The "Old Hag"

My take on Sleep Paralysis

"Have you ever awoken to find yourself aware of your environment but completely unable to move? if so, what else happened?"

This is a very strange question to ask and I have found this to be an interesting part of my conversation recently. The answers I receive are fascinating! You either get a "yes" in which case the second part of your question can be almost 100% predicted and if the answer is no. You can intrigue and terrify people by describing the events. You can also protect them from the "first time" feeling of dread and panic, maybe.

Interestingly enough, this is a lot more common than you would suspect and people are considerably guarded about the events until they realize other people have experienced them, I've witnessed an almost sigh of relief as people no longer question whether they are insane or not and I wonder whether posting this blog will help anyone that's trying to sift through the internet to find out more about it.

Typically, content I've been through has either been (TLDR) "Too Long, Didn't Read" – or has been addressed in an opinionated manor pointing either to or against common beliefs and superstitions. My goal here is to interoperate all of those theories and without forming my own opinion, gain an understanding of how to handle it if it happens again. It's only happened to me twice but it had it's desired effect..

So what is Sleep Paralysis?

You have likely read the Wikipedia article on sleep paralysis already. If not it is definitely worth a read and my blog is neither going to agree or disagree with it. I have no suggestion or conclusion on why it generally happens to people, nor do I intend to feed you assumptions of the medical, philosophical, religious or cultural theories on this matter. What I do intend to write about is my own experience with it, some information on the research I've went through to establish an understanding of SP and my conclusion will hopefully help you deal with it when and if it ever happens to you (again).

Sleep Paralysis; in summary is the answer yes to my opening question, you wake up in the middle of the night, at any time or stage of your sleep cycle (although speculated that you would be in a lucid or not-so deep sleep at the time) – you can most of the time open your eyes and see your environment, you can hear sounds around you however you cannot move at all. Usually sufferers of this experience wake up on their backs and in many cases; they don't feel alone in the room. There is sometimes a feeling of breathlessness and almost always a sense of panic, disorientation and many people think they are about to die. In many cases, these symptoms come with hallucinations which don't help matters much. These hallucinations are the fascinating part of the phenomena to me and as no matter who you are, these hallucinations are similar to anyone else that's experienced SP.

My First Experience

I am on holiday in Turkey, June 2011. My girlfriend and I have a relatively early night being quite exhausted with the activities of the week. I was sleeping like a baby every night and sometimes having naps during the day – which is very out of character for me. On this particular day, we had both slept during the day, went for a nap around 16:00 and woke up at about 23:00. We were confused, hungry so decided to walk into town to find some food.

We found a pizza place open and we got one, we ate it and headed back to our apartment in the "old town" of Icmeler. We got back and pretty much returned to bed. Later on, in the middle of the night I awoke suddenly, thinking I had heard a noise and suspected someone was in our apartment. The door in front of our bed was lit up strangely and I could hear someone moving around beyond it.

I immediately motioned to lunge out of bed and find the nearest available (& swingable) object for which to protect my girlfriend and I but was petrified to realize, I couldn't move. I couldn't wiggle my fingers, I couldn't breathe properly but I could still see this person moving. As panic set in it became even more difficult to breathe. I could hear my partner crying in the bed next to me but I couldn't turn around to see if she was ok. I tried my hardest to lift my head up, to shout and scream but nothing happened, I was just making muffled cries and choking for air. I heard my girl gasping for air too and by this time my heart was pounding so fast I thought I was going to go into cardiac arrest.

The door ahead of my bed slowly started to open, I could hear the old hinges creaking as it slid open, A figure stood behind it but I never saw what it was and as it opened slowly I still kept trying to scream out and move, but couldn't. I lay there thinking, consciously trying to work out what was happening. I pieced a theory together in my head that we had been drugged and followed home. We were going to be murdered and the drugs paralyzed us but left us conscious. What was going to happen to us? I was at this point screaming at the door, shouting at the top of my lungs but making no sound. I was trying to say "HEY" as if my muffled shouting would scare our intruder off.

The next thing you know the room went dark and I LUNGED from the bed like a coiled snake, gasping for air as if I'd been trapped under water. I was shaking, sweating, tears in my eyes and adrenalin pumping like crazy. I checked on my girl and she was sleeping ok, a little restless but fine.

I inspected the entire apartment, the locks – the doors, I walked outside and down to the pool, Nothing. No one was there. I paced back and forth on our balcony and smoked it all to my head when suddenly I heard someone move to the door – I stepped out to see my girl rubbing her eyes.

Strangely, she had been awoken by a nightmare that someone was in our apartment. She was terrified to find me not in bed and was very confused.

Was it a bad dream?

It's very easy to write these experiences off as a bad dream and the first time it happened to me, I did exactly that. I bought into the old wives tale that cheese before bed is bad for your dreams and having had a big cheesy pizza before going to sleep; it seemed appropriate to cast blame on the midnight pizza.

Sleep Paralysis is not as reported as it should be, various studies conducted by universities around the world have been inhibited by this lack of reporting. The reason for this is that it typically only happens a couple of times in ones lifetime. If it's happening more often than that, there's a serious problem, if its happening every night then its probably very serious and there are drugs and treatment for that side of SP.

There are a couple of reasons (I suspect) that people don't report it as much we'd like. The first is that no one wants to think they might be mentally ill and describing SP to someone who has never heard of it, there can be a sense that its crazy and wrong to have had this experience and this can be very off-putting.

The other is that, people write the experience off as a dream or a one-off and write it off, like I did the first time.

Culture

This is the most fascinating part of SP I have looked into. Almost every culture in human history has documented sleep paralysis, in-fact the word "Nightmare" came from the definition of sleep paralysis, not bad dreams. "Nightmare" was the term as a "mare" would sit on your chest at night and strangle you.

Heres a brief summary of some cultures beliefs: (very brief)

• In Turkey its a demon or Djinn which holds you down and strangles you.
  
• In Fiji it's a demon that's either eating you or possessing you
  
• Swedish folklore suggests a mare again
  
• Ancient to modern china call it a ghost which presses on you
  
• Japanese refer to it as Kanashibari, which means bound or fastened in metal, tied down
  
• Korea share Japans theory
  
• Mongolians believed it was the "black" pressing on you, the black being evil shamans
  
• Cambodia and Thai cultures thought of it as a ghost
  
• Hmong believed it is a spirit of the night which tries to kill you, and consider SP to be "survival of death in the night"
  
• Vietnamese believe it's a ghost, to be "held down by a shadow"
  
• Philippine culture linked it to Sudden Unexplained Death Syndrome – apparently if you survive SP you 'were' going to die of SUDS
  
• New guinea believe it's a sacred tree holding you down to suck your life force out
  
• Malay believed it's a demon pressing
  
• In Pakistan it is jinns or demons, this is the same in Iran except they describe a Ghoul
  
• In Sri Lankan Tamil culture its considered "the ghost that forces one down"
  
• Nepal Believe it's a ghost like figure from the darkness, particularly focused on a dark ghost that lives under the staircase
  
• Many African cultures believe it's a witch or a demon, a couple like the Ethiopians believe it to be a an evil spirit
  
• Hungry it's a wraith, witch or a demon
  
• Iceland interpreted it as a goblin or a succubus (or a mare)
  
• Malta believed it's a ghost or a poltergeist
  
• Greece and Cyprus considered it a ghost or demon
  
• America at the time of witch burning considered it a witch
  
• Mexico believed it to be a ghost
  
• Other parts of the US called it a "hag"
  
• Newfoundland call it "Old Hag" and is the basis of which the book "The terror that comes in the night" by David J. Hufford wrote. I read this weekend
  

  
  

In western culture, there's a solid medical explanation and its also been tied to most Alien abductions reported and so forth but I am not going to get into that.

The thing that really fascinates me about this phenomena is the consistency of it. Everyone that experiences this generally experiences the same thing. The hallucinations are always similar, there's an evil or dark presence in the room and it intends to hurt you. In many cases, Hufford states that a lot of the reports contain the same information or sounds. Like shuffling feet across the floor.

Dealing with Sleep Paralysis

This is really the point of my blog, firstly I wanted to explain what it was and quote some references. I read "The Terror that comes in the night" this weekend, watched a couple of documentaries and read some other content before deciding to sit down and write this post.

Writing this stuff out helps me, more than anyone else process it and if someone stumbles apon this post and is able to handle an experience like this, then it was worth it anyway.

I refer back to the first time this happened to me. I was absolutely and uncontrollably petrified by what had occurred to me. I displayed short term symptoms of PTSD "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" following that. I was reluctant to go to sleep, I thought about it before bed etc etc and some of that may be familiar to you.

The second time it occurred, more recently – I knew exactly what was happening. I still panicked, but not nearly as much. The experience was still as scary (during it) but afterwards I was calm and collected and that's all that matters.

Sleep Paralysis is a transition period that shouldn't hurt. It's like your computer getting stuck on a loading screen for a while. You don't know if it's crashed or just halted.

When you sleep, you're body produces hormones that paralyze you. (in simple terms) – These hormones stop your body from acting out your dreams. There are many cases of people who have deficiencies with these hormones and they'll kick and punch and go crazy in a dream. Sleep Paralysis happens when you're mind partially wakes up but your body remains in a REM Sleep cycle.

The hallucinations as strange as they are spawn from your dream and carry on into this transition. It's actually speculated that this bad dream is the cause that woke you early in the first place.

The breathlessness is caused by your body breathing for you involuntarily – you don't have the muscle control to take over and while you're actually breathing fine, it feels like you can't breathe because you're not in control of it.

The panic is mostly caused by the confusion of whets happening and not the event it's self. Because you're partially still in a dream, you think it's real

However

Your partially conscious. This means you can take over. You can't unfortunately control when the Sleep Paralysis will stop but you can control the effect it has on you.

Next time you wake up and feel like you can't move immediately say in your head "sleep paralysis" – or if easier to remember "old hag".

This, for me allowed me to realize it was a dream and while I still choked for air and tried to shout at the top of my lungs, when I did snap out of it.. I looked around the room, lay back down on my side and relaxed a few minutes later.

Understanding what your body is going through during something like this means you can limit the confusion and panic that ensues when it occurs.

I'd love to hear your comments and own experience with this.

References

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

BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A6092471
Sleep Paralysis Info Service: www.spis.org.uk
The terror that comes in the night on Amazon