Sleep Paralysis: When You’re Awake But Can’t Move

I was six years old and I remember every agonizing detail. I don’t remember what I had been doing that day or even what I did right before bed. I do however, remember what happened between my falling asleep and waking up. I had a nightmare; the first of what was to become a repetitive cycle of terror. This terror would follow me through my life like a shadow I couldn’t shake even in the dark and I would eventually come to find out it was sleep paralysis.

The nightmare began innocently enough. I was playing football in a field with other children; children I didn’t know. I couldn’t see their faces as everything was blurry but I wasn’t afraid of their facelessness. One second we were laughing and kicking the ball, and the next their faces were melting in front of me. They reached out their arms to melt my face I was sure and I ran screaming wildly. All of a sudden, I was on top of a pitch dark staircase and they were right behind me. I groped in the dark down the stairs but I wasn’t fast enough. I tripped and fell and they hovered over me ready to hurt me and I screamed helplessly. Then I woke up. Then the horror really began. I couldn’t move! I couldn’t open my eyes, move my hands or legs or head. Even worse, I could feel an evil presence in the room. They’d followed me into the real world and I was going to die. I tried to scream, to move. I fought with every ounce of strength I had and it made no difference. The evil presence started to strangle me and laughed as I struggled to breath and then after what seemed like an eternity, I woke up.

There are no words that can fully describe the terror I experienced that day. It was traumatizing, to say the least. I couldn’t sleep with the lights off afterwards and I would run to my mother’s room every time it happened, and it happened a lot. I thought I was being punished by God for being a bad girl. Other times, I thought I was being hounded by the Devil because I was being a good girl. And other times still, I thought I was the victim of witchcraft from someone who didn’t want my family to prosper. I slept with a Bible under my pillow and called on Jesus every time I experienced it. By the time I was 16, these ghosts visited me at least once a week.

The fear I carried with me led to constant anxiety. I would jump at the slightest sound and I didn’t enjoy sleeping at night. I took naps during the day as they never seemed to bother me then, which only fuelled my belief that it was demons that were tormenting me. With time, I came to accept this as a part of my life I would never be rid of. The ghosts would strangle, laugh, poke and even cuddle me. The cuddles were the creepiest. Imagine not being able to move and having a presence you can’t see breathing on your neck, whispering in your ear and then getting into bed with you and spooning you! It’s a terror I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

In 2014, I found out that what I was experiencing actually has a name, ‘Sleep Paralysis‘ and affects about 8% of the world’s population. Some people experience it once or twice in their lives, while others (like me) will experience it intermittently throughout out lives. Even more interesting, the condition has affected people over centuries. The myths of the succubus and the incubus (I think I lost my virginity to an incubus), ghosts and alien abductions are all ways that have been used to explain Sleep Paralysis. It has also been an inspiration in art such as in the painting ‘The Nightmare‘ Henry Fuseli and the old hag in Romeo and Juliet. Sleep Paralysis is actually nicknamed ‘The Old Hag Syndrome’.

Culture, religion and other belief systems make it difficult for people to accept that what they’re experiencing isn’t supernatural but has a scientific explanation. Sleep paralysis can occur as you fall asleep or as you wake from sleep. Basically, it’s caused by a disconnect between the body and the mind. If you remain aware that you are falling asleep, your mind may stay alert as your body shuts down. During REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, your brain ‘switches’ off your body to prevent you from acting out your dreams. If you wake up during this time, your body will take time to catch up with your body causing you to be paralyzed till then.

I believe the mind being ahead of the body bit. It’s plausible. But what about the presence in the room, the difficulty breathing and hearing voices? Scientists don’t have concrete answers for this but a few hypotheses have been put forward. One theory is that the muscle paralysis affects breathing which gives you the feeling of being strangled. This feeling of being strangles then feeds into your threat vigilance system making you believe that something bad is about to happen to you. Here is the good part! With the belief that something bad is about to happen to you, the brain creates a hallucination that depending on your belief system, manifests itself in a malevolent way. That’s why I’d see ghosts or demons. Also, if you experience sleep paralysis after waking from a nightmare, chances are what you’ll see will be a continuation of your nightmare.

There are a lot of things science hasn’t figured out that we can explain in a variety of ways. I honestly feel so much better discovering that there is a scientific explanation for this (though I found out twenty years later) and that I’m not the only one. When I wake up and can’t move, I still panic. I however, remind myself that this is my brain doing this and force myself to relax even as (demons cackle overhead and breathe down my neck) until I am able to move again. Apparently sleeping on your back and keeping an unhealthy sleeping pattern increase your chances of experiencing sleep paralysis. Noted. I try to sleep enough, avoid sleeping on my back and continue to not watch horror movies.

Sleeps and dreams have been studied and there’s things we’ve discovered and things we’ve yet to know. So yes, it could be that the mind creates hallucinations to give your fears a physical form, or it could be that the mind is a portal to another world and sleep paralysis offers the perfect conditions for that. Whichever it is, I’m not as afraid of it as I was. At least now I know I’m not alone. And if you’ve experienced or are experiencing this, you’re not alone either.