A Quick Intro to Sleep Paralysis

Have you ever waken up to a crushing pressure on your chest, the shadowy figure of a man in the corner of your room or heard the whispers of tormented souls? It’s even scarier when you realize that no matter how hard you try, you can’t move any part of your body or scream. Minutes are dragged into hours as it seems that the horribly vivid dreamscape trapping you in will never let go. At least until you fall back asleep and wake up to a quiet room devoid of otherworldly beings. This is a phenomenon known as sleep paralysis. While only 8-10% of the population experiences these on the regular, it’s quite common to have one or two experiences in your life. Even though not all victims of sleep paralysis experience hallucinations, the ones that do can see something downright terrifying. Here are a few sleep paralysis stories pulled from the internet that will surely keep you up at night.

1. Something Whispered in my Ear

“I’ve never had any visual encounters but when it happened the first time I was laying on my left side and started to feel that pressure on my chest. When I realized I was paralyzed and started panicking, something whispered in my ear ‘Just coming in to say goodnight.’ That’s when I felt like something was pushing me towards the edge of my bed.”

2. They’re Laughing at Me

“Mine are a lot more evil than that and usually not on my body. My last experience was a demon in the corner of my room (behind me where I couldn’t see) speaking some sort of gibberish.

Other times it’s things walking toward me totally Jacob’s Ladder style, as in they move toward almost hyper speed but very slow and their legs don’t match their movements. A lot of the time if it isn’t a demon, it’s someone I know, but they’re possessed. Often laughing at me.”

3. Pulled Out of Bed

“I suffered a terrible accident involving being kicked in the face by a horse, which resulted in my jaw being broken. Two plates and a wired jaw later… I was pretty hangry and exhausted.

I’d suffered from sleep paralysis before but nothing to the extent after this accident. It occurred every night, sometimes multiple times, for months on end. We have a mirrored wardrobes next to our bed, my side of course, and I keep the bedroom door open. Quite often I would be just falling off to sleep when I would feel the dread wash over me followed by the feeling of someone being in the room. I would then feel like something was pulling me off of the bed by arm, towards the mirror – then the nightmares progressed to being dragged off the bed by my back.. All whilst feeling choked, unable to scream or move, unable to get my husbands attention, who lay next to me. Extremely unnerving and upsetting, to the point I would fear sleep. My husband told me that I’d been sleepwalking and I had no recollection of this. He’d found me in the hallway a few times.. really upsetting.

After a post on Reddit, it was suggested that we cover the mirror. It did help curb the number of experiences for a while until I returned to work, etc where the nightmares lessened.

Recently, the sleep paralysis has returned but interestingly, so has my daily headaches and migraines. I am able to sometimes let out a sound (whilst trying to scream!) which my husband then is able to wake me out of it.

My most recent experience has been of a black figure (think person covered head to toe in skin-tight, black lycra) who is trying to drag me from the bed by face… incredibly frightening. In this state, it feels like it is almost in slow motion and I am trying to crawl my fingers across the bed to my husband to wake him but it is impossible.

I find it interesting that most of us who experience this, tell of the same figure, etc.”

4. The Closet

“My first experience was in junior high and has continued to sporadically occur throughout my life (I’m 25 now). The worst experience I’ve ever had happened after I graduated high school and moved into my grandfather’s old house after he passed away. I had a couple of roommates who were out and I decided to take an afternoon nap. I knew as soon as I shut my eyes what was going to happen but I never could have imagined how intense it would be. The music I had playing in the background began to morph until it was nothing but the sound of unknown voices screaming and crying in pain.

I had fallen asleep on my side, facing a pair of doors leading to my walk-in closet which slowly began to creak open and give me a glimpse of complete darkness surrounding a pair of ruby eyes staring gleefully at me. As the doors continued to open inch by inch, the piercing cries intensified. I managed to jerk myself out of it just before the doors opened halfway and I wasted no time bolting out of bed to the safety of my front yard. Feeling the sun on my skin and seeing the neighbor’s kids playing in the street had never felt so good.”