It is this condition in which you feel heavy on your chest and cannot move, and only your eyes are the ones that move and you cannot speak or ask for help from anyone.
Are you frightened by your condition and you are sure that you are not living a nightmare, you see your room and your reality as it is, but you do not know what connects you in this way?
Do not leave except for a few minutes, and the person sitting on your chest will be released, so that this condition is called colloquially called Rabbous Jathoom, sleep paralysis, or what is known as the sleep imp?
It is also called the old hag syndrome, and this name is attributed to folklore depicting an old fairy sitting on the chest of the sleeper and causing him shortness of breath and inability to move and make him prone to nightmares and scientifically this condition is called sleep paralysis, which is the feeling that you are conscious But you cannot move and sleep paralysis occurs when a person passes between the stages of wakefulness and sleep at which time he feels that he is unable to move or speak for a few seconds up to a few minutes in which the senses of hearing and vision are normally active, and this condition may be accompanied by auditory or visual hallucinations sometimes. That is, you may hear voices that do not really exist, as if they did.
A painting showing the meaning of the Jathoom
The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli, dating from 1781, is believed to be one of the classic artistic depictions of sleep paralysis, as it was seen as a demonic visitation
The scientific reason says
Sleep is divided into stages that science mentioned and studied:
The stage of non-dreamy sleep
The breathing is slow, the heart rate decreases, the blood pressure decreases, the temperature decreases, the metabolism rate decreases, there are no eye movements, and it is at the beginning of the night.
The dreamer sleep stage
Where relaxation occurs in all the muscles of the body, because during this stage a person has many dreams, for example the dream that you are jumping from above a building and if it were not for the relaxation of the body's muscles, the body would have actually risen and jumped over the building.
Rapid eye movement stage
All muscles are relaxed, except for the diaphragm muscle and the external eye muscles, so that a person can breathe.
What happens in the Jathoom is that a person wakes up before the stage of dreaming sleep ends, and this results in the person being fully conscious and aware of what is around him, but he cannot move or speak, but it is possible that he may suffer from some kind of visual or auditory hallucination, so he can see and hear what Not really, which doubles the feeling of fear and tension, for example seeing a person coming and carrying a knife to kill him, but he is unable to move or even ask for help, and these two stages alternate in several batches so that each one has approximately 90 minutes.
The causes of this condition
Sleep paralysis attacks affect 4 out of 10 people and begin to be noticed first in adolescence, but they affect both sexes at all ages and there are several reasons such as:
Sleep deprivation
Irregular sleep schedule
Psychological stress
Sleeping on the back, and some types of medicine
Preventative measurements
Regular sleep and wake up times
Reducing the pressure on them
Stay away from hallucinogenic drugs
Playing sports
Resorting to anti-depressants in the event of repeated episodes of sleep paralysis, but under the supervision of a physician, these drugs reduce the time of the dreaming stage of sleep and reduce the incidence of sleep paralysis attacks
What was said about the Jathoom
It is a disease in which the sleeping person feels a heavy imagination that falls on him and squeezes it and narrows himself, so his voice and movement are cut off
It almost suffocates to clog pores, and if it wipes out, pay attention to it. It is the nightmare that the person crouches on, and it is said to the person who falls upon a person while he is asleep. It was also said that the nightmare is what falls on the sleeper at night and is said to be the precursor to epilepsy. The jathoom may be due to an organic material such as the effect of food or medicine
And as a last advice, if you get into sleep paralysis and it happens and you are free from it, do not return to sleep immediately because it will come back and catch you to terrify you again.
