My take on sleep paralysis...
TL;DR: These are just my opinions:
Sleep paralysis is a leftover evolutionary response to something that might attack us as we sleep.
SP is usually accompanied by lucidity. I imagine that being lucid is a way to quickly respond to a threat.
The paralysis is caused by your body tensing up due to fear or feeling startled.
The being in the room is just a manifestation of the fear of being hunted. It is an anthropomorphic entity because we're probably more afraid of being attacked my a human than an animal.
The screams and loud noises are caused by the tensor tympani tensing up and making a loud rumbling sound that is really chaotic.
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I've had sleep paralysis since I was a teen. I don't know what causes them to occur, but here's my guess on went it happens the way it does.
First, I need to mention that I used to be Roman Catholic. Now, I'm an atheist and don't believe in the spiritual or paranormal.
Before, when I was religious, I was always seeking a spiritual reason as to why it happens.
A particularly memorable SP moment was when I saw two cherubs flying above me in a circle. Things got dark and they flew down and slammed themselves on my chest and were screaming at me.
I woke up terrified. I had to find out why these angels were angry and what these sleep paralysis moments meant. I spoke with a friend who suggested I was having an out-of-body experiences. He said that I was on the spiritual realm.
He said I could use the lucidity and channel it into control and explore the world as a spirit rather than letting my fears overwhelm me and fighting, trying to contain my spirit in my body.
So, yeah, I believed that for a while. Then I grew up and became an atheist (for other reasons). After that, the whole OBE didn't make sense nor the angry demons and ghosts that attacked me during my sleep paralysis.
This is what I think actually happens during sleep paralysis.
First, here's how mine usually happen. I become lucid in my dream - aware that I'm asleep. Everything is dead quiet. I feel something watching or coming towards me. I begin to become afraid and suddenly, I'm attacked and my body/mind feels like it's short circuiting. Things are screaming in my head - unintelligible attacks and bosses. Then I wake up and everything is quiet and I'm all alone.
So, the first part is the lucidity. All my sleep paralysis begin with that. This is just a hypothesis - I feel like this is an evolutionary response to real danger.
While we're asleep and it's quiet, hearing a small sound could mean something is about to attack you, so your mind becomes lucid. You are listening for that sound again to wake up. You subconsciously think that something out there means to harm you.
However, with modern life, no one is attacking us, so we stay in this lucid, but hyper aware state.
So, that feeling that this demon or being it's after you makes sense. It's not an animal that is attacking us because they don't roam free. It's shaped like a demon or ghost because the scariest part of modern life is being attacked my other humans. Thus, that fear translates to an anthropomorphic sentient entity coming after us.
The next part of it is the attack - where at the peak of your SP, the entity slams on your chest or comes at you physically.
I think this is just you're body tensing up, like being prepared to be hit in the stomach. Or being startled that you tense up really tight.
Since your body is tense, you're essentially frozen or paralyzed. Your chest might feel tight leading to the feeling that something hit you or landed on your chest.
My SP has an auditory element. Usually, it starts as a whisper and then suddenly becomes loud screaming.
I think that's an acoustic reflex that activates the tensor tympani in my ear. The tensor tympani activates as part of reflex when you're startled by loud noises. It vibrates creating a rather loud rumbling sound.
I can actually control it and create a rumbling noise in my ears. I do so squeezing the muscle. If I close my eyes really hard or tense up, I'll hear that rumbling.
So, in my dreams, it is quiet and then I'm attacked and it's screaming. That's my body tensing up and the tensor tympani activating and making a really loud rumbling. My sleep brain interprets that as screaming or chaotic, uncontrollable noise.
Then, when you wake up, your body releases the tension and all goes back to normal.
I could be completely wrong, though. However, it's something that I actually believe and because I think I know the cause of SP, it no longer frightens me.
I honestly love my SP episodes. I don't get frightened by much anymore, so feeling that fear is kind of interesting.
I have reframed my SP episodes into a game. I get lucid, something is about to attack me, I taunt it to stretch out the episode. Then as it is about to jump, I concentrate on waking myself up. Once in up, my body feels relief and I kind of giggle at the thought of being that afraid.
What do you think? What is your take on sleep paralysis?