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.

his book seems to say (from a quick google) that these visitors are conscious and evil entities

Oh... It's such a tricky thing to talk about because the experience does seem so real, and often I question myself during waking hours "did I experience contact with another realm" those sorts of things, and if I were someone very religious I might well look for a priest, but I basically remember/understand it's just a brain quirk, bit like deja vu.

I don't know how on earth people with actual schizophrenia handle their hallucinations. It must be so hard.

^sorry when I say it's a brain quirk like déjà vu I don't think the two experiences are in any way similar, only that they're both unexplained states of mind.

Oh I had no idea there was a name for this! I've been experiencing this for a few years. When it's really bad, I don't even remember doing it, I only see evidence on my iphone next day eg a reminder about something that makes no sense pops up on my phone or I find something wierd in my Notes that I realise I must have written in my sleep the previous night. One of the Notes said "Quick getaway: bagel Crispin my place in kitchen." 😂I've kept it and a few others in case I ever accidentally do DH serious damage in my sleep and I get arrested - I need the evidence ha ha! I've already scratched him in my semi-awake state to get him to wake up at the threat I'm convinced is happening.

I have sound recordings too of my shrieking and waffling on about something in a panicked tone. Usually it's something work-related. Often I'm just about aware that I'm looking out the window panicking at a threat or something, or I'm aware I'm jabbing at my phone all worried and I can consciously think "what are you doing, you idiot?" and then I just go back to sleep apparently (according to DH). But often he has to really shout at me to get me to calm down as I can be running around the room. One of the times I came to and i honestly was nearly having a heart attack, my heart was beating 10 to the dozen, like it was hammering out of my chest. It is terrifying as the fear feels all so real.

The worst one was recently when I slept in the spare room as I was disturbing DH too much and he was disturbing me with his snoring. And I came to screaming in agony on the floor with a HUGE haematoma on my calf with no knowledge of how I'd got there other than I had a huge feeling of panic so I can only assume I was thrashing around again. I'd knocked my head slightly on the corner of the bedside table too. I went to the GP finally as a result of that. She has referred me to the Sleep Station so we'll see how that goes.

I REALLY don't want it to turn into a demon sitting on my chest, that will be terrifying.

Mine throw me round the room. I can never actually see them, but they feel so real and I do wake everyone up in the house with my screaming

I used to get it a lot as a young adult and I don't have any trauma really. I didn't really see anything too weird, just be paralysed and sure I was awake but unable to move or speak above a faint whisper. I would feel as though I was suffocating and couldn't make myself take a breath. I would sense people moving around and try to call to them for help but I couldn't attract their attention. I was in a pure panic.

It was absolutely terrifying and I could never remember that I was really asleep when I was in it - although as soon as I was able to wake up I would know what had happened.

Luckily I grew out of it and haven't had it for years!

Edit: Never mind, misunderstood.

I hate it. I sometimes see a burglar coming in the room and am trying to scream. Or i feel like someone is clinging to my back. Their arms are round me and it feels so real. It's not like a dream but feels as real as if I were awake. Im always trying to scream. Once the person clinging to me made an evil snarling noise. It's happened more since dh died suddenly .

Just to add I can't see the person clinging to my back. Thank God as goodness knows what my brain would conjur up.

Exact same things as you op. I'm not going to describe them though as I don't want to think about it before I go to sleep 🤣

Hasn't happened since my late 20s, 2 of my 4 dc also have night paralysis

I've been having it for years, since I was very young. Although I've not had sleep paralysis for a couple of years now. All I ever used to see was a black mist. It was never a person but rather a feeling of something awful watching me. I often used to see it moving around my bedroom. One time I had it I couldn't move and I was laid on my back...I tried to turn my head to the left but couldn't. I had this awful sense that something was up close to my face. I used to get it very often when I was young. Last time I had it was due to stress and in a bad patch with my anxiety. I never saw the black mist this time but I sensed someone sitting on my bed but couldn't move. It's such an awful thing to go through.

Unpopular opinion here, but I believe these are supernatural
I am a Christian, so not believing ghosts would be at odds with my religion wouldn’t it?
at the same time I was getting repeated episodes of sleep paralysis. I was also experiencing other goings on in the house
my clothes airer violently shook on its own one evening , coins flew past me on occasions, loud footsteps running close to the front room to the point my daughter burst into tears and refused to sleep in her room
the cat hiding all day , hissing at something I couldn’t see , I woke up to find one of my dresses had been ripped to shreds outside of my room, on this particular night, the cat had been overnight at the vets and I don’t have any other animals. Lights turning on,
and the constant sleep, paralysis and hearing growling
in the end, I had enough and called the priest round, twice , after the second time, all the goings on stopped .
this was very upsetting to me, and especially as I am very sceptical in trying to find another reason for what was happening. However, there were none.

I experienced something like this when I was a teenager, a cloaked figure with green skin and an evil grin. It would sit on the desk at the end of my bed, other times it would sit on my chest, occasionally it put its hands on my face or in my mouth. I basically sleeped walked through year eight and nine of school due to a lack of good sleep. I discovered it wouldn’t come if I slept with the light on and I’m still scared of the dark as an adult. I also have a c-ptsd diagnosis, it’s interesting to think it may be connected.

I also used to get it a lot late teens, at university and in my twenties.

I remember the first time I got it, I was 19 and I awoke in the middle of the night to the feeling of someone sitting at the end of the bed, I couldnt open my eyes or scream for about 20 seconds, felt like forever. When it stopped, I was so scared that I stayed under the covers until the morning.

I have felt forces pushing against my knees, crawling on top of me and sitting on my chest. My scariest was when I heard what sounded like my bedroom door opening, the sensation of someone coming closer to me and what sounded like my mum's voice whispering my name in my ear - as clear as day. I jolted awake, looked around, door was shut, whole house was still asleep.

So glad I don't get them now - even though I'm stressed to my eyeballs with a demanding job, demanding kids and a potential divorce on the horizon

No wonder that sleep paralysis has lead to the belief that the experience is paranormal.
It sounds horrific.

They talked about sleep paralysis on the programme Uncanny on Friday. Think it's bbc. They recreated it for the presenter by strapping him down and making him wear a virtual reality headset so he could see the sort of things people see in their bedroom during sleep paralysis

I don't think being strapped down would be anything like it. You would be able to struggle against the straps, feel your muscles responding, make noises, breathe as you want.

That's all very different to being paralysed with your breathing stuck on automatic mode and unable to make a sound.

I haven't had an episode since 2019 but I used to get sleep paralysis so often I would be to terrified to go to sleep at night and then when I finally went to sleep it made the episodes worse. I don't want to even think about it anymore but it was always the same old woman trying to kill me every night, sometimes sitting on my chest but other methods too and it was truly terrifying. She spoke, she said my name and was completely real to me.

I can't remember exactly what they did. They might have used weights. I know what sleep paralysis is like as I suffer from it.

Indeed.
Read any woo thread. A good number of people's experiences happen in bed, at night or when tired, and can often be put down to sleep paralysis, sleep demons, hypnogogic or hypnopompic hallucinations.

@Banana1979 I also believe they are supernatural. Always have. Reason being the house me and my siblings grew up in was haunted. We all saw things on the daily including my parents. It was a council house and was built in the 70's so it wasn't a really old house or anything. Honestly the stuff we saw was crazy and no explanation to it. Two of my siblings also experienced sleep paralysis, my brother however used to have someone sit on his chest. We heard things, saw things, and caught voice recordings the lot. It wasn't even just my family who experienced it, my friend and my sister's friend also saw things. We lived in the house for 26 years. I have literally tons of stories. I used to wake up with scratches all over my legs. Crazy stuff.

You get that it’s just a physiological glitch in the body’s ‘going to sleep’ processes, right? Admittedly vividly frightening, but not actually involving demons or anything at all supernatural?

One of the most common symptoms of sleep paralysis is the feeling of something sitting on your chest. Hence the old expression ‘hagridden’ (hence Hagrid’s name in Harry Potter) for being worried or tormented or having nightmares, because pre-science explanations involved the supernatural.

@StrangePaintName yes, my brother and was the only one as far as I know who experienced the feeling of something on his chest. I never experienced that. Mine was more it being in my room. My personal opinion is that it was maybe something more. I totally appreciate others won't agree, which is completely fine. It's all really interesting and maybe it's just the brain doing it's thing 😂. Reading everyone's experiences is crazy. When I was younger I only thought it was me who had his! It's crazy how many actually experience it.

I started reading this last night and had to stop as too scary!

I've only had this once in recent years it's weird I had a dream that I was in my bed and my friends kids came into my room to say hi and jumped on the bed and squashed me (so not unpleasant just a nice friendly cuddly morning type thing.. this was before I had my own dc)

I think I then woke up and realized I couldn't move but at the time I thought it was like a lucid dream (which I often have) as I often dream that I want to run away or shout and I can't. I think for 30sec - min I was 'paralyzed' before I gradually woke up and could move. I'm SO glad I didn't see a demon or anything scary! My friends child sitting on my lap is probably the least scary way of interpreting that being squashed feeling. This also happened when I fell asleep on my back (which I rarely do).

So interesting to read everyone else's experiences - I can see why people used to believe in ghosts and demons a
Lot more in the past.

Do you sleep differently on the sofa, like on your back instead of side?