Nightmare Fuel — Sleep Paralysis

Hello Addicts,

Very few things are better than a good night’s sleep.  To relax and slumber while your body heals itself and your mind goes through a reboot of the upper level thought processes.  Many a writer or artist attributes their creative career to dreams had while they slept.  But, what happens when you wake up and realize that you can’t move or speak?

The medical term for this condition is “sleep paralysis”, and it can occur when you are either just falling asleep or starting to wake up.  Your body naturally makes it so that your muscles are “deactivated” when you sleep.  If it didn’t, every action you took in your dreams would be acted out in real-time and you or someone else stand a good chance of getting hurt.  With sleep paralysis, you wake up faster than your body is able to turn the physical switches back on.  Even if you know what is going on, you can’t help but feel the terror that follows.

What is perhaps the most frightening thing about sleep paralysis are the hallucinations that sometimes accompany the condition.  People have reported seeing things that range from an old hag sitting on their chests, demons, aliens, and shadow people, beings darker than the blackest of shadows.  Lying helpless in your bed while these entities stare at you is deeply terrifying, and that is something I speak from experience.  Thankfully, it lasts only a matter of a few seconds to a few minutes, but the memories can potentially last a lifetime.

So, when you go to bed tonight, make sure to get nice and cozy for a good night’s sleep.  You never know when you might wake up to find an old hag staring at you from your chest or a black shadow standing beside you .  Until next time, Addicts…

D.J. Pitsiladis