Sleep Paralysis

[Jeff Coleman]

I have suffered from sleep paralysis for years now, and I am interested in the thoughts of others regarding this phenomenon.

The Wikipedia entry for sleep paralysis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

A Vice Magazine article containing several accounts of sleep paralysis episodes: http://www.viceland.com/int/v14n10/h...mare_on_me.php

A couple of my sleep paralysis episodes:

1: I am lying on my bed in near-total darkness. I start slipping into sleep paralysis. My body seems to drift slowly towards my closet while a noise builds around me, and I feel a sense of foreboding. I wake myself up, and then drift back into sleep paralysis. This happens about a dozen times. During the last one, I am pinned to my bed and staring towards my closet. When my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see ritual paraphernalia (chalices, etc.) scattered throughout my room. There is a pendant that looks like an eye with rays coming from it hanging from my closet door handle, and the chain is slowly braiding itself. I hear a sound like wind chimes, and I become a priest who has been cut off from the kingdom of god and given over to the forces of hell. I hear a sound like recorded voices that have been slowed down, and I am about to understand what they are saying when I wake myself up.

2: I am lying on a couch in my living room, slipping into sleep paralysis. I hear the sound of footsteps walking down the stairs, walking through the kitchen, stopping for a moment in the kitchen, walking into the living room, stopping right behind my head for a moment, and then walking back upstairs. I wake myself up, and then quickly slip back into sleep paralysis, and experience the same auditory hallucination. This happens a few more times, and I start feeling very exposed. I think "It would be so easy for someone to slit my throat now". I hear the footsteps walking into the kitchen again, and when they stop, I think I can almost make out the sound of a knife sliding out of the knife holder...

I woke myself up pretty quickly after that.