Sleep paralysis

Sleep paralysis is a phenomenon in which a person either during falling asleep (hypnagogia) or awakening (hypnopompia), temporarily experiences an inability to move, speak, or react.

It is a transitional state between wakefulness and sleep, characterized by muscle atonia (muscle weakness). It is often accompanied by terrifying hallucinations (such as an intruder in the room) to which one is unable to react due to paralysis, and physical experiences (such as strong current running through the upper body).

One hypothesis is that it results from disrupted REM sleep, which normally induces complete muscle atonia to prevent sleepers from acting out their dreams. Sleep paralysis has been linked to disorders such as narcolepsy, migraines, anxiety disorders, and obstructive sleep apnea; however, it can also occur in isolation.

Classification

The two major classifications of sleep paralysis are isolated sleep paralysis (ISP) and the significantly rarer recurrent isolated sleep paralysis (RISP). ISP episodes are infrequent, and may occur only once in an individual's lifetime, while recurrent isolated sleep paralysis is a chronic condition, and can recur throughout a person's lifetime. RISP episodes can last for up to an hour or longer, and have a much higher occurrence of perceived out of body experiences, while ISP episodes are generally short (usually no longer than one minute) and are typically associated with the intruder and incubus visitations. With RISP the individual can also suffer back-to-back episodes of sleep paralysis in the same night, which is unlikely in individuals who suffer from ISP.

Phi

Phi (uppercase Φ, lowercase or ; Ancient Greek: ϕεῖ, pheî, [pʰé͜e]; modern Greek: φι, fi, [fi]; English: /faɪ/) is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet. In Ancient Greek, it represented an aspirated voiceless bilabial plosive ([pʰ]), which was the origin of its usual romanization as "ph". In modern Greek, it represents a voiceless labiodental fricative ([f]) and is correspondingly romanized as "f". Its origin is uncertain but it may be that phi originated as the letter qoppa and initially represented the sound /kʷʰ/ before shifting to Classical Greek [pʰ]. In traditional Greek numerals, phi has a value of 500 (φʹ) or 500 000 (͵φ). The Cyrillic letter Ef (Ф, ф) descends from phi.

Phi is also used as a symbol for the golden ratio and on other occasions in math and science. This use is separately encoded as the Unicode glyph ϕ. The modern Greek pronunciation of the letter is sometimes encountered in English (as /fiː/) when the letter is being used in this sense.

Use as a symbol

The lower-case letter φ (or often its variant, ϕ) is often used to represent the following:

Phi (KinKi Kids album)

Phi (stylized as Φ) is the tenth studio album of the Japanese duo KinKi Kids. It is the first album by KinKi Kids to have a Greek-lettered title, rather than the traditional Latin-lettered album title. The album was certified platinum by the RIAJ for 250,000 copies shipped to stores in Japan.

Track list

Charts

References

External links

Phi (Truckfighters album)

Phi is the second studio album by Swedish rock band Truckfighters, released 5 October 2007 on Fuzzorama Records.

Track listing

All tracks written by Truckfighters.

Personnel

Truckfighters

Additional musicians

References