We are delighted to announce that Mi Lande has successfully secured competitive funding for her research project “Understanding the Role of Emotion Processing in Sleep Paralysis: A Neuroscientific Study Approach.” The project is supported within the framework of the Tyrolean funding initiative for young research ideas, recently highlighted by the Universität Innsbruck in its 2026 funding announcement.

Sleep paralysis is a striking and often distressing phenomenon in which individuals awaken unable to move, frequently accompanied by intense fear and vivid hallucinations. Across cultures, this experience has been interpreted in powerful mythological terms: in Japan as kanashibari (“bound by metal”), in Brazil as the Pisadeira, in Scandinavian folklore as the Mare—the origin of the term “nightmare”—and in African American traditions as “Hag Riding.” Despite its cultural universality and emotional intensity, the neuroscientific mechanisms underlying sleep paralysis remain insufficiently understood.

The funded project addresses this critical knowledge gap by investigating how emotion processing and neural circuits involved in fear and threat perception contribute to the experience of sleep paralysis. Using state-of-the-art neuroscientific methods, the study aims to elucidate the interaction between sleep-related motor inhibition and affective brain systems. By integrating cultural, psychological, and neural perspectives, the project will provide a novel, interdisciplinary contribution to sleep research and affective neuroscience.

This funding represents an important recognition of the scientific quality and innovation of the proposed research. We warmly congratulate Mi on this achievement and look forward to the exciting insights this project will generate.