Sleep Paralysis

Considering the supernatural childhood that plagued me, making it impossible for me to doubt the most horrific of nightmares, it would not be a far cry for me to assume that I might be under attack.

Again.

Those who have heard the most troubling stories from my childhood would know about that one fateful night in 2003 that occurred after over a decade of feeling that a man was pacing around my bed, watching over me as I tried to sleep. On this night, I was sitting on top of the bed, not quite under the covers. I was fully awake as I'd just finished writing an exciting scene in one of my novels, but I knew I had too much to do in the morning and it was best if I got to sleep when I could. As I sat atop my bed, accepting all of this, I nonchalantly tugged at the hair tie that held my pony tail up. As waves of hair fell over my shoulders, I tossed the tie behind me--I would find it on the floor, the dresser, somewhere tomorrow--and glanced at one of my many posters. The gloss covering of the poster gave it the perfect reflection of a dark figure, in a humanoid shape, like that of a man, sitting on the bed beside me.

I've seen faces in the mirror that weren't my own. I've seen red lights dance around my room. I know I am not crazy. Back when my family lived there, imperfect but still whole, my eldest brother and my father had similar experiences.

The most haunting was a time in which I was once again the only one awake in the house at that hour. I had the TV on in the background for ambiance, something I've become addicted to, and was working at the family computer in the living room. I decided I was done working for the night and sat down upon the sofa. In that instant, after sitting down, in the dimly lit room, I felt the presence of pure evil behind me.

Sorry, I can't describe it now, because it was something so horrible that I don't want to recount it more than I already have. I pray none of you ever know that feeling, though. In fact, praying was exactly what I did. I prayed and prayed and prayed until the sensation of evil went away. Not once did I look behind, though, until I was confident it was no longer there.

Back on Halloween of this past year, I had a strange night. I spent most of the night alone and, granted, I'm not a skeptic but I also accept that the mind is a powerful weapon that can force images into our heads that might not be there. I only take stories of the supernatural, even my own personal experiences, for merit if I know I had nothing happening around me that could have possibly made me create an image or a sound for myself.

I was napping on the sofa on Halloween with the alarm set on my cell phone. I had Discover, Biography, True TV, one of those reality channels running with a special on the supernatural. While I'd tuned out the TV in my slumber, I had a startling feeling as I woke. Just before I woke, I envisioned myself walking into the bathroom and finding someone in there, waiting for something that I refuse to let myself think too much into. All of a sudden, the bathroom disappeared, and I was on the sofa, trying to wake up. I couldn't wake up, though, becuase something whispered, "Hello" in my ear, followed by a man and woman whose voices were intertwined in the most hideous of laughter. I was pinned to the sofa. I couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't even speak. All I could hear was their laughter. As I couldn't speak, I could still think, and I said the Lord's Prayer over and over in my head, until suddenly, it stopped. I woke up in mid-flying leap from the sofa. I literally lept off the sofa, landing in the waking world on my feet, in the middle of the living room.

I grabbed my purse, my keys and got the heck out of there.

Similar incidents happened to me two other times, one of them this morning, at around 9-10 am. Whie I originally was terrified by convinced that this was the work of the horrors of my childhod an adolescence, I heard a word enter my head.

"Sleep Paralyis."

Sleep Paralysis, according to my understanding, is when the body is locked in the REM stages of sleep but you're either trying to sleep or trying to wake so you feel the strange pulls of reality and half-consciousness. You think you're awake, yet you're not in control of your body.

Here are two fantastic sources from my research:

http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/sleep-paralysis

While it's not cited as clearl as WebMD, this still supports a lot of my research and my symptoms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

An excerpt from the webmd article:
"Over the centuries, symptoms of sleep paralysis have been described in many ways and often attributed to "evil" presences: unseen night demons in ancient times, the old hag in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and alien abductors. Almost every culture throughout history has had stories of shadowy evil creatures that terrify helpless humans at night. People have long sought explanations for this mysterious sleep-time paralysis and the accompanying feelings of terror."

An excerpt from the wikipedia article:
"The hallucinatory element to sleep paralysis makes it even more likely that someone will interpret the experience as a dream, since completely fanciful, or dream-like, objects may appear in the room alongside one's normal vision. Some scientists have proposed this condition as an explanation for alien abductions and ghostly encounters."

Fantastic. Apparantly, sleep paralysis isn't dangerous or doesn't disrupt your normal life, unlike other sleep conditions (such as sleep apnea or narcolepsy), but it's still unsettling to know that there are more times where I could wake up and feel completely helpless, locked inside my own body.

Now I know how my characters feel after some of the horrible things I do to them.

It's not a good feeling.

Potential causes of sleep paralysis seem to be stress, lack of sleep, and lack of a consistent sleep schedule, all of which I've had to begin with, only to have been exemplified by my retail schedule.

I can only draw some bit of comfort in knowing that I'm not crazy and that my childhood is hopefully not repeating itself. I don't think I'll ever cease the feeling that there's someone standing over me. I've seen too much to not believe. As for this, though, hopefully it's just my mind's way of telling me to calm down and stop exerting myself before it gives up and turns on me.