On Unsound Sleep: Petrifying Paralysis

At first I was terrified that I was going insane.

It was a typical college afternoon where I’d had a decent four hours of sleep the night before. My academic trials were on hiatus for the day and I thought I’d treat myself to a nap. I settled into the bottom half of the dorm bunk bed and fell asleep within moments.

It was under such circumstances that I encountered two strange entities.

The first entity I encountered was more than a wisp of evil. It disrupted my naps by clawing on the underside of my mattress. Unable to move or scream, I was enduring what is commonly known as sleep paralysis. As if the terrible sensations weren’t enough, there was a voice that roughly whispered a single command: GET OUT.

Then there was a benevolent presence, first making a silent appearance sitting on the edge of my bed. Once again, I could not move or open my eyes, but I felt whole, and loved. I later asked my boyfriend if he was watching me while I was sleeping. He said no.

I moved into a single-person dorm room and the experiences progressed. There was heavy breathing on the part of the evil entity, and prolonged scratching on the side of the wall nearest my bed. Once the benevolent spirit cradled me, and somehow I could sense that it was neither male nor female. I asked it not to leave me, and it replied simply, “I won’t.”

All the while during these episodes, I could hear the young man practicing the trumpet on the second floor. I could hear the entire conversation of roommates across the hall. Trapped between states of sleep and consciousness, I could not will myself to wake.

But eventually, I could open my eyes.

The white entity was often a flash of light darting throughout the room. The dark entity took on more ominous forms, often appearing as a gray mist. I would often pry my eyes open to see a gray curtain hovering at the edge of my bed.

In its final and most terrifying appearance, the gray curtain turned into a funnel. My mouth opened but I could not scream, and could not stop it from forcing itself between my open jaws. I finally woke, sitting fully upright in my bed. It wasn’t real, I told myself. It wasn’t real.

My friends suggested that I have the room blessed. But despite my almost daily visitations, I felt safe in my room during the day.

After enduring one particularly vivid episode, I called my mother for assurance that I wasn’t actually insane or experiencing a haunting. She replied that she herself had similar episodes. The most unsettling of these experiences happened one night when my father woke up to use the restroom. My mother, half asleep, felt who she thought was him get back into bed with her.  Then, much to her distress, my father actually returned to the bed. Like mother, like daughter: some studies indicate that sleep paralysis has genetic links.

   

The feeling of sleep paralysis would occasionally plague me after college. Because those who suffer from sleep paralysis are often given the same medication I take for OCD, I have not experienced it in about six years. Interestingly, WebMD states that sleep paralysis is often linked to bipolar disorder. That explains a lot, but doesn’t really make my hallucinations any less disturbing.

There is information all over the internet about the still somewhat mysterious phenomenon of sleep paralysis. For my fellow nerds, here is an excellent blog about Edgar Allan Poe and his descriptions of this lovely condition.

Sleep well, my friends. Pleasant dreams...