When you wake up during the night and you are unable to move you may experience the most frightening and helpless feeling of being trapped inside of your body. Most people believe this experience is due to a witch riding them or a supernatural fight between good and evil but neither of those are true.
It IS true that our bodies are simply the transportation for the essence of who we are. We exist outside of our bodies. The part of us that makes us…well, us, will never fade away or die.
When we are sleeping, that part of us is still active but our transportation, or our bodies, is in sleep mode. Sleep paralysis is a benefit to our lives because without it, we would act out our dreams while we are sleeping. Our muscles become paralyzed to save us the headache of operating our bodies in this physical realm without being mentally conscious.
Think about it. How are we able to function physically? We do not have to vocally command our limbs to work. We do not have to remind ourselves to walk one foot in front of the other. Our minds command our physical bodies out of necessity. When we are dreaming we are still using these same mental muscles that would cause us to jump, run and act according to the experiences we are having in our dreams. For this reason, sleep paralysis is beneficial.
When you wake up from sleep and you can not move, do not think it is the devil trying to hurt you. Your body has not caught up with your mind yet and is still preventing you from acting out your dreams. Give it a second or two and your two part existence- mind and body- will realign.
Everything will be fine.
I’ve experienced this for years, though when I was a child I couldn’t put a name to it and I didn’t know how common it is.