Written by: Sheila Pryce Brooks, Guest Writer
What is sleep paralysis? Is it a real engagement with entities and beasts who who want to terrify you to death, or is it an hallucination caused by malfunctioning neurons? Read to find out what it is and how to overcome it.
Sleep paralysis is a globally recognised phenomenon that takes place during the sleep state. Adler (2011) refers to it as the ‘waking consciousness’ and its features include sensing, feeling, or seeing an evil entity and out of body experiences which consist of floating and seeing one’s body from above. Its main characteristics are the intense fear and panic that is experienced whilst sleeping and the inability to move due to the physical paralysis of the body (Sharpless and Doghramji, 2015). Its recorded history surpasses a thousand years (Golzari et al., 2012) and today we still no not know what causes the phenomena.
I experienced sleep paralysis chronically for over 30 years. A typical experience that took place would begin with feeling a distinct drop in temperature at my feet. I liken it to going into a pool of cold water that gradually rises the deeper you get. As the cold engulfed me, I knew I was ‘there’ wherever there was.
Once I was ‘there’ I would awaken in complete darkness. I always laid still and moved only my eyes. I was on my back and at this stage there was no motivation to move another part of my body. As I looked around, I could see shadows moving around my bed and I instantly felt foreboding anxiety. The shadow movements were slow and prolonged, with occasional darting movements happening around another part of the bed. This caused my eyes to dart from side to side.
On refection, there must have been some light coming in from somewhere, as I could make out the shadows and the movement that was taking place around me. I was the object of ‘their’ attention. ‘They’ were watching me, and I knew it. I could also sense that they knew that I knew it and that ‘they’ were not perturbed by it.
There was an overwhelming sense of evil in this ‘space’. This evilness was far more than just a feeling. It pervaded my whole body. It was in the air. It was in everything that I saw. The fear and panic would start to well up within me as I knew that ‘they’, the ‘others’ were coming. The fear combined with the anxiety and anticipation of knowing that something which personified evil was coming generated terror within me as I could feel my body tensing up.
I could feel my eyes darting from side to side as my tension increased and, in that moment, I tried to move my torso to get up, only to find that it wouldn’t move. My arms and legs would not respond. In fact, I couldn't feel my arms, legs or any part of my body and yet I flailed and rocked from side to side screaming and shouting, whilst not moving at all. I had an overpowering instinct to run and get away only to find that I had no choice but to endure the experience.
And then, from nowhere, ‘it’ would land on my chest like a huge weight. It was a hunched, round beast with dark stubbly hair. It looked like a large troll with huge eyes. A conventional incubus. It threw its weight onto my chest. I continued to look up from my back. I felt my ribs implode and I was engulfed by the mattress that was swallowing me due to the weight of the ‘thing’. I was being pushed into the blackness. I was sinking and, in that instant, I knew I was approaching death. I lost consciousness or so I thought, and I would either wake up shaking from terror yet glad to be ‘back’ or I would drift into ‘normal’ sleep.
The experiences tended to vary in intensity. I never knew when the incubus would arrive. Its appearance was always sudden. Some nights there were only shadows and movement in the room and on other occasions the shadows would take the shape of a person. It would appear dense and solid without a face and loom above me. I can recall whisps of smoke that would transform into a shadow, as it floated around the room.
Over the years the episodes happened frequently if I slept on my back, so I slept on my side. I learnt to make a grunting noise in my throat which was the wake-up call for anyone who was around me to wake me up. I told my children and partner to touch me, shake me, to do anything to wake me up, as I'm fighting for my life in that moment.
Upon waking there was always a clear recollection of the experience. The episode contained no storyline or actors, as there would be with a dream or a traditional nightmare. It was always only me, ‘them’ and the strange environment that we were in, which was somewhat similar to my bedroom.
Today I'm a keen meditator as the episodes happen less frequently when I meditate. I try to stay positive during the day and do not fear sleep. The fear makes me vulnerable, and the positive vibe and mental or psychological strength keeps the episodes away. I set good intentions and ask for protection before I sleep. Sleep paralysis is one of those things that we know very little about and I hope that in some way, the sharing of my experience helps another person.
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Sheila Pryce Brooks, Brainz Magazine Guest Writer
After secretly living with chronic sleep paralysis for over 30 years, Sheila decided to break her silence about her struggle with the phenomenon and the impact that it had on her life. Now managing her sleep paralysis, Sheila is a PhD researcher and speaker, specialising in sleep paralysis. She is passionate about illuminating the connection between sleep paralysis, spirituality and science by researching, educating and raising awareness, so that the stigma surrounding it can be dismantled, offering people improved health and well-being, support with their experiences and benefit from its positive aspects.
