I never heard of "sleep paralysis" unless it's the same thing as "sleep apnea" ~ know someone personally who has sleep apnea & has to sleep with some sort of mask that forces breathing during sleep T_T

yeah always happens on my back! and I forgot to add that sometimes it can be a really cool thing.
I had one yesterday where I finally crawled out of bed like a led weight but managed to stand up and shoot dragonball z like fireballs around the room.
was very dissapointed when i awoke and couldn't anymore.. sigh..
:)
I'm thinking of putting pictures of semi naked hot chicks around my room for next time i get it.
If miss scarlet's idea works.. i might be onto something for all men with sleep paralysis worldwide..

Saw this and I just had to comment.
Happened to me for a period of time. I don't know if mine was a subconscious thing, but everytime it happened, I swear I could feel someone sitting on me and laughing. Logically, it's sleep paralysis. But the laughter is about the same for each time so...yeah. Glad that it's never happened again, though.

When the brain is preparing you for sleep and especially dreaming sleep, it releases chemicals into your bloodstream that causes paralysis while you are asleep.  Otherwise, you are kicking, flailing and sleepwalking while you are dreaming.  (People who have certain diseases and damage to a certain part of their brain do this, so they know what part of the brain is involved, and today they even know a lot about the brain biochemistry that leads to this normal routine paralysis.)  So-called sleep paralysis would seem to occur when you have almost waking consciousness, but the paralysis effect is in force.  The cross-cultural similarities to this experience and its onset in late adolescence make me think that it is very brain chemistry driven.  This is also why so many psychiatrists, when hearing a description of sleep paralysis, diagnosis it as a psychotic episode.  Psychosis is all about brain chemistry.

Of course, none of this makes it any less frightening.  I had the experience of a malevolent presence try and choke me to death, but I was asleep at the time and it jerked me awake with my heart pounding and in a cold sweat.  But it was the first dream of the night, probably only about 45 min after I had gone to bed, so perhaps it isn't surprising that in some ways it had similar qualities to sleep paralysis, because the same chemicals that probably drive that experience are also released as we are falling asleep to prepare our bodies for dreaming.

Dreams and their deep and multilayered symbolism are a lot more interesting to me than an experience like sleep paralysis.  It is more akin, in my mind, to when I lay funny on my arm and wake up in the middle of the night with a numb and paralyzed hand.  Now that I understand that I have just pinched off the circulation,  when I wake up with it, I simply shift my position and massage the hand a bit to get the blood flowing again and then go back to sleep, not the least bit concerned.

I don't know if any of this can shift your experience of sleep paralysis into something less frightening.  I hope so.  It isn't worth losing sleep over.

I get sleep paralysis alot back then.  It doesn't come as often now as it used to.  But for some reason, I've been getting sleep paralysis more since I lost my previous job.  I think alot of it comes from stress.  Sometimes they come for no reason at all.  It's unexplainable.  

Other times, I get sleep paralysis and all I can remember is seeing music in my head.  Like my head is bumping exactly to the beat.  Like a synthesizer or something.

oh ya, it's happened plenty of times ... but for me it's more like 1-2 times per year.  two things that help for me .... 1) don't sleep on your back.  sleep on your side instead.  and 2) have a little light in the room so you can see if you open your eyes. usually when i have sleep paralysis, it's when the room is dark and i can't see.  if it happens when there is light, it's a lot less scary since you can at least look around.