Sleep Paralysis or Visitation: which one is it?
Wikipedia defines Sleep Paralysis as “a phenomenon in which a person, either falling asleep or awakening, temporarily experiences an inability to move, speak, or react. It is a transitional state between wakefulness and sleep…”
The definition goes on to say that people can experience visions, hear voices and believe that there’s another menacing being in the room. 1 Scary stuff!
If you’re so inclined, it would definitely be worthwhile trawling through the raft of scientific reasoning behind this occurrence and put it all down to a dysfunctional REM state that overlaps waking stages of sleep, or suffering from narcolepsy and unable to differentiate between being asleep and awake; and leave it at that. There’s plenty on the net to look at and there’s even a really helpful website that discusses “9 ways to beat sleep paralysis, such as surrendering and not fighting it, wiggling your big toe….clench your fist” and so on 2
I will be honest, this is a new topic of investigation for me and I am only just beginning to scratch the surface. With any topic, I always ask ‘what if?’ What if it’s not real? But what if it is? What if, there isn’t purely a physiological reason behind this occurrence? What if these entities actually exist and someone is unlucky enough to have one enter their supposedly private sanctuary of rest and are tormented? What if you’ve experienced yourself and said “yeah, I’ve read the scientific explanations and they just don’t cut it because I wasn’t asleep.”
Visitations
But if it’s only a physiological phenomenon, why do the stories persist and on such a global scale? Is it because these entities appear to be so real and frightening? What is it that’s actually visiting and is it more than just one type of entity?
Stemming from medieval history, there have been stories of sexual demons that appear as a beautiful woman – a succubus, or a handsome man – an incubus, hwo visit their poor victims in the middle of the night to ravish them. These victims willingly take these concealed demons into their beds, only to truly find out what they really are after the deed is done. Interestingly, these demons aren’t just the domain of the western medieval history; these types of entities pop up in Middle Eastern culture as Lilith and in Islamic myth, qarinah or karina as well. 3 In Thailand, these entities are known as Phi um (ghost covered) and phi kau (ghost possessed). In Japan ‘kanashibara’ (to tie with an iron rope) is a commonly accepted experience and in Laos ‘da chor’ describes all the classic symptoms of a night time attack from an entity. 4
It’s clearly not justa western phenomenon then, and the indicators of these beings are consistent throughout all regions, such as a feeling of pressure, paralysis and being covered in something black, leading sceptics to say without a doubt that this is indeed sleep paralysis and it occurs in every culture.
Other than the succubus and incubus whose visitations are sexually motivated, questions abound regarding the reason for such visits; revenge, possession, past-life connections or just a gleeful knowledge that they’re scaring the bejeesus out of their victim.
Without having experienced it directly myself, I am fascinated to hear from anyone about their experiences.
Would you like to share any experiences you’ve had with sleep paralysis? Were you fully awake and what happened?
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