Friday, August 2, 2019

Sleep Paralysis


Sleep paralysis is a phenomenon that occurs while the person is falling asleep or waking up. These are occurrences of when people are fully awake in their sleep, but can’t seem to speak or move. Mentally they are up but physically they are incapable of being able to move. This event is quite common and more prevalent in teenagers and elders. The episodes last about 2 to 3 minutes, but can be very frightening. Medical professionals believe that this is in part related to lack of sleep, stress, jet lag and panic disorders. While others believe that it is some sort of demonic presence/spirit sitting on their chest in an attempt to take their souls. One other theory states that the creature is seeking out sexual pleasure. These episodes are sometimes accompanied with buzz-like noises and difficulty breathing.

In my own experience, I have had sleep paralysis quite a few times. I don't recall my first episode, but I do remember it being very scary. I felt trapped and like it was never going to end. The episodes last 2 to 3 minutes but they feel like an eternity. People have mentioned of having a feeling of someone watching over them and I would have to agree with them. It's very difficult to explain the feeling but it sure wasn't good. It felt as though this dark presence was fighting to remove me from my own body and I was fighting back. It sounds far fetched but it isn't. I am not sure how there could be a logical scientific explanation when people have come forth with having the same experiences. In my opinion, science believes to be this "god" with all the answers, but sometimes certain events are unexplainable. Perhaps I don't believe in all the theories out there, but to an extent I do. I feel that there's a reason behind this sensation of a dark presence that science can't explain. Science explains it to be hallucinations, but how is it that almost every individual who has had sleep paralysis see this same demonic-like creature?

Below is a video of a female youtuber explaining her experience with sleep paralysis and a visual representation of what people see during sleep paralysis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gKNdbMIs-k

Image result for sleep paralysis


1 comment:

  1. I too have had experiences with sleep paralysis and also old hag syndrome (depicted above). In my early teens I had a lot of anxiety and stress which would lead me to have trouble sleeping. When I did manage to sleep, I would occasionally wake up unable to move. I would look around my dimly lit room and see foggy faces in random corners of my room before feeling a heavy weight on my chest. While the sleep paralysis was "real", I would not say that the later events which characterize OHS were. I consider the pressure I felt physically, an effect of my brain recognizing faces (a wired tendency in all of us) that weren't there, which then led me to panic and have some form of an anxiety attack. This is just my personal judgment of my own experience and I can't disprove people who consider theirs otherworldly.

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