Sleep Paralysis Postepisode Distress: Modeling Potential Effects of Episode Characteristics, General Psychological Distress, Beliefs, and Cognitive Style

Sleep paralysis (SP) is a brief paralysis experienced when falling asleep or waking up. It is often accompanied by vivid imagery and extreme fear. In addition to the fear during episodes, people often report marked distress following episodes. With the goal of developing an integrative account of SP postepisode distress, we examined the effects of several potential determinants of postepisode distress sampled from diverse domains: characteristics of the SP episodes (reported fear and vividness of experiences during SP and frequency of episodes), psychological distress sensitivity, supernatural beliefs about SP experiences, and cognitive style. All factors made independent contributions to postepisode distress. A conceptually derived path model integrating these separate factors was tested and largely corroborated. An analytic cognitive style had both direct and indirect effects on postepisode distress. Postepisode distress was found to be approximately equally affected by contextual, cognitive, and affective variables.