Sleep Paralysis: Night-mares, Nocebos, and the Mind-Body Connection

by Shelley R Adler

Overview

Sleep Paralysis explores a distinctive form of nocturnal fright: the "night-mare," or incubus. In its original meaning a night-mare was the nocturnal visit of an evil being that threatened to press the life out of its victim. Today, it is known as sleep paralysis-a state of consciousness between sleep and wakefulness, when you are unable to move or speak and may experience vivid and often frightening hallucinations. Culture, history, and biology intersect to produce this terrifying sleep phenomenon. Although a relatively common experience across cultures, it is rarely recognized or understood in the contemporary United States.

Shelley R. Adler's fifteen years of field and archival research focus on the ways in which night-mare attacks have been experienced and interpreted throughout history and across cultures and how, in a unique example of the effect of nocebo (placebo's evil twin), the combination of meaning and biology may result in sudden nocturnal death.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813552378
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	01/15/2011
Series:	Studies in Medical Anthropology
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	182
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

SHELLEY R. ADLER is a professor in the department of family and community medicine and director of education at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

1 Consistencies: Cross-cultural Patterns 8

2 Continuities: A Transhistorical Bestiary 37

3 The Night-mare on the Analyst's Couch 59

4 The Night-mare in the Sleep Lab 74

5 The Night-mare, Traditional Hmong Culture, and Sudden Death 94

6 The Night-mare and the Nocebo: Beliefs That Harm 117

Conclusion 134

Notes 137

References 149

Index 165

Editorial Reviews

"Sleep Paralysis is a mind-bending exploration of how what you believe interacts with how your body works."

The Atlantic - Alexis Madrigal

"A fascinating and engaging book. Drawing upon multiple sources, including art, literature, work by other researches and her own fieldwork, Adler adroitly weaves a cogent narrative which provides insight into this pervasive yet under recognized affliction."

Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine

"Sleep Paralysis is a mind-bending exploration of how what you believe interacts with how your body works."

From the Publisher

Sleep Paralysis is a mind-bending exploration of how what you believe interacts with how your body works.— Alexis Madrigal

The Atlantic