Is sleep paralysis really an explanation?

Ichneumonwasp said:
If anyone is reading this, no one has ever, to my knowledge, ever been accused of being dead as a result of catalepsy or cataplexy. That is just complete and utter bunk. Generally the presence of a heart beat and blood pressure keep most people out of the morgue, but who am I to question?
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http://archive.theargus.co.uk/2000/10/18/187718.html

And of course there is the characterin the Edgar Allen Poe story The Premature Burial...;)
 
Edgar Allan Poe's "Premature Burial" is where the term came from, as far as I know.

Catalepsy is the known culprit of such and most likely due to it mimicking rigor mortis, this all makes sense...and 'Urban Legend' hunters, trying to find a way to debunk the seeming myth have found this to be true.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
If anyone is reading this, no one has ever, to my knowledge, ever been accused of being dead as a result of catalepsy or cataplexy. That is just complete and utter bunk. Generally the presence of a heart beat and blood pressure keep most people out of the morgue, but who am I to question?
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Just because YOU don't personally know someone this has happened to, doesn't mean it's never happened to anyone and catalepsy and cataplexy both have been known to send people to the morgue and worse yet...buried alive. Technological advances have made such misdiagnoses much more rare, but there are times when even modern technology fails to detect vitals.

You're a researcher...do some research. The answers are already out there.

Now if this is all new information to you, then perhaps you might want to take a step back for a moment and take a good look. What cataplexy and catalepsy can do is established knowledge rather than something I'm conjuring up.
 
On the topic of why a doctor gave alcohol to an unconscious child in the 1920s...

Though my real area of focus is mid-late 19th century medicine, even in the 1920s we're getting into an area where the context is sounding very familiar.

Alcohol would have been given because the doctor would have considered it a stimulant. The following is from A Manual of Pharmacology and Its Applications to Therapeutics and Toxicology by Torald Sollmann, M.D., 1922.

Use of Alcohol in Collapse.--The effects of alcohol on the general circulation are utilized in the treatment of collapse and in exhausting fevers. Its usefulness as a quickly acting ("diffusible") stimulant can scarcely be doubted in the various forms of sudden circulatory collapse — syncope, exhaustion, hemorrhage, traumatic shock, snake venom, strychnin, aconite, veratrum poisoning, etc. The main element in its action is the reflex stimulation, increasing the pulse rate, the blood pressure, and the respiration....

The subsequent vasodilation is theoretically inadvisable, but it is not sufficiently pronounced to have any practical significance.

The reflex action being brief, alcohol acts mainly as a temporary
emergency remedy, to tide the patient over the immediate dangers. To
secure these reflex effects, 25 c.c. of whiskey or brandy should be given undiluted, and preferably hot, repeated every ten to fifteen minutes, according to effect.
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For much much more, see http://books.google.com/books?id=f7uNz9mv3FUC&pg=PA646 (the part I quoted begins at the bottom of that page.
 
EyeOn said:
...
You're a researcher...do some research. The answers are already out there.

Now if this is all new information to you, then perhaps you might want to take a step back for a moment and take a good look. What cataplexy and catalepsy can do is established knowledge rather than something I'm conjuring up.
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Convince everybody about this established knowledge with....EVIDENCE
 
EyeOn said:
Just because YOU don't personally know someone this has happened to, doesn't mean it's never happened to anyone and catalepsy and cataplexy both have been known to send people to the morgue and worse yet...buried alive. Technological advances have made such misdiagnoses much more rare, but there are times when even modern technology fails to detect vitals.

You're a researcher...do some research. The answers are already out there.

Now if this is all new information to you, then perhaps you might want to take a step back for a moment and take a good look. What cataplexy and catalepsy can do is established knowledge rather than something I'm conjuring up.
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I told you I am a physician. I am not a researcher.

You have made a claim, now supply the evidence.

With cataplexy, in general, if you touch the person and you can abort the spell (this isn't invariable). There is a kind of catalepsy associated with seizures that can be aborted quickly as well, but it is very rare. Then there is the type associated with mental illness, which I thought was now called catatonia. What kind of movement/rigidity issue are you talking about?

And, as I mentioned, the presence of a heart beat and blood pressure are generally dead giveaways of life (pun intended). Not to mention that the body is still warm.

But, yes, I am talking about the present and not the past. Someone might have been buried alive in the past as a result of cataplexy or catalepsy if they were not properly examined.
 
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Professor Yaffle said:
I googled premature burial catalepsy cataplexy and the second result was this:

http://hometown.aol.com/xthlrdeyex/myhomepage/index.html

Is this your site EyeOn, or is this where you have been getting your ideas?
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Wow...that was written nearly 10 years ago right after my grandmother died and long before I knew what I know now. Almost embarrassing, but we learn as we go along, huh? I noticed some things can use some editing and replace terminology with things I now know would be more appropriate. I haven't seen this for a long time. I thought I got rid of it.

However, I will say, much of what is written I still think has these relations. I'd use less creative words and explain more precise what I mean by them, and overall, it's a remnant. I also noticed I got the cataplexy and catalepsy mixed up. If I can remember how to edit hometown...lol.

Before anyone says anything...my views of any amount of 'psychic healing', is simply heat therapy as an aid and that's it. It's not really psychic healing, but the expression is used so people who think such know what I'm talking about...ways to produce heat for the brain to respond to through our senses....not a cure. I'll believe in someone's fever coming down a bit than a person suddenly being able to walk again after being paralyzed for nearly ever just by someone touching them. Get my drift?

And I'll say it here...any way one wants to express 'psychic healing' it should NEVER take the place of proper treatment through a medical specialist for anything that needs more than a simple heat aid.
 
calebprime said:
Convince everybody about this established knowledge with....EVIDENCE
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http://www.reference.com/search?q=catalepsy

http://www.reference.com/search?q=cataplexy

http://www.reference.com/search?q=premature burial

Here’s a start. Not the best of refs, but it's something. Make note to what is explained in the latter under “unintentional”.

I have other refs on another ISP, which doesn’t work well on IE…take a guess…AOL. I’ll dig up more later.

This does still happen. To get real hardcore evidence, one would need to search for medical records and that’s privileged information, so obtaining them is difficult, even for me trying to obtain medical records of my grandmother…and she’s a relative.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
With cataplexy, in general, if you touch the person and you can abort the spell (this isn't invariable). There is a kind of catalepsy associated with seizures that can be aborted quickly as well, but it is very rare. Then there is the type associated with mental illness, which I thought was now called catatonia. What kind of movement/rigidity issue are you talking about?

And, as I mentioned, the presence of a heart beat and blood pressure are generally dead giveaways of life (pun intended). Not to mention that the body is still warm.

But, yes, I am talking about the present and not the past. Someone might have been buried alive in the past as a result of cataplexy or catalepsy if they were not properly examined.
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The spells my grandmother went into, she would wake up sometime later on her own whether anyone touched her or not. the incident when she did wake up in the morgue, she collapse while in class...she went to college in her senior years...the ambulance was called, she was transported to a hospital and woke up in the morgue. She certainly was touched throughout this ordeal until she was placed in the morgue.

This was in the 70's. Granted technology is more advanced now, but even in the 90's, there were patients waking up in morgues. See link to reference.com in other post. I'll be digging out more refs later.
 
OK, I'll take your word for it, but that is simple malpractice.

There is simply no excuse for this from the 1970s. Clinical exam does not require sophisticated equipment and EKGs were available at that time. There is simply no excuse.

But, that would necessarily be an attack due to cataplexy or a sleep attack. What precisely do you mean by her catalepsy? Was she schizophrenic?
 
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Ichneumonwasp said:
OK, I'll take your word for it, but that is simple malpractice.

There is simply no excuse for this from the 1970s. Clinical exam does not require sophisticated equipment and EKGs were available at that time. There is simply no excuse.

But, that would necessarily be an attack due to cataplexy or a sleep attack. What precisely do you mean by her catalepsy? Was she schizophrenic?
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She had them both, but cataplexy was the primary reason for her collapses, including the one when she was wheeled into the morgue. From what I know, staff even did the mirror to the nose trick looking for some kind of sign of life when other means failed to detect anything.

No, she was not schitzophrenic. In fact, her mental capabilities were very sharp throughout her life and a very intelligent woman...even graduated with honors in Linguistic (?) Arts in the height of her disorders and had the sharpest memory. IQ tests also always scored aboved average. Always able to socialize with others. She was a very 'hip' granny too...lol. Always up on current issues and had a good common sense about her. Do note, catalepsy can manifest without schitzophrenia.

Something I find odd about the cataplexy seizures she had...she was never really in an excited emotional state whenever I saw her collapse. In fact, when I did see her in a heightened state of emotion, she didn't collapse. Doesn't mean she never did collapse during heightened emotion, but I don't recall such. Maybe in the labs when she went into sleep studies she did. I don't know. Maybe what I witnessed were catalepic seizures. Come to think of it, I remember when I was four years old, she was watching me while my mother went out. I tried to wake her up and I couldn't and after a while of nudging and literally yelling out gramma, I called the operator for help. While trying to nudge her, I couldn't move her at all...not even an arm. Still, I remember seeing her frightened on the couch, rocking back and forth with her hands over her ears screaming at the top of her lungs whenever there was a thunderstorm. No collapses into cataplexy or cataleptic seizures during those times.

She was a rare case and the sleep clinics knew it, which is why they were so interested in her.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
OK, I'll take your word for it, but that is simple malpractice.

There is simply no excuse for this from the 1970s. Clinical exam does not require sophisticated equipment and EKGs were available at that time. There is simply no excuse.

But, that would necessarily be an attack due to cataplexy or a sleep attack. What precisely do you mean by her catalepsy? Was she schizophrenic?
Click to expand...

She had them both, but cataplexy was the primary reason for her collapses, including the one when she was wheeled into the morgue. From what I know, staff even did the mirror to the nose trick looking for some kind of sign of life when other means failed to detect anything.

No, she was not schitzophrenic. In fact, her mental capabilities were very sharp throughout her life and a very intelligent woman...even graduated with honors in Linguistic (?) Arts in the height of her disorders and had the sharpest memory. IQ tests also always scored aboved average. Always able to socialize with others. She was a very 'hip' granny too...lol. Always up on current issues and had a good common sense about her. Do note, catalepsy can manifest without schitzophrenia.

Something I find odd about the cataplexy seizures she had...she was never really in an excited emotional state whenever I saw her collapse. In fact, when I did see her in a heightened state of emotion, she didn't collapse. Doesn't mean she never did collapse during heightened emotion, but I don't recall such. Maybe in the labs when she went into sleep studies she did. I don't know. Maybe what I witnessed were catalepic seizures. Come to think of it, I remember when I was four years old, she was watching me while my mother went out. I tried to wake her up and I couldn't and after a while of nudging and literally yelling out gramma, I called the operator for help. While trying to nudge her, I couldn't move her at all...not even an arm. Still, I remember seeing her frightened on the couch, rocking back and forth with her hands over her ears screaming at the top of her lungs whenever there was a thunderstorm. No collapses into cataplexy or cataleptic seizures during those times.

She was a rare case and the sleep clinics knew it, which is why they were so interested in her.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
OK, I'll take your word for it, but that is simple malpractice.

There is simply no excuse for this from the 1970s. Clinical exam does not require sophisticated equipment and EKGs were available at that time. There is simply no excuse.

But, that would necessarily be an attack due to cataplexy or a sleep attack. What precisely do you mean by her catalepsy? Was she schizophrenic?
Click to expand...

She had them both, but cataplexy was the primary reason for her collapses, including the one when she was wheeled into the morgue. From what I know, staff even did the mirror to the nose trick looking for some kind of sign of life when other means failed to detect anything.

No, she was not schizophrenic. In fact, her mental capabilities were very sharp throughout her life and a very intelligent woman...even graduated with honors in Linguistic (?) Arts in the height of her disorders and had the sharpest memory. IQ tests also always scored aboved average. Always able to socialize with others. She was a very 'hip' granny too...lol. Always up on current issues and had a good common sense about her. Do note, catalepsy can manifest without schizophrenia.

Something I find odd about the cataplexy seizures she had...she was never really in an excited emotional state whenever I saw her collapse. In fact, when I did see her in a heightened state of emotion, she didn't collapse. Doesn't mean she never did collapse during heightened emotion, but I don't recall such. Maybe in the labs when she went into sleep studies she did. I don't know. Maybe what I witnessed were catalepic seizures. Come to think of it, I remember when I was four years old, she was watching me while my mother went out. I tried to wake her up and I couldn't and after a while of nudging and literally yelling out gramma, I called the operator for help. While trying to nudge her, I couldn't move her at all...not even an arm. Still, I remember seeing her frightened on the couch, rocking back and forth with her hands over her ears screaming at the top of her lungs whenever there was a thunderstorm. No collapses into cataplexy or cataleptic seizures during those times.

She was a rare case and the sleep clinics knew it, which is why they were so interested in her.

Pup...thanks for the info. :)
 
I never did a google search with the string search "cataplexy feigning death" until the other night. Interesting. Apparently catplexy is well accepted as a condition that feigns death, but noteably in zoology. Below are some of the links that google search provided. The link to the pineal gland is just something extra, but does relate to this thread and a few links about the tuatara and its pineal eye.

The definitions of feigning death in zoology are coined the term cataplexy. This behavior notes an instinctive response to go into a catatonic state in the elevations of fear and surprise.

Certainly sounds awfully familiar to the cataplexy defined in narcolepsy as well as catalepsy.

So, yes...the brain is in a state of defense as I suspect the brain to be in during sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis always seems to take place during these states, though may not always be influenced by these states, but the communication pathways in the brain...that specific criteria...that spurs on sleep paralysis in these states may be the same without being in these states..."states" refering to cataplexy and catalepsy.

ESP activity I've suspected to be sort of a 'by product' of these crossed communication lines, as described in other posts in this thread as impulses being diverted perhaps to the thalami, when they should be restricted from the thalami, allowing sensory processing of these impulses.

The pineal gland's relation to these visions and perhaps eyesight in whole is significant enough to say "hmmm"...considering other biological notations of visual mechanisms of pineals in other animals, especially the visible third eye noted on reptiles. Granted, they are only suspicions, but they are based on factors that should raise this kind of curiosity, IMO.

http://books.google.com/books?id=my...ig=vWBqSKszx0oGpazpmqonmxvZd6Y&hl=en#PPA68,M1

Start at page 68. You might have to go up a couple pages. The link takes me to page 70.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9556(191510)26:4<550:TAI>2.0.CO;2-9

Specifically last paragraph where cataplexy again is used to define feigning death.

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=onlinedictinvertzoology

Again...cataplexy used to define feigning death.

http://www.serendipity.li/mcclay/pineal.html

An interesting write up on the pineal gland and its suspected link to optics.

http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/podcover.aspx?id=33162

Tuatara

http://www.panda.org/news_facts/education/middle_school/species/remarkable_animals/tuatara/index.cfm

Tuatara

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0039625705000056

Tuatara...Note: Anyone with access to the above article, I would really appreciate a copy...thanks.

The tuatara is strongly focused, because it has one of the most primative forms of the pineal eye. This reptile has seen the dinosaurs come and go and they still continue to cling on to existance, though highly endangered, on a few New Zealand islands.
 
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