Citation
De Jong, Joop T. V. M. “Cultural Variation in the Clinical Presentation of Sleep Paralysis.” Transcultural Psychiatry, vol. 42, no. 1, Sage Publications, 2005, pp. 78–92, doi:10.1177/1363461505050711.
Summary
This article examines the cultural impact of sleep paralysis and specifically mentions different case studies of people who experience sleep paralysis from different cultures. These people who participated in these studies were from a small mental health care setting in Amsterdam, and many of them are immigrants or refugees. The article first starts off by explainings the medical terminology of sleep paralysis and how it may be impacted by a person’s cultural origin. The article goes on to include the case studies and for each case study, they include the person’s Country, where they are from. Case 1 starts off with a Creole-Surinamese woman who believes she is being haunted by evil spirits who wish to murder her. One of them is a creature with the body of a frog and has a head of a dog with horns and the other entity is a man with a white hat and gloves. Apparently, when she started experiencing these attacks she went to see a Surinamese healer and also a diviner (who claimed someone was bewitching her and sent them to attack her and another claimed it was a calling for the woman to become a healer), yet her condition did not change after meeting them. Case 2 is about a Moroccan male who has been experiencing sleep paralysis attacks and reported seeing a hag who was trying to strangle him. According to his beliefs, he thinks his aunt or another woman has done sorcery (zhor) to torment him or it may be due to a spirit. Yet, after explaining his experiences and sleep paralysis episodes he reported feeling better especially after he was able to give proper repentance to his dead family members. Case 3 is about a Guinea-Bissau Man, he had been suffering from many other mental disorders (agoraphobia, PTSD, major depression), which his family interpreted as witchcraft. In therapy, he talked about his painful past of family conflicts and many hardships he experienced with racism. He later mentions experiencing a malevolent shade entering his room and strangling him. One common factor between case 2 and case 3 is they both put a knife under their pillow. According to the culture, the sleep paralysis demon is a kibo kibongal- a deceased person who visits their loved one. Apparently, he would have ceremonies to stop the sleep paralysis due to his family's urgings. Case 4 is about a Dutch female student, unlike the other people from the previous case studies she did not experience any strangling and believed her experiences were due to stress, not spiritual factors. Case 5 is about a Creole-Surinamese man who believed his sleep paralysis and other conditions were due to Surinamese spirits (winti). While he slept he would sometimes speak in a strange language and break things. During his sleep paralysis episodes, he felt as if he was being strangled like case 1 he also visited diviners and healers, who also told them it was his calling to be a healer or he was being attacked by spirits (one of them being his deceased father).
Author:
Joop T. V. M. de Jong is an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine as well as a Professor of Cultural and Global Mental Health at UMC Amsterdam. Additionally, the author has a medical degree and was trained in international and public health.
Key terms:
Culture-Bound Syndromes-Disorders specifically unique and restricted to a certain amount of cultures- uses this to discover the commonalities in sleep paralysis
Parasomnias-Disruptive physiological occurrences regarding sleep
Quotes:
“It is possible that sleep paralysis may reflect- or create - a predisposition to enter altered states of consciousness and to experience unusual delusional and hallucinatory phenomena during states of dysphoria” (de Jonh, 89)
“ Many authors agree that universal characteristics in the presentation of psychopathology are prominent to the extent that biophysiological factors play a role, but that various idioms of distress, as well as illness factors, are culture-specific and better explained within a sociocultural paradigm” (de Jong, 90).
“Depending on the meaning given to and the etiological interpretations of sleep paralysis, which is largely culturally determined, patients react to events in specific ways” (de Jong, 78).
Value:
The article included many interesting case studies of sleep paralysis that I think will be very beneficial for my paper because I would like to explore people’s personal experiences with sleep paralysis. It was also quite interesting to see how in case study 4 the Dutch student stood out because unlike the other case studies she believed in more biological factors rather than supernatural factors and the manifestation of the phenomena involved less supernatural features such as strangling or being pressed down.
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