General Q and A Forum - My body is completely paralyzed during sleep : Epilepsy ?

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Q: My body is completely paralyzed during sleep : Epilepsy ?

asked by: DoctorQuestion on June 28th, 2007

For the past few months I have been having something very strange happen to me when going to sleep. I will be in bed and soon after falling to asleep i will immediately have some sort of dream, often with extremely loud noises that are not actually being made, except in my head apparently. After some brief, seemingly meaningless dream sequence my eyes open and i see the actual room that I have gone to sleep in and am aware of how i just had a dream and am awake. However, although my eyes are open and I can think as if to be awake, my body is completely paralyzed. The only way I can "snap" out of it is trying to move as hard as I can. After 20 to 30 seconds of attempts that result in just small convulsions of my hand or foot, I will finally be able to move again suddenly. This will happen one night about every 3 weeks or so for the past 4/5 months. Additionally the nights it has happened, it does so several times in a row, all within the first 15 minutes of the first. Any ideas? Thanks.

Replies(1)

Dr. Nikola Gjuzelov , MD

replied on August 8th, 2007

General Q and A Answer A3053

It doesn’t seem to me that you are experiencing epilepsy because you are completely aware of and can remember the event you describe. Nonetheless, an EEG can confirm or exclude epilepsy as a possible diagnosis. You may be experiencing some kind of anxiety disorder but epilepsy should be excluded first. You can consult a neurologist and psychiatrist for consultation and to request the necessary examinations.

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