Have you ever been in that place somewhere between sleep and consciousness—where you can’t move, even though you’re trying to wake yourself up? I often times hear things, like someone opening my bedroom door, but I can’t wake myself up to see what’s going on. Yesterday morning I saw this shadow coming toward my bed and I knew I couldn’t wake up in time, so I was trying to wake up my fiance the only way that my body would let me. I woke myself up by moaning—I wasn’t able to scream loudly or formulate words. These are the scariest dreams I have ever had (“scary” doesn’t even begin to describe the fear). They usually occur in the early hours of morning (4:00-6:00).

P.S. Lest you think I am crazy, my house was broke into two months ago and my dreams began soon after. This probably has something to do with it.

—Signed Scared Stiff

Dear Scared Stiff—

The formal name for what you are experiencing is REM Paralysis, and fortunately, it is not dangerous or even anything to be overly disturbed by. During each of our REM (dreaming) periods of sleep, the body becomes temporarily paralyzed so that we don’t act out our dreams. Occasionally when we wake up after dreaming, though, our bodies don’t wake up with us—they “stay asleep.” When this happens, we give commands for movement to our bodies, but our bodies won’t respond. Naturally this is disturbing and we can panic—we fear we will never get our movement back. These experiences usually are ended by a bedpartner touching the body and nudging it to full wakefulness, or by a seemingly superhuman effort by the dreamer to awaken.

Sometimes we only partially arouse while the body stays paralysed, and we continue dreaming. This is when REM Paralysis is very confusing. For example, we can awaken and see the outlines of our room, but then we also can dream, as you did, that we see an intruder. Intruder dreams are common in conjunction wth REM Paralysis, and they are known to be exceptionally frightening.

The trick to getting comfortable with these experiences is to recognize that they are entirely natural. They last only a minute or two at most (most last only a few seconds), and no one has ever “stayed paralysed.” Try to keep yourself calm during the experience, and try also to work out a communication system with your bed partner where he/she knows to shake you if you are moaning—(usually we can only vocalize minimally during these episodes because of the REM Paralysis). After you get more comfortable you may try even to enjoy these periods of consciousness mixed with REM sleep—known as lucid dreaming—and see if you can’t make a happy ending to your dream.