This is a true story -- an actual experience. There is no exaggeration. Feel free to pray for me, if that's your thing -- though I'm agnostic so it'll not necessarily work. Hehe.
Tx
***
I have no warning before it happens.
It's true that I haven't been sleeping well, and the nap on the sofa was probably a mistake. I didn't think this would occur -- this stomach-churning journey of horror.
First I wake. The middle of the night, still pitch-black outside. I'm lying on my back, the way I usually sleep due to bad joints.
I feel It in the room, a certain heaviness, a muffling of the air. It's come to visit. The Terror. I hear the bed creak and feel it dip as It sits down beside me. It's heavy, the bed feels noticeably lower.
I can't move. My body refuses to obey me. It's a waiting game.
I keep my eyes shut. If I believed in deities, now would be the time to start praying.
The pressure begins, a touch of hands making Their way up my body. To my breasts, I feel fingers cup and press down on my breasts. I hear Its heavy breath. Feel whispering darkness about me.
Enough!
I begin to struggle, to free myself from the paralysis. I force my heavy eyelids open. There are shadows all around my room, unnaturally bright due to the full moon.
Where is It?
I move my body, turn slightly to the side. My breath is loud in my ears. My heart beats like a drum.
Where is It?
The shadow there, that's a hanger on the front of the wardrobe. The one opposite the bed, is that It? No, that's the clothes stand. Is It crouched behind the bed? Looking through the window at me? The dark patch by the door, is that It?
My eyelids are heavy. I close them, and feel It return. Pressing me down, feeling my body. This unwelcome Visitor. This Creep. This Assailant.
Eyes open again. I force my legs to move, force my shoulders to shift. I'm so tired. So utterly, utterly exhausted. I want to relax into the welcoming embrace of sleep, but every time I do, It's waiting there for me. Lurking. Haunting. Terrifying. I can't see It, but I can still feel It there, just anticipating when I will close my eyes again.
I shift further. I move my arms and legs, change the side I'm balanced on and the way my head is turned. I feel It stand up off the bed, hear the bed creak again, and Its malevolent presence seems to have gone.
I don't trust It. I fumble to turn the bedside light on. My eyes sting from the harshness.
My room is empty. There is no one in here but me. The door and windows are all closed. I hear creaks outside the door. Perhaps It's waiting for me?
I pull out my laptop, force my exhausted brain to start reading something innocuous.
Force myself to calm down.
Force myself to stay awake until the sky begins to lighten.
***
The next night, I'm scared to go to bed, and to turn the lights off. I stay on the sofa watching trashy television for hours. Eventually, I head for the room which has become my personal torture chamber. I flick the bedside lamp off, and lie there, heart racing.
After a brief period of uneasy darkness, I turn the light back on. Online research has suggested, in the absence of a full exorcism, that I sprinkle rice or salt around my bed. The grains would give It something to count, instead of bothering me. In the bright light of day, the superstitious idea seemed ridiculous. Now, it seems like a harmless panacea to allay my worst fears.
I sprinkle a light amount of fine salt around my bed.
It doesn't work.
This time, It wakes me up lying down beside me, on the opposite side to the previous night.
It's in a more playful mood - it tugs my hair a couple of times. Smooths it down. I curse it. I think I hear a chuckle, and the bed creaks as It moves away.
I feel unsettled. Two nights in a row, I've been in terror from an unseen assailant.
I have no idea what to do.
***
The next night, I have a few drinks to help me sleep, and watch television until well after the test card should have appeared.
The night after, I swallow some tablets. I can't take another night of this.
I know what it is -- I even have a name for it.
Sleep paralysis. The Old Hag.
When you sleep, your brain disconnects from your body, allowing you to dream without physical movement. When you wake, it should reconnect.
With sleep paralysis, it doesn't. I tell my body to move, but nothing happens. I scream, and I kick, but I'm frozen in place. And I hallucinate. A waking nightmare.
I have been assaulted by my own brain. Tricked, terrified, and left feeling sick and exhausted.
I've had episodes since I was young, though it was only in the last fifteen years that they became as terrifying as this. The attacks are sporadic, and have happened in many different places.
I've read that you're supposed to 'relax' into it, and the feeling is supposed to go away. This doesn't work. I fight until I can move and my recalcitrant body is my own. And that's more difficult than you'd think.
I've read that once you've woken up and moved, it won't return. It does.
I've read that drugs and/or alcohol are supposed to make them worse. They don't.
The only common pattern I can find is sleep disruption, when I've either napped earlier in the evening or gone to bed earlier than usual.
I've told other people about them - sometimes I have to as the next day, I can be completely on edge and unsettled. Some insist that it must be something paranormal - a ghost, a malevolent spirit or demons. That's what it feels like.
