What’s a sleep paralysis demon? And other facts of the bizarre phenomenon By . Kristen Rogers. Updated Jun 8, 2025, 4:58 PM ET. PUBLISHED Jun 8, 2025, 12:00 PM ET.

Sleep paralysis demons have become a key figure in meme culture, but they aren't so funny for those who experience them.

What Is a Sleep Paralysis Demon? According to Robbins, “sleep paralysis refers to when a sleeper wakes from slumber but cannot move.” Per Stanford Medicine, it’s a normal part of REM (or ...

Sleep paralysis, experienced by 30% globally, involves hallucinations during REM sleep. Baland Jalal, a Harvard researcher, studies its causes and terrifying experiences.

This type of hallucination is a hallmark for many people with sleep paralysis. It occurs during transitions into or out of rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep, similar to a traffic jam at a busy ...

You wake up and you can’t move your body, a shadowy figure looms over you, but it feels too real to be a dream. If you’ve experienced this, you might have had a sleep paralysis hallucination.

Known as sleep paralysis demons, these terrors don’t haunt nightmares, but reality. Unfortunately for me, I had my very own sleep paralysis demon. The only problem (well, besides the bone ...

Though scientists know that wake-sleep glitch is what’s happening during a sleep paralysis episode, they’re not entirely sure why. But there are several factors that can increase the risk of ...

During sleep paralysis, however, “we regain consciousness before the muscles regain their freedom from REM-induced paralysis,” said Walker, who is also a professor of neuroscience and ...

Around 30% of people will experience sleep paralysis at least once. Here’s why and what you can do about it.