If you'd like some background, here's a Wikipedia article about it. Basically, sleep paralysis occurs when a person's brain is awaking from REM sleep at a faster rate than her body. She'll wake up and feel unable to move her body, and might even hallucinate.
And that's exactly what happened yesterday.
Hoping to have an early, restful night, I went to bed early and began having strange dreams. I was living in Spain, squatting in a beautiful and somehow abandoned beach house with a bunch of other young people. We went swimming and ran around and had a generally good time. But then everyone had to leave because their visas were up. I was not into the idea of vacating the paradise we'd found, so I decided to stay in the empty house, which quickly morphed into an empty, shambly tenement. I began to get a little nervous, and was in the process of searching the rooms, when everything got really dark so I jumped onto a bed. At this point, I think my mind woke up. And this is where it gets really scary.
I was awake, in my bed, and felt like there was something else in my room. I saw a shadow move across my floor, and then suddenly these claws came up from the sides of my bed and grabbed onto my wrists and ankles. I couldn't move, but I felt like I was violently shaking. Then--and this is the really weird part--it felt was though my bed began to float toward the ceiling. I could've sworn I was four or five feet off the ground. Then I came back down, and was in control of my body once again. Naturally, I reverted to small-child-Claire status and began sobbing and calling my family, who lovingly assured me I was safe (thanks, Dad).
Now, let me be totally clear. I know that this sounds crazy, and I'm entirely aware that it didn't happen in reality, despite how lucid it felt. Pretty soon after I woke up, I realized what had happened (something very similar happened to me when I was about three years old) and that I was okay. What I'd experienced is commonly referred to as hypnopompic hallucination, which is basically a hallucination upon waking. Apparently these episodes are especially common among people who are sleep-deprived, young adults, and those with a history of mental illness. As a kid, I was really into the occult, and I remember once reading about the "Old Hag," a folkloric figure who would come into sleeping victims' rooms at night and terrorize them in their immobility. It scared the daylights out of me, even though I knew it wasn't real. I'd forgotten all about it until last night.
This GIF, courtesy of Reddit, sums up the basic idea of how it felt.
Needless to say, I hope very much that this does not happen again, but I'd be lying if I said I thought it would be as easy to fall asleep tonight...
And that's exactly what happened yesterday.
Hoping to have an early, restful night, I went to bed early and began having strange dreams. I was living in Spain, squatting in a beautiful and somehow abandoned beach house with a bunch of other young people. We went swimming and ran around and had a generally good time. But then everyone had to leave because their visas were up. I was not into the idea of vacating the paradise we'd found, so I decided to stay in the empty house, which quickly morphed into an empty, shambly tenement. I began to get a little nervous, and was in the process of searching the rooms, when everything got really dark so I jumped onto a bed. At this point, I think my mind woke up. And this is where it gets really scary.
I was awake, in my bed, and felt like there was something else in my room. I saw a shadow move across my floor, and then suddenly these claws came up from the sides of my bed and grabbed onto my wrists and ankles. I couldn't move, but I felt like I was violently shaking. Then--and this is the really weird part--it felt was though my bed began to float toward the ceiling. I could've sworn I was four or five feet off the ground. Then I came back down, and was in control of my body once again. Naturally, I reverted to small-child-Claire status and began sobbing and calling my family, who lovingly assured me I was safe (thanks, Dad).
Now, let me be totally clear. I know that this sounds crazy, and I'm entirely aware that it didn't happen in reality, despite how lucid it felt. Pretty soon after I woke up, I realized what had happened (something very similar happened to me when I was about three years old) and that I was okay. What I'd experienced is commonly referred to as hypnopompic hallucination, which is basically a hallucination upon waking. Apparently these episodes are especially common among people who are sleep-deprived, young adults, and those with a history of mental illness. As a kid, I was really into the occult, and I remember once reading about the "Old Hag," a folkloric figure who would come into sleeping victims' rooms at night and terrorize them in their immobility. It scared the daylights out of me, even though I knew it wasn't real. I'd forgotten all about it until last night.
This GIF, courtesy of Reddit, sums up the basic idea of how it felt.
Needless to say, I hope very much that this does not happen again, but I'd be lying if I said I thought it would be as easy to fall asleep tonight...
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