Sleep Paralysis

It was a typical night. I was about four when it first happened, nevertheless it would change my life forever. Summer beat down hard on my apartment. There was no air conditioner. It turned into night and bedtime approached. As it became eight o’ clock my mother put me to bed. I could hear the rain falling outside and the wind blowing on my window. Slowly but surely I started to fall asleep.

Not long after I dozed off, I suddenly felt a presence in my habitation.

I opened my eyes. Felt strange and scared. Soon realized I could not move, but was completely paralyzed. I looked to the left of my bed; saw my bed stand, toys, closet and a shadow in the background. There was a sense of sadness and despair, but somehow it felt as if I was not really in my physical body. The shadow in my room manifested. What I saw I cannot explain. It was a very tall creature that seemed to have no feet just blobs of dark matter for legs, it had huge arms stretching past its waist, and the face was horrifyingly blank. I tried to scream but I could not move. Suddenly, I was overcome with a sensation of pure fear running through my nerves. I tried to close my eyes and eventually it seemed to all be over as quickly as it had begun.

I had more experiences like this as a child, many more. There would be at least one episode every two months, sometimes I saw a being, sometimes a presence and sometimes voices I could not make out. It was a very traumatizing experience from my childhood. I recall one event in particular. It was fall and in October I would enter Kindergarten. One benefit that came from these episodes was that they served as milestones, unforgettable memories that allowed me to trace my childhood to around the time when I was four years old...

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...d in a scientifically explained disorder, or maybe something that transmigrates beyond the realms of human knowledge. I will never know the truth.

Witch-trial records, and other early-modern writings on witchcraft, reveal that in various European societies people complained of being physically oppressed at night by witches and other supernatural beings, the victims of these nocturnal assaults describing a similar set of symptoms. Contemporary English authors termed the experience the "mare" or "nightmare." In the twentieth century, it has been identified as a manifestation of "sleep paralysis." Medical studies and surveys of the condition help us make better sense of the historical accounts, while an awareness of the historical evidence illuminates modern reports of sleep paralysis experiences.

Davies, Owens. Folklore, Vol. 114, No. 2 (Aug., 2003), pp. 181-203