Sleep Paralysis consists of a period of inability to perform voluntary movements either at sleep onset or upon awaking. Symptoms are the inability to move your body, presence of brief episodes of partial or complete skeletal muscle paralysis, and episodes that can be associated with hypnagogic hallucinations or dream-like mentation (act or use of the brain).
I can understand how the symptoms of my past experiences can relate to a sleep paralysis disorder. It sounds very familiar in some ways but what I don’t understand is how studies/researchers can explain why each episode can be different, and/or why I see strange people. Wouldn’t it make more sense that a person would see people that they knew or might have noticed on the street if it were a disorder?
After a few episodes I decided to start writing each one down. I wanted to find some similarities in them or better yet try to come to a conclusion that it was Sleep Paralysis; anything that would ease my fearful mind as they took place.
July 1987
My husband and I rented an old house in town and I was seven months pregnant with my daughter. It was a Saturday morning and my husband had to be at work at 7:00. I decided I would sleep in late and the sun was shining through my bedroom window. I covered my head with my comforter to darken the room. After I fell asleep, I don’t know for how long, a door slam woke me. When I tried to move my body was paralyzed. I knew my eyes opened because I could see the comforter over me. I heard foot steps coming through the living room and enter the bedroom. I tried to fight to raise my head but it felt weighted down by something. I’m not sure at what point it happened but my eye sight went past the comforter where I could actually see in the room. I could hear everything, the propane blowing from the gas stove and birds chirping outside my bedroom window. I thought my husband had returned home but with my body being held down I started to panic. I tried to call out his name but I couldn’t speak either. The “person” stood at the door and stared down at me. I couldn’t see it but I could feel it. I felt him walk over to my bed and lay on it right next to me. It put all its weight against my back as to hug me. I never stopped trying to break free from the paralyzed state or stopped trying to call out to my husband. It only lasted a few minutes and my body returned to normal state. I sprung from my bed to find no one next to me. I walked through the house looking for any signs of my husband but I was there alone. It wasn’t very long after this we moved, assuming the old house was haunted and I would be able to escape from it.
Spring of 1990
A flock of geese flew over making a loud honking sound. I opened my eyes and could see in my bedroom and down the hall into the living room. I had a club chair placed caddy corner with the back facing the bedroom. A loud cackle came from the living room and I noticed a man’s head fall back and rest on the back of the chair. He felt me wake up because he immediately stopped laughing and told someone that I was awake. My heart beat so fast, it felt it was jumping out of my chest. I couldn’t move my body and I couldn’t scream. I could hear my breath as I tried to make a noise. Two men dressed in camouflage came walking down the hall toward my bed. The man from the chair was carrying a rifle. He had dark wavy hair and dark brown eyes, a little overweight and not very tall. I can’t remember what the other one looked like because I was focused on the man with the gun. He looked down at me with a grin on his face, stood there for just a few minutes, and then nudged the other man and said, “Come on let’s go and leave her alone”. I watched them as they walked through the hall and once the front door slammed I was able to move my body and get out of bed. I walked into the living room to find no traces of anyone being there. The dead bolt on the front door was locked.
All I could do was pray and ask what was happening to me. I started sharing my experiences with family members and friends but the more I spoke of it the crazier I thought I was, so I could imagine what they thought!
October 1990
I visited my mother on a weekend. She and my Step dad left on the Semi Truck at 2:00 a.m. I hadn’t slept very well in the guest bedroom so I moved to their room and snuggled into their big bed to catch up on my sleep. I don’t remember going to sleep or for how long but I woke up to a hard slam and my body was paralyzed. Every time this happened I would try to scream but the only thing I could hear was my breath trying to help me get a noise out. I looked around the room for whatever was about to take place. This is odd but I sleep on my side so my head was not facing where I could see around the room. I felt someone in there with me and located it right away at the foot of the bed. It’s hard to explain but it was transparent and I could see it sway. I could hear my heart start beating faster and harder. Whatever these beings are, they know when you wake up. It wasn’t maybe thirty seconds and I seen it and felt the air from it raise straight up and fly over me. I thought I was going to die. I can’t move, I can’t scream and he is two inches from my body. He stops face to face with me and hovers there. He whispered, “I love you Marica, I love you so much” and flew away. Immediately after he was gone I was able to break free and scream. I cried hysterically while I sit in the floor in the living room. I know it was a man so I started trying to figure out if it was a deceased relative or friend. I thought it might have even been Jesus, and how awesome it would have been if I wasn’t so scared.
I made an attempt to not sleep if I was alone in the house. If my husband had to work I would just get up with him no matter how tired I was. This never happened when someone was with me in the house, not yet anyway.
February 1991
My husband got up and didn’t wake me before he went to work. I don’t even remember the alarm going off. A slap woke me up and there I was paralyzed, again. When I opened my eyes there were three men in my room leaned against the wall nearest my bed. They were all small build, dark greasy hair, wearing T-shirts rolled up at the sleeves. The man in the middle had one foot raised and propped up on the wall. The other two men are vague to me now. Seems I always focused on one. He was smiling down at me. When I noticed his style either he read my mind or seen my eyes observe his clothes. He looked down at himself and patted his hand on his knee that was propped and looked back at me and said, “This is what we wear here”. I don’t know what kept me from questioning him even if it was with my mind. These beings made me feel like they knew exactly what I was thinking. I was always too frightened to do anything other than try to scream and move my body. They smiled at me and walked out of the room and out the front door. The door slammed and I was “free to go” at that point. Again, I walked through the living room and the dead bolt was locked.
I got so aggravated with this! I can’t rebuke them or even ask them why they are there! I am so scared of being pinned to my bed I can’t think. I found a book in the library on “Out of Body Experiences”. Some stories were similar to mine and others were about seeing dark demons with red eyes. The beings I was seeing never seem to want to hurt me, they just, what I think, came for a visit.
We moved to North Arkansas in the fall of 1991. We had a brand new home built so anything I believed about the houses being haunted eased a big part of my concern on this happening to me again. I was too settled on the fact that it was those old homes we lived in. I leaned back in my recliner in Mid day and enjoyed the fresh scent of my new home. There was no fear of being alone anymore. These walls could not yet talk! I straightened out the chair with a blanket over me and dozed off. I couldn’t have fallen in a deep sleep because I felt the pressure and the tingling increasing in my body. I started trying to shake it. I went to flapping my limbs and nodding my head at a rapid pace. I was aware that the recliner, in locked position, was rocking back and forth. The legs were banging the floor as I was picking them up and slamming them down so I knew that I was moving something. The first to let go were my legs and as I used my strongest force to bring them up toward my head, my whole body was released. The back of the chair crashed to the floor and I went tumbling out backwards in a perfectly round ball. I sprang to my feet with a jump of joy! I defeated my enemy!
Several months past and I fell asleep on the couch while my husband snored from the recliner. I heard my bedroom door slam and it woke me up to the weight and the tingling that I so have become accustomed to. When my eyes opened I could see the back cushions of the couch. I felt someone coming down the hall so I looked around to see who it was. When I say look around it’s a spiritual move, my body never moves from its position. The recliner was empty so at some point my husband had got up from his nap. A little girl about eight years old appeared from the corners of the hall walls and looked over at me. She had a dress and sandals on, in the current style. She was angry about something. She didn’t take her eyes off me until she got to the back door in the kitchen. She walked right through the door to the carport and the weight of my body left with her. All I could think to myself was, “alrighty then, good to see ya!” I just got to where I gave up ever getting rid of this and moved on with an attitude toward my experiences. As long as I wasn’t being hurt I didn’t seek professional help. I was afraid there was something wrong with me and seeking help would mean being locked up in a straight jacket pumped full of sedatives.
Winter 1992
My husband had to be out of town on business. I was always scared to be alone but felt I was getting better at handling my experiences. It was a good chance that nothing would take place, it didn’t happen but ever so often. Third night I was there alone and woke up to a door slam and laid in my bed paralyzed. I just opened my eyes to see what was going to happen. I didn’t really try to fight it as much this time, just had a nervous stomach not knowing. I didn’t hear footsteps coming down the hall, but I could feel someone in the house and coming toward the bedroom. There it stood at the door looking at me, no face. It was a transparent figure, a short one about four feet tall. I never knew if it was male or female but I knew it was a child by its conduct. It came over to my bed and climbed up over me. It squirmed around, moving the bed and bumping me like it couldn’t get comfortable. Of course I can’t speak but in my mind I firmly said to this child, “Ok, either lay still or leave.” It left and the weight was lifted and I could speak. I gave this being an option to stay, but just like all the others as soon as they knew I knew they were there and seen them for a minute, we were all free to go, so to speak.
Winter 1993
In the middle of the night while my husband was lying next to me, I woke up to the sound of shuffling feet in leaves. At first I thought it was just a dream because even though I was paralyzed the whole side of the bedroom wall was woods. I was watching a man in uniform walk through the forest. He looked over at me and continued his walk to a big boulder at the top of the hill. He stood behind it and peaked over the rock to look at me and gave it a quick strong push. The rock started rolling down the hill right toward the bed. I began to shake my limbs to get loose. I tried to scream at my husband, I seen him lying there next to me but he wouldn’t wake up. The rock gained speed and there was nothing I could do. I am looking at two different places here. I see the bedroom where I lay in bed but I can also see the forest covered in leaves and the rock coming toward me. I was thinking surely it couldn’t hit my bed but I never know what to expect from any of these! It hit! It was so hard it jarred my head but the bed stopped it. As soon as I felt the compact my body was released of its state and the boulder and forest were gone. I jumped up and woke my husband and asked him if he felt it and he said “no, but I heard you moaning and thought you had a bad dream.” I was a little frustrated with him because we had discussed this in the past. I asked him if ever he seen me fighting in my sleep or if he heard anything that wasn’t normal to shake me awake!
This one really scared me. I am curious if anyone has ever been killed during one of these episodes. I wondered if this was a wake up call for me. These people that I have seen, are they trying to tell me something and because I won’t listen just leave to keep me from being scared?
The very last episode was five years ago. No noise woke me up but my eyes opened and my body was paralyzed. I scoped out the room and felt no presence or seen anyone. I just lay on my bed in this state. I picked up one arm and extended it into the air straight above me. I could feel it rise up off the bed and feel it extended but it wasn’t there. I looked over to see that my arm was at my side still on the bed. I raised my legs and my other arm and moved them around in the air. The feeling and the weight of my limbs was real but my physical body never moved from the bed. I just lay there and played until my body and, I assume, my spirit reconnected and I was released of the weight.
If I heard someone besides me describing this I might believe in it being a sleep disorder. I have dreamed dreams of many kind and have woke up with a limb asleep from lying on it too long. The strange people and beings I have seen and the ability to interact with them, to me, is unexplained. Also I am curious of why I have stopped having them. Five years without a sign of a paralyzed state. I haven’t ever told a doctor or anyone about these so therefore I have never been treated or diagnosed with a sleep disorder.