Sleep Paralysis

This post is going to discuss sleep paralysis, and just not any sleep paralysis but the very one that I experienced!

It happened a fair number of nights ago, during a period I was very busy at school and therefore had a serious lack of proper sleep. I was literally getting about 2 to 3 hours of sleep per night for a week. It wasn't that I didn't want to sleep, but sleep did just not come to me. Maybe I was too stressed out, however, that's beside the point.

I always lie on my side when I sleep. Preferably my rights side, facing the wall. That is the way sleep comes to me the easiest. But, this night, for some reason, maybe because I had trouble falling asleep, I had chosen to lie on my left side. The last thing I remember from before falling asleep was looking at the alarm clock next to my bed, and panicking as it turned out to be about 3:20 am. Shortly after that sleep must have invaded my mind.

It all started out with a nightmare.

I was lying in a bed in a room that had two big windows. The special thing about this room was that the windows were not facing the outdoors, but the view they offered me was that of a corridor and many other rooms similar to the one I was sleeping in. It kind of reminded me of a classroom or something. Well, anyway, as I was lying in bed, about to fall asleep, I could hear a voice call out to me, which was a bit freaky in itself as I'm quite sure there was no one but me in this room.

"Aya tulee" it said. (It is Finnish for "Aya is coming")

Instantly I knew that Aya was the name of a ghost, and even though the dream me did not believe in such supernatural phenomena something coaxed me to lift my head and look at the empty corridors on the other side of the big windows. To my horror I noticed how the fluorescent lamps in the corridor, one after another, flickered and went dark. What was even worse was that the solid blackness was slowly working its way towards my room. Dream me got terrified and shutting my eyes tight I pressed my head towards the pillow and wrapped the covers tighter around my body. Then I just waited.

Eventually the darkness reached my room, and all of a sudden it felt like a significant drop in temperature. I could feel a presence, and I knew it was otherworldly. And it got worse! The creature/ghost/being, whatever it was, crawled up on my bed and finally settled down on top of me. Lying on my side I felt a distinct pressure in the area of my waist, just as if someone would be sitting on top of me. And, as if this wasn't enough, moments later I could feel a large palm press down on the right side of my face, forcing it lower down, crushing it deep into my pillow.

This is when I woke up. I remember opening my eyes and staring out at my own, real room. Naturally it was quite dark, as it was in the middle of the night, but I clearly remember seeing my desk, located just next to my bed. And I remember being utterly grateful I could see no more, because whatever it was that had crawled on top of me in my dream was still sitting there, holding me down, pushing my head towards my pillow.

I freaked out! Someone was sitting on top of me, pressing me down. I couldn't move. It felt as if my head would be crushed against my pillow, and the hand, because it really felt like a palm of a hand, just pushed down with more and more force. I felt a presence in my room, and I was convinced that it was not a good type of presence but that something was seriously out to harm me. My initial reaction was to scream, and I did, but, nothing came out. Well not a scream at least. It sounded more like a muffled wail. The pressure on my head was constantly growing in power, I could feel my heart beat frantically in my chest, and I'm sure I could hear deep, rugged breathing from somewhere above my head. I was so grateful though, that I wasn't facing upwards, but lying on my side, because it was only this that prevented me from seeing what my attacker looked like.

It must have been only about half a minute after I woke up that I started to regain my calm. It had been roughly half a year since I discussed sleep paralysis with both my friends and my brother, and as I was lying there it somehow struck me that this must be what all this horribleness is about. Sleep paralysis. As soon as this thought had travelled through my head the pressure slowly, but steadily, began to lessen and I started being able to move the fingers of the hand located under my pillow. It didn't take long until I was completely "free".

Even if I did realise it was sleep paralysis it took a good while to convince myself of that there no longer was an evil spirit in my room. I think what finally convinced me was that my cat was still sleeping peacefully in the same spot as he had before, and I was sure that he would have reacted if something bad had actually visited me. So I calmed a bit, picked up the one of my two pillows which had fallen to the floor, patted my cat and had a look at the time. 4:43 am. I hadn't slept but for an hour. I was dead tired, but too scared to fall asleep. I lay in bed for quite a while, trying to force my eyes to stay open even though they grew heavier by the second, threatening to fall close the moment I stopped concentrating on them. I couldn't get the previous experience out of my head and I was scared something similar would happen to me, were I to fall asleep thinking of it.

In the end I must have fallen asleep because the next time I opened my eyes my room was bright and the clock was already 9. The memories of what had happened were still crystal clear though, even now they remain extremely vivid.

Nothing has "visited" me since that one night, and thinking back at it I find it rather an interesting experience. However, once is enough! To tell the truth, some nights I'm still a little worried I might experience a sleep paralysis again, so I make sure to sleep on my right side, facing the wall.