If you’ve ever woken up and been unable to move and/or seen some kind of dark figure in your room you’ve probably consulted Dr. Google and learned about sleep paralysis and “witch hag syndrome.” Although, if there really was a demon that attacks you in your sleep, a really great cover would be to convince the general public that it’s all in their heads… Here’s some true stories of people posted on Ask Reddit. Decide for yourself if you believe.
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. Terrifying shit.
2. Cats, penguins, and a shadownman, oh my!
I’ve had 3 sleep paralysis events in my life
I saw a cat sized shadow creature at the base of my bed and it slowly crawled up on to my sheets and finally upto my chest. I felt uncomfortable.
Another time I saw a shadow-man walking around my room, disappearing behind my open door. This was the scariest one I’ve had so far.
This one was the best. I saw a couple of surreal looking penguins walking around my bedroom. It was amusing and funny.
3. It takes extreme effort to wake up.
I get this on a regular basis, but mostly when I nap, not when I go to sleep for the night. I have never experienced the “demon”, but the experience is terrifying. I can see everything (or at least it seems like I can) but I am unable to move. It feels like if I don’t make every effort to move I will be stuck like that forever. I usually have to start by wiggling a toe, or a finger, and then keep that momentum going until I fully wake. It takes an extreme amount of effort and if I don’t keep the effort constant, I have to start all over again.
4. “I have a few different ones.”
I have a few different “sleep paralysis demons” and one sort of “sleep paralysis guardian angel”. The demon ones are the usual shadowy figure standing over me or by my bedroom door. The worst one was while I was lying on my side with my back to the door and it felt like someone got into bed behind me. Under the covers and put their arm round my waist. Then it felt like they were cuddling into me and I could feel breath on my neck. It felt like they cuddled me for about half an hour. All this time I’m trying not to show that I’m panicking because it feels like I’m getting cuddled by a skeleton with claws. It was only about the second, maybe third time I’d had sleep paralysis, so I nearly had a heart attack when this thing feels like its moving in closer to kiss me behind the ear. Worst of all it whispered “Not yet. You’re not ready yet. I’ll come back when you are.” To me it sounded disappointed and excited. It felt like it was silently telling me it meant that it was coming back when I was about to die. Scared the fucking shit out of me.
My “sleep paralysis guardian angel” was a weird experience. I’d been getting sleep paralysis on and off for about 18 months by this point so I could usually tell straight away when it was happening. At first I thought it was the usual demon things beside my bed, but when I looked properly I realised I could clearly see a man kneeling next to my bed smiling at me. It wasn’t a creepy smile. More like a parent coming in to check on their kid. He looked like he was dressed in a 50s style suit and hat. He didn’t say anything. Although I got the sense he was letting me know everything was alright and he’d look after me.
5. It was the best experience of her life.
My mom once told me that when she was younger, her room lit up and a couple of men dressed in white and gold were sitting at the foot of her bed playing music. One had a guitar and the other some kind of wind instrument. My mom said she felt such joy and peace, that she didn’t want them to ever go. But when she finally managed to move her head, she heard one say to the other, “She is waking up. It’s time for us to go.” Then they vanished.
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6. Many horrible things.
Before I learned to cope with it I’ve seen quite a few awful things. Horror films don’t really do anything for me anymore because I’ve already seen the most terrifying things I already could. Here’s a few things I remember off the top of my head:
A little girl in the corner of my room staring at me. Then, without notice, she shrieks and runs up and starts choking me.
A large dark figure, kind of a human silhouette, emerging from the foot of my bed and staring down at me.
Something banging and scraping on my bedroom door. I keep it locked at night because I have had ones where it opens by itself. EDIT: No, the door isn’t open when I wake up. It only opens in the dream.
My bedroom door opening by itself followed by dark figures coming into my room.
The earliest one I can remember is with my mother in the room and she’s sitting on my bed, her face morphs into a demon like thing.
Many others.
The worst thing is when you try to fight or call for help. Your voice doesn’t work and your body will not respond. You just feel helpless. Ugh, I need to stop trying to remember these things. I’m getting chills.
7. Hundreds of experiences.
I have experienced sleep paralysis literally hundreds of times. To me, it’s usually a slick, black alien-type creature about four feet tall, although I have seen a grim-reaper type figure as well. I don’t tend to get auditory hallucination, so keeping my eyes closed pretty well negates the entire experience (except for the actual feeling of paralysis).
8. “It’s going to get me!”
I’ve gotten mine so frequently that I don’t even freak out about it anymore. It’s still scary, but not nearly as much as it used to be. The first few hallucinations were awful:
A little creature eating something on my floor. I blink. Now he’s right next to my face chewing on something and whispers “Remember me?”
An old lady standing over my head and whispers “Darling…” I told my mom about that one and she asked if I thought it was my late grandma? No. It was evil.
The hallucinations are always evil. Even if I can’t see anything, there is an overwhelming presence in the room and it is always evil. I can’t move. I’m stuck. The evil is pulling on me deeper and deeper. I can’t cry for help. I can only breath heavily as fast as I can. Hoping someone will hear me breathing so loud and will come shake me out of it. I try and move a finger. Come on finger! Why won’t you just move?! It’s going to get me!
9. It was aging before me.
My first and only time I seen someone transform was from dream to reality. I was dreaming, it was this pleasant dream of a person you like very much, a crush. Then I realized I was dreaming, so it turned into a lucid dream. And all of a sudden I open my eyes, and the face aged like in Indiana Jones movie when he drinks from the wrong grail, it also turned dark, and from lush, vivid environment around her, it turned black, dark it was my room in darkness, and above me this aged old face of woman, similar to the picture op showed. And at the top of it I couldn’t move, I felt pressure on my chest, and it was aging before me.
10. 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.
11. Someone saved me.
One night as I was trying to fall asleep, my arm fell through the bed. Obviously my physical arm was still laying on the bed. Usually when this happens I just pick my arm up, but this time I got curious. How long would it last? So I started waiving my arm around, and my shoulder sliped through. This was new, and exiting. I moved my fingers around, swung my arm around some more, and got bold.
I consciously attempted to push my head through the bed. It worked. But, what I saw was nothing. I don’t mean I couldn’t see, but it was as if something was in fact nothing in this place. I must sound totally bonkers right now.
I could feel, though, that there was something. Farther away. My fear being exactly zero at this point, and my curiosity impossible to control, I threw caution to the wind, and tried to reach out as far as I could for whatever it was I could feel out there.
Big mistake. My leg slipped. The rest of my torso sliped. My other arm slipped, and my hips started to fall in. A the very last momment, when my left leg was all that was attached, and it was about to go, I realized somehow that what I was reaching for was NOT a thing I wanted to interact with. There was fear. Of an intensity equal to my rage during sleep paralysis. Fear like I’ve never experienced. At this point I tried to pull back but there was nothing I could do. I tried to swing my leg back up to smash into my body, but it was stretched down. like being pulled into a void. My other knee slipped, nothing but my foot ankle down and part of my left hip holding me up at this point.
I was pretty sure I was about to be gone. Whatever that means.
Just at that last second, something reached in, grabbed my shoulder and yanked me back up. Like it was nothing. I can’t really explain this properly either. The hand felt solid. Powerful. Like I was in it’s natural habitat. It pulled me back up with all the difficulty of lifting a cotton ball. I slammed back into my body with a feeling of finality. As if to say, “No fucking way I’m letting you fall into THAT”.
12. Footsteps.
Hear the back door being forced open. Laying on the couch. Can’t stir myself. Hear hurried footsteps crossing the linoleum in the kitchen, then the hardwood in the dining, getting closer to where I am in the living room. Can’t move, can’t even yell out. Manage to regain consciousness at the last possible moment before I likely suffocate (sleep apnea). Happens 50-70 percent of the time I pass out drunk on the couch. 100% if on my back.
I know some day I’m going to die like that. Not from an actual intruder but dreaming of my end and then realizing it while suffocating. The nightmares I have due to sleep apnea have made me nuts.
13. A little black child…
It happens to me when I’m overtired, usually when I’m taking a nap. It always depends on the dream I’m having- I’ll “wake up” unable to move but with an intense pressure on my body that almost feels good but scary because I can’t control what’s going on. Whatever I was dreaming about will be projected into my room, so for example: my mother talking to me, one time a little black child (that one was creepy), usually just different people or “demons” as you call them. I’ll snap out of it and fall back to sleep, then it will happen again for a few seconds, and finally after a few times I will completely wake up in a panic.
14. Bugs.
There’s a gigantic Egyptian scarab looking over me and telling me it can’t wait to taste my rotted flesh. It will then go on to describe all the ways it would eat me ( think like forrest gump and shrimp) and then it turns into several hundred/thousand smaller versions of scarabs and buzz away into the cracks in the walls. The buzzing is very loud.
15. Successful corrobation.
Never realized this is what I had experienced until I started looking around here. Worst experience I had was with a devil like creature. Red and black with huge teeth that sat on me. It felt like it was suffocating me. It just kept pushing on my chest and I was terrified. I couldn’t move or scream. What made it really bad was after I got up my husband woke up startled and told me something had been pressing on his chest trying to kill him.
By Chrissy Stockton , Thought Catalog
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