ArticleJournal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine2021
Are sleep paralysis and false awakenings different from REM sleep and from lucid REM sleep? A spectral EEG analysis.
Article in Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Diagnostic Spectrum of Sexual Hallucinations.Harvard review of psychiatryPooled it
- Prisoners of the Body: The Link Between Interoception and Sleep Paralysis.Journal of sleep research · 2026Article
- From living metaphors in impactful dreams to sublime disquietude and sublime enthrallment.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- The Future of Parasomnias.Journal of sleep research · 2025Review
- Exploratory study of non-ordinary states of consciousness during sleep show distinct electrophysiological features from wakefulness and canonical sleep stages.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Imaging advances to detect non-motor prodromal markers of Parkinson's disease and explore therapeutic translation opportunities.NPJ Parkinson's disease · 2025Review
- Review
- The Persistent Paradox of Rapid Eye Movement Sleep (REMS): Brain Waves and Dreaming.Brain sciences · 2024Review
- The Epistemic Limits of Impactful Dreams: Metacognition, Metaphoricity, and Sublime Feeling.Brain sciences · 2024Review
- Prevalence and Clinical Characteristics of Sleeping Paralysis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Cureus · 2024Review
- To be or not to be hallucinating: Implications of hypnagogic/hypnopompic experiences and lucid dreaming for brain disorders.PNAS nexus · 2024Article
- All-night spectral and microstate EEG analysis in patients with recurrent isolated sleep paralysis.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Structural differences between non-lucid dreams, lucid dreams and out-of-body experience reports assessed by graph analysis.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Awake or Sleeping? Maybe Both… A Review of Sleep-Related Dissociative States.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Review
- Sleep Paralysis and Lucid Dreaming-Between Waking and Dreaming: A Review about Two Extraordinary States.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Review
- Predictive coding, multisensory integration, and attentional control: A multicomponent framework for lucid dreaming.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Nothingness Is All There Is: An Exploration of Objectless Awareness During Sleep.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- The incubus phenomenon: Prevalence, frequency and risk factors in psychiatric inpatients and university undergraduates.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Dreaming of the sleep lab.PloS one · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
STUDY
objectivesTo determine the polysomnography characteristics during sleep paralysis, false awakenings, and lucid dreaming (which are states intermediate to rapid eye movement [REM] sleep and wake but exceptionally observed in sleep laboratory).
methodsIn 5 participants, we captured 5 episodes of sleep paralysis (2 time marked with the ocular left-right-left-right code normally used to signal lucid dreaming, 1 time marked by an external noise, and 2 retrospectively reported) and 2 episodes of false awakening. The sleep coding (using 3-second mini-epochs) and spectral electroencephalography analysis were compared during these episodes and normal REM sleep as well as wakefulness in the same 4 of 5 participants and vs lucid REM sleep in 4 other patients with narcolepsy.
resultsDuring episodes of sleep paralysis, 70.8% of mini-epochs contained theta electroencephalography rhythm (vs 89.7% in REM sleep and 21.2% in wakefulness), 93.8% contained chin muscle atonia (vs 89.7% in REM sleep and 33.3% in wakefulness), and 6.9% contained rapid eye movements (vs 11.9% in REM sleep and 8.1% in wakefulness). The electroencephalography spectrum during sleep paralysis was intermediate between wakefulness and REM sleep in the alpha, theta, and delta frequencies, whereas the beta frequencies were not different between sleep paralysis and normal REM sleep. The power spectrum during false awakening followed the same profile as in sleep paralysis.
conclusionsThe predominant theta electroencephalography rhythm during sleep paralysis and false awakenings (with rare and lower alpha rhythm) suggests that the brain during sleep paralysis is not in an awake but in a dreaming state.
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