This film had the potential to be both fascinating and help a lot of people. Instead, the filmmakers setlled on producing a cheap horror piece. Good documentaries illuminate a subject and educate the viewer, while they entertain him/her. This film gets stuck in the first act and never comes out of it. Like a person who suffers sleep paralysis and gets stuck suffering because he/she is unable to find a healthy cognitive way out, The Nightmare is happy being a film that will only convince further the suffering individual that he/she will probably go on suffering possibly till their dying day. The film is completely one-sided. It does not interview anyone else than the sufferers and offers no objective perspectives on the possible causes and treatments for the condition. In fact, it fuels the negative self-suggestion cycle that sufferes of the condition are already stuck on. As a sufferer of sleep paralysis who found control over the problem with logical realizations which I worked to overpower the mythical ones, I felt that my side of the sleep paralysis population was not only not represented, but intentionally left out to make a more scary film. If they were not going to have any scientific interviewees, they could have at least interviewed some who had overcome fear rather than succumbed to it. As is, the film is as irresponsible and reproachable as someone who has unprotected sex, knowing that he/she is infected with HIV. One of their very interviewees tells them that sleep paralysis is like a STD, as it is enough to suggest to easily suggestable individuals the concept and images of sleep paralysis for them to formulate it in their minds the next time they go to sleep. Yet, they chose to make a cheap horror film, probably with the sole intention of capitalizing on the suffering rather than be a shining light against it. What a failure! What a disappointing waste of a great opportunity! I hope that sufferes of sleep paralysis will be able to read this and know that there are very simple and effective methods to conquer sleep paralysis. All that sleep paralysis is, is a self-justifying cycle of fear that starts with a non-sensical, dream-level interpretation of a normal physical state to which most people normally just sleep through. However, once that the above mentioned interpretation (fantasy) is given the room to be accepted as reality, the mind, due to fear, becomes obsessed with it and now becomes hyper vigilant of the normal physical state and repeatedly remains awake and trying to justify it. Hence the self-feeding cycle. Once that you choose to believe that what you are exprienving are just bad dreams, you can choose to remain peacefully and confidently still. When you do, you don't feel the need to increase your breathing rate and fight against the relaxed self-controlled breathing that your asleep body is managing. It takes a little courage, but the courage can be found in trusting others, like me, who have conquered this state. Furthermore that courage and confidence will grow, in its own self-feeding cycle, once that you try it once and see that the fantasy has no real power over you as long as you don't give it the power of your fear. It is all a very logical and explainable problem. You can choose to see it as that, or you can choose to see it as unexplainable and unalterable. The choice is yours. Whatever you do, don't just take what this film has to offer. Good luck!
Review of The Nightmare
