Personal Experiences: Sleep Paralysis

Around my sophomore year of high school, I began to have very vivid experiences regarding sleep paralysis. I wasn’t sure what is was at the time, I only knew that it terrified me. It wasn’t until my junior year, when I related these experiences to my psychiatrist, that she defined it as sleep paralysis, though she quickly dismissed it. I begun research of my own and found any stories of people who had gone through experiences similar to my own.

The first time it happened, I was lying in bed on my back. I remember being ‘awakened’ abruprly, for no real reason. I laid with my head turned to the right, and as I tried to close my eyes and resume sleeping, I realized that I couldn’t move. Never feeling anything like this before, I quickly began to panic, trying to throw myself off the bed, but I struggled to even wiggle a finger, let alone roll over. In the midst of my panic, I heard a sharp breath, an inhale, come from my left, the opposite direction my head was turned. I stopped struggling, afraid I would be successful in moving and disturb who or what ever had made the noise. An overwhelming sense of dread begun to come over me, this feeling of absolute terror that I have yet to feel the likes of again, even years later. I was absolutely certain that whatever was next to me was the epitome of evil. I don’t remember falling asleep, only waking the next morning and immediately leaping out of bed, my thoughts still on that thing to my left. Of course, there was nothing there.

The next experience I can recall, I opened my eyes and saw only pure blackness, which was uncharacteristic for my room, as I always slept with some sort of light on. There was a heavy pressure pushing against my chest, knocking the air out of me. It was almost as if I was being burrowed into, the weight was so intense. My only thought was that I needed my inhaler, or I would suffocate. Once again I struggled to move somehow, but as the thought came into my mind I felt hands, not an indescrinable pressure, but actual, cold hands with long nails and a leathery texture, pinning down my arm via a strong grip on my forearm area. I remember a panic setting in, but from there I remember nothing else, only waking up the next day and checking my arms for bruises. Naturally, nothing was there.

My next, and most terrifying experience was the only one in which there was sound. I opened my eyes suddenly to a bright light shining through my large windows. The small, however, was pitch black. I remember the light being so piercing that I wanted to turn my head, but knew by now that would not be possible. As the light grew brighter, everything in my room began shaking violently. Everything except for my bed. I tried to force out a scream but the only thing that came out was a pathetic choking noise. My window suddenly burst, the sound of shattering glass so loud that I was positive it would wake up the rest of the household, and expected knocking at any minute. No one came. Pieces of glass flew everything, and I had the distinct feeling that someone, or something, was slithering across my floor. I was certain I was going to die.

I woke up shortly after to a quiet, ordinary night.

Those are just a few of my experiences with sleep paralysis, I have been dying to share them forever but never quite found anyone who understood. I hope on reading this, at least one other person has had relatable experiences.

submitted by kourtkourtstuff

So, my boyfriend and I are asleep, and I normally keep an eye on him because he has been known to have some night terrors but hasn’t had them in a while. I’m tired, so I fall asleep. In my dream, we are doing the same thing(sleeping, and it was very realistic), but out of the corner of my eye I see a very dark shadow that is much darker than the rest of the room. It almost feels like it doesn’t belong here(demon-esque). I’m so scared that I can’t move, but I try to wake my boyfriend up. The shadow moves towards us and begins to strangle him. He screams and gasps for air and I can’t help because I’m frozen. So stunned by what I am seeing, I can’t scream, so I try to wake myself up. In waking up, I still hear him screaming. I look over and see him holding his throat, so I wake him up and it had turned out we were having the same dream. Each dream is getting scarier and we keep having them.

Apartment

So I share a apartment with my girlfriend, my best friend and her boyfriend. Usually it’s just me and/or my girlfriend home. I’ve been experiencing a lot since I moved in. I’ll be in the shower and hear something bang on the bathroom door, and I’ll be the only person here. I’ve heard coughing right next to my ear or someone say my name when I’m alone. It downright creeps me out. The other night I heard someone pouring water, but the only people here were me and my girlfriend, and she was sleeping. My roommates don’t believe me, and my girlfriend is iffy about it. I’ll hear whispering when I’m in my room or I’ll hear someone walking around and there isn’t anyone around.

submitted by MorganMakena

My mom told me that when i was a baby she would always see shadows or orbs moving around me. She told my grandmother and she told my mom to bless our house. After that she stopped seeing them

if you guys ever sent me direct messages i only just found and read them, asks are honestly the best way to reach me, whatever its up to you. thanks you for reading this.

So my grandmother always told me to keep a clean house

Growing up, my mother would often take my siblings and me to visit my grandmother in New York. It was about a two-hour drive from where we lived in Allentown. My grandmother isn’t the most pleasant woman and from an early age I grew to dislike visiting her. What didn’t help was the language barrier between an old Hispanic woman and her monolingual grandson. I couldn’t speak Spanish too well, but I understand it perfectly. My grandma was full of all these annoying superstitions and ghost stories that she would tell us when my mom wasn’t around to scold her for filling our heads with “brujeria” as mom called it. One quip that always stuck out to me was my grandma’s warnings of cluttered spaces and general lack of upkeep. I can’t quite get the phrasing to English but she would say something along the lines of, “more than dust gathers in a cluttered room,” in this knowing and foreboding tone whenever I left toys out or my towel on her bathroom floor. That’s when I started to see them. After we left my grandma’s apartment and were back in the townhouse in Allentown, I became uneasy. I walked into the room I shared with my brother and realized how dirty it was. Clothes all over the floor, my coloring books in a heap on the play rug, toys under my bed… Being too tired and too much of a six year-old to clean up my mess, I resolved to take a nap. As I changed out of my clothes and pulled my shirt over my head, I heard rustling on the ground and then this awful noise. The sound your knees make when they groan against wood flooring, that low grinding sound and then the creak of the slats giving a bit under the pressure. It sent chills up my spine. I turned and yanked my shirt back down and in that moment I saw all my clothes just hitting the ground as if they’d been floating in the air. I bolted out of the room and as I turned to go down the hallway I looked back and what I saw nearly had me peeing myself. In the clothes on the floor were these contorted, smiling faces. Just staring back at me. I ran to my mother, crying and trying to explain. After calming me down she later went to my room with my brother and cleaned up. My sister let me sleep in her room and as I was finally heading off to bed, I could hear my mother arguing with my grandma over the phone. I could make out the words “dirty” and “spirits” before my sister shut the bedroom door. After that incident I developed an obsession with keeping things off the floor and putting everything in its place. To the point where it annoyed others. My roommate still doesn’t understand why I freak out when I come home to a sink full of dishes or when he doesn’t hang up his coat.

My Paranormal Experience

ok so i sometimes have trouble sleeping, and this one night i actually managed to fall asleep around midnight, which is amazing for me, because usually its like 5. oh well. anyways so im sleeping happy until im woken up around 3 am, and for some reason ive got this horrible feeling like someones watching me. and the way my room is set up is with my bed next to a corner wall opposite my door. and i woke up facing the wall, anyways so im pretty much paralyzed there, too afraid to move, and i finally pick up my phone after about 20 min and i look out at my room, to see if anythings there, and i was so relieved to see that there was no one there. until my door with its broken handle (like you really really gotta work that thing to open it) opens wide open, and then immediately closes again. i didnt sleep for the rest of the night.

The doll from Texas

Just a short preface, this is story my dad told me back when he lived in Texas. He and his family were staying at his aunts house. Apparently his grandmother had been identified as a Bruja and a bunch of weird stuff has happened in my family.

My father was 6 years old and he was staying in his aunts house in La Feria, TX. He was the youngest of six so, of course, he didn’t get the first choice in sleeping arrangements. That night he slept in the living room. 

It had been a couple hours after everyone went to bed, when he felt a nudge on his shoulder and heard a soft whisper. “Hey…hey.”

He opened his eyes and looking down at him was cloth doll, at about 3 ft in height, about as tall as he was at the time.

The doll started again. “Hey,get me some water.” In shock, my dad stood up and began to walk to the kitchen. The doll follow close by and kept its hand on the nape of his neck.

My dad, afraid of what might happen if he ran, went to the kitchen and got a glass of water for the doll. They both returned to the living room. My dad got under his blanket as the doll stood next to his head. My dad didn’t get to see if the doll had actually drank any water before he past out from fear.

The next morning my dad ran to his mom crying, and told her his encounter with the doll. My grandma Mage scolded him, “Pindeho, don’t tell lies.”

“Magerita, come into the kitchen,” called my dads Aunt.

He could barely make out the entire conversation, but what he is sure he heard was his aunts first statement. “Mage, our family was having some trouble with that doll, we’d thought we had seen the last of it after we set it on fire.”

Something I have never told anyone about

Back when I was around the age of 9-10, I lived in a house in a somewhat old town. No one else had ever lived in the house before my family since we were the ones who built it and whatnot. The land wasn’t some burial ground or anything like that, the people building the neighborhood made sure of that. 

So anyways, I was left home alone a ton as a kid because I could take care of myself pretty well and my dad and stepmom had to take my other siblings to do things like a sport or a doctors appointment or whatever. 

We had this little dog, a yorkshire terrier and she was just the cutest. I had always gotten this creepy vibe from being in the house, so much so that I wouldn’t sleep in my own bedroom, I would sleep on the couch in the game room. I did that for about as long as we lived there (7 years). 

So I was home alone one afternoon with the dog and she was doing little dog stuff like running around and going up and down the stairs. I played with her for a little bit, but I got bored/tired and I just wanted to watch TV in the living room. I am lying down on the ground watching the TV while the dog continued to run around upstairs. My dad’s bedroom was right above the living room and I could hear the soft paw steps of the dog running around in his room. 

Suddenly, there are these loud, loud pounds on the ground in my dad’s room and it startled me because I sounded like the ceiling was about to cave in on my head. The dog comes racing down the stairs, whimpering and crying. She hid in the kitchen and would not come anywhere near the stairs. 

Now I thought, crap she knocked something over. I didn’t want her to get in trouble or my dad blame me for whatever the noise was, so I went upstairs to go see what happened. When I got up there, something definitely seemed off, but I brushed it off as being a nervous little kid home alone. I went into my dad’s room, but I didn’t see anything on the ground. I check the bathroom and closet, but didn’t find anything that could have fallen over and made that loud of noises. 

It occurred to me at that moment that the sounds had almost sounded like somebody had been walking around real heavy, as if stomping. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I was racing down the stairs, scared for my life. I sat on the couch as faraway from the stairs as I could and wouldn’t take my eyes off them until my dad came home. 

I never told anyone because I knew that they would just brush it off as the over active mind of a kid, but I know something was there that day and so did the dog. 

After that incident, I began wearing a cross necklace and never heard anything again. 

This may be weird.. whatever I just need to be heard.

When I was 14, I had just gotten my dog, Pepper (who’s passed away now, rest her little soul). But she was a puppy then.. It was dark, I have to sleep in total darkness. I was lying in bed, sleeping when all of a sudden.. well, you know that noise you get whenever you get a rock and you throw it up against a fence? That cracking sound? Well I heard that and immediately opened my eyes and looked diagonally towards my door, and standing right inside my doorway was.. you’re gonna think I’m crazy. But it was like a wolf, standing on two feet like a man about 6 ft tall. Just a silhouette, clearly with tall ears and fur with red eyes. This wolf was blacker than black.. And it said nothing, it just walked slowly towards my bed and my dog had just began to bark and bark, she wouldn’t stop. It kept walking and I was in shock, of course so I didn’t do much but stare at it. The figure got right by my bed side and stood there, as my dog continued to bark. It leaned in, got about a foot away from my face and then I heard that cracking sound again and it was gone. I got up to get water and my moms boyfriend at the time was outside and he said he was awake because he heard something. I didn’t tell anyone initially until later, after I told my mom she told me of an experience that happened to her where she was sleeping and the dog jumped off the bed and started barking at the sliding door and she finally calmed the dog down but when she awoke in the morning to let pepper out, there were marks on the door as if someone was banging on it. Well, I hadn’t seen anything of the wolf until just recently, (keep in mind the first incident happened when I was 14, I’m a 22 year old college student now) was watching the show Brain Games with my girlfriend on the phone and later that night I fell asleep and popped out of bed.. sometimes I usually do because I’m a combat veteran, I have PTSD, but this was different, I popped out of bed and took a deep breath and looked diagonally and it was there again.. Except this time it didn’t do anything but just stand there. And it was gone in about a minute, but the whole night I didn’t feel alone at all, and later after the sighting I had a small raised scratch on my upper bicep.. I have yet to find much on any type of wolf.. but it seems to torment me and I’m not sure what to do of it..

When I was 5, I had two “imaginary friends” that I played with everyday. I told my family they were dead and would tell them how they died, what they looked like and would set cups and plates for them. Of course everyone thought it was a child just being a child but one day my older cousin came to visit and my family was downstairs hanging out and he came upstairs to use the bathroom. I was upstairs and you have to walk past my room to get to the bathroom, so he glimpsed into my room then just walked into the bathroom. Went back downstairs and asked my parents who’s my friend? And my parents were like no one, she doesn’t have a friend over and he completely flipped shit saying my parents were messing with him and that there was another little girl sitting behind me brushing my hair and again they told him no. So he made everyone go upstairs and go into my room and I was by myself.

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