Effects Of Sleep Paralysis On Human Psychology

Sleep paralysis is a state of consciousness experienced while waking from sleep or falling asleep. It is characterized by an experience of being unable to move for several seconds or minutes. Sleep paralysis entails a period of paralysis upon waking or falling asleep and is often accompanied by terrifying hallucinations. Many stressful environmental factors which cause emotional stress also induce sleep paralysis. In addition to stressful environmental factors being associated with the condition, there appears to be a dominant genetic factor associated with the predisposition for developing sleep paralysis. The implications of these ndings for stress, anxiety, and sleep are discussed. Almost three hundred people from various age groups of Karachi city were targeted as the respondents. A multifactor questionnaire was constructed to measure the effects of sleep paralysis – independent variable, and the human psychology – dependent variable. Regression analysis was performed and proposed two models using SPSS. The results of statistical tests were concluded in a way that how sleep paralysis effects a person’s life. The nal results showed the effects of sleep paralysis on one’s psychology and personal life.


Introduction
Ever nd yourself brie y paralyzed as you're falling asleep or just waking up? It's a phenomenon is called sleep paralysis, and it's often accompanied by mysterious experiences, which can include unable to move, unable to speak, sensing presence of someone, frustration and intense fear. For some people, sleep paralysis maybe a once-in-a-lifetime experience; for others, it can be a frequent, even nightly, experience. This is a phenomenon which happens to almost everyone and most people who have suffered from this don't know about it and how to deal with it. It seldom affects a person emotionally and mentally. Many people don't believe in it and call it superstitious and fake. This research is important for awareness of this phenomenon and how to deal with it and help others. Our objective was to nd out how sleep paralysis affects Human psychology so as to help people, who face sleep paralysis to control their fear of facing sleep paralysis.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Most people considered this superstitious and fake. Hufford (March,2005) has reported on the results of his work, which spans more than a decade. His original isolated sleep paralysis work began with a study of the college student population in Newfoundland. He surveyed 93 students and found that 23% had experienced sleep paralysis, known as the "Old Hag" in Newfoundland. Hufford's research asserts that the phenomenon is found in a variety of cultural settings. Wilson (1925) rst used what has become the most accepted term for this state of consciousness: sleep paralysis. He noted that it was a "transient physiologic disorder, a physiological cataplexy".
In Interpretation of Dreams2 Freud mentions hallucinations citing Johannes Muller's (1826) term for this experience, "imaginative visual phenomena". There is strong evidence that some claims of alien abduction may actually describe episodes of sleep paralysis. In a study by Spanos (1993) and a paper by Holden & French (2002) it is shown that 60% of intense UFO experiences are associated with sleep. In a study, French et al (2008) found that people who claim to have been abducted by aliens report more incidences of sleep paralysis than a control group. Descriptions of alien abduction often bear strong resemblance to accounts of sleep paralysis. The study of Kazuhiko Fukuda, Robert D. Ogilvie and Tomoka Takeuchi (2000) stated that there were no differences between Canada and Japan in the prevalence and symptoms of sleep paralysis (SP), but many more Canadians considered SP to be a dream. The difference was considered to be derived from the fact that there is a common expression for SP in Japan but there is not one in Canada. Then, we investigated why there are individuals who consider SP to be a dream and others who do not, and found that many Japanese who regarded it as a dream did not report the symptom of 'unable to move', while in Canada, self-evaluation of spirituality was different between the two groups.

HYPOTHESIS
Based on the stated theoretical and conceptual framework, following hypotheses are developed and tested in the research paper: "Sleep paralysis has a long-term effects on a person's psychology, imposing negativity and anxiety in people which includes panic attacks and emotional stress".

Methodology
We have collected our data by designing a kind of Questionnaire to measure our dependent variable (i.e., Human psychology) and independent variables (i.e., Sleep paralysis). We have divided a Questionnaire in 3 sections in which we have section A, B, and C for Demographic Information, Sleep Paralysis and Human psychology respectively. Section B and C contain 10 and 7 questions respectively with 5 point Likert scaling (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree). We lled out almost 300 questionnaires from various people from different age groups through visiting and/or circulating Google forms online. All subjects were fully informed as to the nature of the investigation and were assured that all data collected on them would be kept completely con dential. After analysis of Demographic Information, we found that we have collected our data from 34% females and 66% males in which mostly are young (i.e. 55% respondents are 16 -20 years old) and people with moderate experience (i.e. 58% respondents have experienced it often).
To analyze the data, we have used linear regression (simple and multiple). In statistics, linear regression is an approach for modeling the relationship between a scalar dependent variable y and one or more explanatory variables (or independent variables) denoted X. The case of one explanatory variable is called simple linear regression. We have also used correlation and ANOVA (analysis of variance) between the variables. A correlation is a single number that describes the degree of relationship between two variables. ANOVA is a statistical analysis tool that separates the total variability found within a data set. The ANOVA test for regression is used to determine the impact independent variables have on the dependent variable in a regression analysis.
R-squared is a statistical measure of how close the data are to the tted regression line. It is also known as the coe cient of determination. It is the percentage of the response variable variation that is explained by a linear model. R-squared is always between 0 and 100% where 0% indicates that the model explains none of the variability of the response data around its mean and 100% indicates that the model explains all the variability of the response data around its mean.
A major difference between R-squared and the adjusted R-squared is that R-squared supposes that every independent variable in the model explains the variation in the dependent variable. It gives the percentage of explained variation as if all independent variables in the model affect the dependent variable, whereas the adjusted R-squared gives the percentage of variation explained by only those independent variables that in reality affect the dependent variable.
The standard error of the estimate is a measure of the accuracy of predictions made with a regression line.
The sum of squares represents a measure of variation or deviation from the mean. It is calculated as a summation of the squares of the differences from the mean.
Unstandardized coe cients indicate the average change in independent variable associated with 1-unit change in the dependent variable standardized coe cient. In statistics, standardized coe cients or beta coe cients are the estimates resulting from a regression analysis that have been standardized so that the variances of dependent and independent variables are 1. Therefore, standardized coe cients refer to how many standard deviations a dependent variable will change, per standard deviation increase in the predictor variable. Sleep paralysis is relatively common in the general population and more frequent in students and psychiatric patients. Given these prevalence rates, sleep paralysis should be assessed more regularly and uniformly in order to determine its impact on individual functioning and better articulate its relation to psychiatric and other medical conditions. The most common causes for inducing sleep paralysis are lack of sleep, irregular sleeping schedule, sleeping in supine position (with face upwards), sudden stress, excessive use of medication and alcohol.

Figure 2
Legend not available with this version.