Sleep paralysis/ sleep demons

[SleepDemons]

Have you experienced sleep demons? (Sleep paralysis with hallucinations).
They visit you during that half asleep/ half awake state. Sometimes just as you're drifting off, sometimes as you're awakening.

Tell me about your experiences.

I've had all the visitors. The "old hag" who sits on your chest, the "dog demon" who's a scruffy little hound who comes into the bedroom through a little door in the wall.
I've had the "Slender Man" who is tall and thin and looms over your bed.
They are typically shadow beings with no features, just a dark empty silhouette. They occasionally speak, mine certainly do.

I also suffer PTSD. I believe the conditions are closely related.

The last sleep demon I experienced was a voice in the room with no visual element.
It was a voice calling my name that woke me up. The bastard voice was very frightening and pulled me out of my sleep much to my distress.

Sometimes the night time hallucinations coincide with stressful days but I also get them even if I've had a good day!

I'm interested to hear your sleep paralysis experiences.

It's horrendous. Both myself and DH get it. One year he woke up and said the grim reaper was coming round to my side of the bed. I woke up with sensations of being pulled off the bed. We're an odd pair. He sees things running around and screams. One time he was yelling it's jumped in the bed and it's bit me. I've heard people walking about the house too and it's so real feeling. Obviously sleep hallucinations. DH talks to people who aren't there in his sleep too.

I get it if I'm very tired, it's usually something that I can't see but I know it's something horrible. I'll be completely unable to move. If I try to breathe deeply and think "It's not real" over and over, it passes quite quickly.

You need to listen to a podcast with psychotherapist called Jerry marzinsky or read his book..

I used to get hypnogogic hallucinations as a child ... they occur when you're falling asleep (as opposed to hypnopompic mentioned above). Usually of flying... very, very vivid and not unpleasant.

There is a book called "the Earth Hums in B flat" .... whoever wrote it must have had them too, because it describes the experience perfectly!

yes, when I was younger and only when extremely tired, stressed and sleeping on my back. Mine is the sensation of an electric drill, drilling my head, extreme terror and sometimes seeing myself sliding up the walls and across the ceiling.

Have had it since I hit 40, a dark shadow who comes in and scares me, on nights when it happens dh says I make a wooowooo sound in my sleep.

I had them in one particular student flat when I was going through a bad time. Most memorably, an "erotic" experience (don't want to go into detail) that shook me up. These days, I'm only woken by voices and barking dogs that aren't there.

DD, though, had an awful experience not long ago. She was ill with a high fever and was visited by a demon that (it seemed) stayed in her room all night, threatening and snarling. Sometimes it tested and just sat in the corner staring at her. She was so distressed by the experience that she came home a couple of days later (she was living abroad at the time).
When describing the experience to me later, she said her demon had had a 'man bun', which gave us a laugh!

*rested

I’ve been having these for a couple of years now. The worst was 6 months ago I fell asleep on the sofa and i felt a heavy breeze like someone was coming in behind me.

i was aware I was sleeping and I remember fighting trying to bring myself out of it. I felt like my breathing was stopping as I was shouting in my sleep saying I’m not ready, wake up wake up. It was a real struggle to wake up. And each time I felt I was sinking.

I eventually came out of it and it was the vivid, realistic experience I’ve had.

its funny because each time I get a visitation I know I’m sleeping.

I've only ever had sleep paralysis when very stressed and it is part of a bad dream. The dream ends with me being unable to move from my bed and then I wake up actually unable to move or talk. It is horrible and I am so glad I have only had it a handful of times.

I haven’t had paralysis for a couple of years now, but used to get it a lot. I could kind of feel myself slipping into it sometimes and catch myself from it happening. There were no demons, I’d feel fully awake and be able to look at the alarm clock next to me. I’d just be fully unable to move and would have a high pitched ringing, like an alarm.

When I was a child I had the flying/jumping off things ones and the being trapped ones.

As an adult I have the man at the end of the bed. He just stands there’s. Also someone stroking my back before. I wake up and cannot move, cannot scream just mentally begging dh to wake up.

Noticing what someone else said though since I’ve been side sleeping it’s not really happened.

I meant to add... I was listening to a podcast about this by Richard Wiseman recently and he said he was no longer affected as he now sleeps in a cool room. Staying cooler makes it less likely to happen, apparently.
Hope that may help someone!

Yes I had someone lying across my chest so I couldn’t move although not for some time.

I also experienced the being completely unable to move and seeing shadows. The other one I had was a sensation of falling down through the earth.

I used to have terrible sleep paralysis with a horned demon coming into my room. I had severe PTSD, which I did hypnotherapy for. I haven't had sleep paralysis since - almost two years now. Fingers crossed it stays that way because it's absolutely awful! X

I used to get it a lot when I was younger, very rarely now. Mine used to start with a dream i guess, that I'd woken up in the middle of the night and knew there was someone else in the house with me. I'd try and turn the lights on, but none of the switches would work, matches wouldn't light, lighter wouldn't strike. And all the time I could feel there was someone there but I couldn't see them. And then I'd 'wake up' and try to scream but not be able to open my mouth to make a noise, and not be able to move, and lie there for what felt like ages, terrified. Both ex and DH have had to shake me awake more than once because I'm screaming with my mouth clamped firmly shut!

I have had the worse experiences with this. I hate to share this as it's so embarrassing. It has happened when I was very very sick with acid and I was waking up with acid stopping me breathing and my chest would heave in the night and it woke me up. I would be terrified and this animal thing would paralyse me and rape me so hard I would have a pain down there. I was not imagining pain I mean real life pain. I could never tell my friends in IRL apart from my other half it's so utterly terrifying. I feel dirty and sexually assaulted when I come round. I felt at times it was a ghost I fell haunted in my own home. I would love an explanation. Is it stress? Lack of sleep? I would wake and pray for it to leave my room

This thing also has sat on my chest and I swear it's real I can feel the weight of it on my bed beside me it's so hard to deal with

Maybe a talk with your religious advisor would help?

I've had sleep paralysis a few times many years ago. Only once had the devil sitting on me. The most scary thing for me is screaming but no sound coming out. I'm glad it's not just me.

Oh thanks I'll look into that

@andjustlikethat1 You're not alone.
As I mentioned in my post above, I had a sexual sleep paralysis/demon/incubus experience. I didn't want to elaborate then or now, as the details are embarrassing, and people won't believe it and will think I'm a troll. But things happened that involved strong physical sensations, and things happening that I didn't know (at that point) were even possible, so it's bizarre that they actually came from my mind.
It was only the once, but it was so seemingly, shockingly real.

Yes, stress and heat contribute. If your experiences are ongoing, you may want to seek some advice.

It's not really a condition but hypnogogic/hypnopompic hallucinations are a known phenomenon.

Basically when you're asleep and during REM sleep your brain essentially paralyses your body in order to stop you acting out your dreams and keep you safe. If you wake up during that then you can be in a half dream/half awake state with your body still paralysed until your brain catches up. The "old hag" sitting on your chest is a very well-known sleep phenomenon. Doesn't stop it being terrifying though!

I don’t think Jerry Marzinsky is going to be a great read for people who suffer this phenomenon - his book seems to say (from a quick google) that these visitors are conscious and evil entities and that this is what’s going on with schizophrenia!

I had a visit from an old man in a string vest whose mouth was stuffed with rags, he was wheezing whilst closely inspecting me. Thank god only once.

I've had a strange man demon visitor too, usually tall, thin and looming- but can't say he was in a string vest.

It seems a few of you on this thread have had a giant spider hallucination, how awful, I'm grateful I've never had a spider experience- I hate spiders!