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sleep paralysis

sleep paralysis noun: the normal paralysis of the body that occurs during REM sleep.

sleep paralysis: the normal paralysis of the body that occurs during REM sleep
Image: Tulip Hysteria / Go to albums, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

sleep paralysis (countable and uncountable, plural sleep paralyses)

  1. The normal paralysis of the body that occurs during REM sleep.
  2. A situation where a person is not fully awake, and although conscious of their surroundings, unable to move or speak, often accompanied by hallucinations and feelings of terror.

sleep paralysis meaning in Gujarati, Arabic, Indonesian and Thai

sleep paralysis in Gujarati

inability to move or speak while falling asleep or upon awakening
ઓથાર othār

sleep paralysis in Arabic

inability to move or speak while falling asleep or upon awakening
شَلَل النَّوْم šalal an-nawm, جَاثُوم jāṯūm

sleep paralysis in Indonesian

inability to move or speak while falling asleep or upon awakening
kelumpuhan tidur, ketindihan

sleep paralysis in Thai

inability to move or speak while falling asleep or upon awakening
ผีอำ pǐi-am
More languagesFewer languages
sleep paralysis in Vietnamese
bóng đè

Forms of sleep paralysis

pluralsleep paralyses

Questions about sleep paralysis

What does sleep paralysis mean?
Sleep paralysis means the normal paralysis of the body that occurs during REM sleep.
What is sleep paralysis in Gujarati?
Sleep paralysis in Gujarati is ઓથાર (othār). See Sleep paralysis meaning in Gujarati.
What part of speech is sleep paralysis?
Sleep paralysis is a noun.
What is the plural of sleep paralysis?
The plural of sleep paralysis is sleep paralyses.

Words near sleep paralysis in the dictionary

  1. sleep on
  2. sleep one off
  3. sleep out
  4. sleep over
  5. sleep paralyses
  6. sleep paralysis
  7. sleep pressure
  8. sleep regression
  9. sleep rough
  10. sleep schedule
  11. sleep schedules

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sleep paralysis (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-sleep paralysis.wav.

Cite this entry: “sleep paralysis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sleep_paralysis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.