Sleep paralysis is the medical term. For years I didn't know what to call it, and at one time I think I wrote a post about it...6 years ago maybe? It felt good to have a name for it. I felt like it gave me more control to have a name of whatever it was that I was experiencing, because if you know anything about this event, you understand that you have zero control of anything. Knowing the name also gave me something to google, which to this day I still do because it makes me feel better to know that I am not alone.
Why am I writing again about sleep paralysis? I just watched a movie/documentary called The Nightmare. It wasn't too great, but affected me enough to recall my experiences and want to write one of my stories about it. After all, it is estimated that only 8% of the population experiences this, so I am among a small number of experts!
What is sleep paralysis? It's an experience a person usually gets during their rapid-eye movement cycle of sleep. This is the period of time after you have fallen asleep, but your brain has not fallen into a deep slumber. It's kind of what I like to think of the the "nap phase" because that's always when I have had the experiences. During this time your brain is working on shutting down your body, cutting off your mind's ability to control your nerve endings in your spine and move things like your arms and legs. The brilliant design behind that is so that you don't physically act out what you are doing in your dreams. Lord. Can you imagine? If you physically were doing all of the things in your dream while in your bed...what a show.
So during this phase of sleeping, the person wakes up to find that they are paralyzed. The brain is lucid, and the only thing that the person can control is their vision. This is where things become terrifying. Being awake and not being able to move is not something most people experience, ever. Because of this new sensation of being unable to control anything, the individual may start to panic. Now, what I've read and seen in ALL testimonies of this event, is that people proceed to suffer confusion and fear. This can last for a dozen or so seconds, or minutes if you can't wrestle back control to awaken. This experience is well documented in history throughout the world. Most cultures tie these events to spiritual encounters, and why not? I prefer to find scientific answers to all things, and while they have explained what I mentioned above, they can't exactly explain the hallucinations and dark, psychological direction that the mind takes when in this state. It is no wonder that people around the world have tied sleep paralysis to visiting or seeing something paranormal or spiritual.
Now, on to my story. This sleep paralysis episode is the first that I can remember. It may not be the very first experience that I had, but because it was so powerful, I can recall it vividly.
I was 21 years old and late one afternoon I sought a nap in my apartment. I'll note that I've usually kept my bedroom door opened wherever I have lived, even when sleeping, and this was the case for this nap. I was laying on my right side facing the wall, my back was to the door. My eyes focused on the wall and I could immediately sense that something was wrong. My conscience told me that I need to roll over. I don't know why, but it was clear that if I didn't something bad was going to happen. My brain was accepting that I was seeing the wall of my room, so it was questioning why, if I was awake, that I would need to roll over. Soon I felt why. The room began to darken, and the soft glow from the door began to seem like the only light in existence. I tried to move but I couldn't. I felt bound somehow. I could sense my arms, hands, legs, feet, and neck, but couldn't make them work. I panicked. I thought that I was having a stroke or had some strange medical abnormality that paralyzed me. The idea, then the reality of being paralyzed started to terrify me. How could I get help? Suddenly I felt aware of something at the door of my room. I couldn't look, no matter how far I strained my eyes up to the left to look over my shoulder, I couldn't see this thing at the door...but I somehow knew it was there. Seeing the light dim on the wall, I realized that it was blocking the light of the door. I wanted more than anything to roll over and face this presence. A buzzing noise filled my ears. It seemed like a machine at first, but then sounded more like layers of an inaudible, rasping voice sucking or breathing out air. I believed that the noise was coming from the presence in the doorway. For a split second I was suspended from my body. I could see myself lying on the side and see my room. It was very blurry, but I could see a dark figure in the door. It seemed to be growing and moving towards me, but at the same time not moving at all. The next instant I was back in my body and fear was gripping me like never in my life. I thought I was going to die, and this thing in the room was going to be what killed me. For some reason, I believed that somehow this thing was going to take my life away, but worse. The best way I can express it is that I understood that there was something worse than death. This death, from this being, was unfathomable. I strained and strained to throw my weight over to move. I thought that if I could merely roll over that I could snap out of this. It was at this moment that I wondered if this dark figure was suspending me in this "state" and using my helplessness to get to me. I tried again and again to yell, scream, jump--anything to force myself back into normality but I grew exhausted. It became harder and harder to build up the will to fight and grasp rational thought. The being in the door pulsed closer, and the noise grew louder. I felt it come up to the bed, right behind my back. My mattress began to rise up behind my back, folding in half over my shoulder. The being didn't resemble so much a person but a mass, a large, force that started pushing down through the mattress onto me. It became hard to breathe, and I had to use everything I had to keep taking breaths. I knew I couldn't fight forever. This darkness was going to envelop me and slowly suffocate the life out of me. I started to cry. I never felt more alone, more helpless, more lost, more agony at the thought of how this passing was worse than anything that I could imagine. The tears began to stream down my face. The sensation of my tears on my skin literally sparked the nerves in me. I suddenly found some strength and pulled everything that I had together into a massive convulsion. I pushed. It worked. I woke up, gently, lying still on my right side facing the wall, tears in my eyes.
To this day, I have never been more afraid than I was in that event. The words "fear" and "terror" have a different meaning for me. I have had countless other sleep paralysis states. In fact, I paused in writing this story one evening because I ran out of time, and continued the next morning. Early this morning, hours before writing these words, I had another experience. It was my first in probably a year or so. I have read and heard a bit about "letting it in", meaning that if one is talking or hearing about it, the sleep paralysis can begin to occur for that individual, or return for folks that have been rid of it for a time.
This morning's event was very brief, but I awoke, paralyzed. I knew immediately what was going to happen. To a person who has had these experiences a few times, I think that there is an understanding when we open our eyes. There's this feeling of "Oh no, not again, move move move move move move, oh no, what is it saying? move move move move move, there's its shadow! move move move move!" It's like a reoccurring torture, and our instigator has come back, and we must fight it off. This recent state happened while I was on my side facing the wall, and shortly after I opened my eyes to find myself unable to move, I felt the blankets and sheets be pulled from behind me, tightening over my body. I could even hear the sound of the covers quickly slide into place. While staring at the covers, I decided to close my eyes. I remember reading, just yesterday, that some people try to move something simple, like just a few toes or a hand to get movement started. I tried that, felt a little movement in my feet, but not enough to snap out of it. Then, a man's voice in front of my face said gently, "Excuse me?" I pushed again at my feet and I felt a kick, waking up entirely.
Another comment that I have about sleep paralysis is that one gets the feeling that the longer the state lasts, the harder it becomes to pull out. While in this dark place, the fear is palpable to the point that it feels like it is being fed to whatever evil is in the room. The more that your fear grows, the stronger the dark presence gets. It then starts to feel like a battle of will between you and this thing.
I know that this is a hallucination. I know that my brain is showing me this thing, or making be believe that I can feel its weight near me in the room. I know that it's my brain that is not letting me move. I know this, science tells me so. However, what if the science is actually explaining the paranormal? Why does everyone who experiences this--no matter the background, location, or time in history--have their mind go to such a dark and evil place in sleep paralysis? Why do we all feel something evil? Why do we feel fear like nothing else that we have experienced in our life? Why, when we have been through this and our brain records these events and remembers, do we still go back and face this thing? In my experiences, this dark presence has never done anything that specifically is evil, it just...feels evil. Why do I feel this unwarranted fear of it?
I don't know if I believe it or not, but I am open to the idea that in such a state, that people are briefly stepping into seeing and feeling what is right here in our reality, but inaccessible in our waking lives. I believe that science explains divine mechanics in all things. So it makes sense to me that perhaps my sleep paralysis is a manifestation of something getting into my head and manipulating my sleep pattern. It makes sense to me that my hallucination could be the work of something supernatural, though we would still call it a hallucination.
Again, I'm not sure. It could just be how our species is wired. Perhaps all of us that experience sleep paralysis have this reaction of terror and of something suffocating us because the human brain goes down this path when held helpless. The brain then creates some weird, scary details like voices, buzzing, and darkness. But when this happens, for us experienced sleep paralysis folks, we are always aware of what is going on. We know more or less what is coming. We don't know what hallucinations that we will see, but we know, from the moment that we wake up unable to move, that things are about to get frightening.
I would say that in a way, I have grown used to it sleep paralysis. When it happens, I try to throw myself at the evil and sometimes try to be scary in my own way. Fight fire with fire I guess?
