis? A. The official advice is to sleep enough, keep regular hours and avoid sleeping on your back (NHS, 2026a), because it is more likely when sleep is short or irregular (Stefani & Högl, 2021).

Q. How can I get out of an episode? A. No method has been proven yet (Sharpless, 2016). In an international survey, recognising it is sleep paralysis and focusing on breathing were rated the most effective (Rauf et al., 2023), and episodes may end when you make an intense effort to move or someone touches you (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2020).

Q. Is it caused by stress? A. There is a link: people with more anxiety symptoms or more threatening life events had higher odds of sleep paralysis (Denis et al., 2015). But unsettled sleep, position and genes play a part too, so no single cause can be named (Denis et al., 2018).

Q. Does frequent sleep paralysis mean I have trauma? A. No. Studies find it more common in people with PTSD (Denis et al., 2018), but having sleep paralysis does not mean you have trauma, and what causes what is still unclear (Sharpless, 2016).

Q. Is it different from country to country? A. Names and interpretations differ from country to country. Canada and Japan did not differ in rates or symptoms, but in Canada, where there is no common name for it, many more people considered it a dream (Fukuda et al., 2000). In Egypt, by contrast, more people had had it than in Denmark (44% vs 25%), and they reported more frequent episodes and longer immobility (Jalal & Hinton, 2013).

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