Boo! While sleep is indeed a time for relaxing and recharging, it’s not free of its downsides. Even if you’re getting a full 8 hours of sleep every night (which will be much easier to do after following some of our tips), your sessions won’t always be pleasant: there are quite a few scary facts about your sleep that can cause you to be disturbed through no fault of your own. Disclaimer: just because of the possibility of scary things happening during sleep doesn’t negate the fact that you need sufficient sleep every night!

Sudden loud noises in real life are terrifying enough. They’re even worse when you wake up to one, such as the clash of cymbals or the explosion of a bomb. If the noise turns out to just be in your head, that can be relieving for some. Still, the idea of having such rough noises in your head is pretty spooky. Sometimes it comes with a flash of light, enhancing the aggression. Unfortunately, the reasons why this happens aren’t known, but it does seem to be positively correlated with stress.

Laying in bed and completely unable to move is more than just a nightmare, it’s a reality for many people. While this usually only lasts a few minutes, the experiences can be downright traumatizing. Sleep paralysis doesn’t just consist of paralysis, but spooky auditory and visual hallucinations that resemble grandma’s folk tales or the last horror movie you watched. Before you declare that these horrors are the work of demons and ghouls, there are scientific theories for this. It’s believed that this paralysis is a disconnect between the brain and the body: the body is mostly asleep, but parts of the brain are still awake, parts that normally would be sleeping when the body is.

You’ve probably heard of sleepwalking before. But sleep activities go beyond just getting up and opening the fridge: some people even eat and commit crimes in their sleep. From an outsider's perspective, sleepwalkers often seem to move with zombie-like mannerisms with open, glazed-over eyes. Sleepwalkers tend to not have any memory of this activity, making it all the more anxiety-inducing. To make this even worse, there’s no cure or definite scientific explanation for it yet -- we just know that it’s often genetically inherited and typically occurs within the first phase of sleep. It’s also more likely to happen with antidepressant use.

Ever had a dream where you could control your mind and body? That’s lucid dreaming. Even if you’re in a world that resembles Animal Crossing more than your office, you know that you’re dreaming. You can consciously think for yourself. Although scientists haven’t nailed down a complete explanation, they’ve found that lucid dreams are more common in people with larger prefrontal cortexes. This is the part of the brain that takes care of high-level tasks like recalling memories and making decisions. Lucid dreaming is most likely to happen during REM sleep.

Sometimes when you’re suddenly jolted awake, it’s not by an outside disturbance or even exploding head syndrome: sometimes it’s your very own muscles involuntarily spasming without outside interference. To make these even creepier, they’re often accompanied by sounds and sights like blinding lights and cracking noises. These jerks vary in severity: only some are powerful enough to jolt you awake. Others aren’t noticeable to anyone at all, and some are only noticeable to someone else sharing the bed with you. The creepiest fact about hypnic jerks may be that science doesn’t know what causes them either, but it’s been plausibly theorized that it’s a misfire of your startle response. They’re also linked to having too many stimulants or exercising close to bedtime. If any of the above scary facts about your sleep is giving you too many chills to go near your mattress, there are some mattresses out there so lovely that they’re worth the risk of experiencing sleep paralysis, one being Lull’s memory foam mattress. Your muscles might experience hypnic jerks, but at least they’ll be relieved of much of their aching. If you’re reading this before Halloween 2021, it’s $300 off!