Sleep Paralysis
It’s a simple enough thing. It’s all a part of the body’s sleep processes. Sleep Paralysis, right? No big deal, really. Your body produces a chemical that paralyzes your body during R.E.M sleep to prevent you from hurting yourself by thrashing about during your dreams. No big deal.
Okay, so, you opened your eyes and you can’t move your body. It’s the chemicals. Oh, you can keep trying to wriggle those toes, but it’s not happening. Forget it. Just relax. It’ll go away. It’s fine. It’s normal.
Oh, now there’s something pressing on your chest, real hard, it’s making it hard to breath. It’s heavy, so very heavy, whatever’s on your chest. Chemicals. It’s all chemicals. Stop trying to scream, it won’t work. Your throat muscles are paralyzed too. You still can’t breath.
You are staring at a blank ceiling, you can’t stare anywhere else. Shadows flit across your vision, forming shapes you try not to think about. A clawed hand, a flash of jagged, shadowy teeth. All images from your subconscious. A face forming above yours, leering through black void eyes. You think you
hear sibilant whispering. Angry hissing, like a snake that’s been disturbed.
Suddenly, a sharp white light briefly flares in the room as a car pulls down the street, dispelling the shadows. The weight is gone. You can breath, your hands clench sheets.
You feel an eternity has passed by but it was all the work of a moment. You wriggle, just to prove to yourself you can. You sit up, take a deep breath and then laugh a little at yourself. Sleep Paralysis. Stupid.
You turn to shake your spouse awake, eager to share your experience. You feel paralyzed again, but it has nothing to do with Sleep Paralysis. You stare at the blood, the jagged wound in her throat, her wide, staring eyes, mouth opened in soundless scream.
You survived your Old Hag Syndrome.
She didn’t.
—
Credited to C. Noel Huff
Posted in Dreams & Nightmares
July 9th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Holy cow. I’ve had sleep paralysis. Scary poo too. D:
I hallucinated about a giant black shadow with glowing red eyes. Scared me so bad.
July 9th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
This one was actually really interesting. :-D. At first I thought it was a ghost but it was a person. I didnt expect that.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I’ve also had several night terrors/sleep paralysis experiences, and this is quite terrifying. Good story!
July 9th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
At the beginning I thought I had read this one before. Is there another sleep paralysis creepypasta out there?
July 9th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
That was pretty awesome. Ive never had sleep paralysis before, though.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
g’damn!!! that was awesome!
July 10th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Hello.
Sleep Paralysis. Hypnagogia. Hypnopompic Trance. Kanashibari. Pee Umm. Guǐ Yā Shēn. Mottaka. So many names.
Curiously, there are just as many names for an anomalous entity which causes this fascinating state. Night Hag, Kriksy, Plaksy, Nocnitsa, Gorska Makva, Succubus, Dab Tsog… the list is curiously long.
I wonder if any of you have heard of Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome?
No?
What fun.
Go on, friends. Use those handy research faculties provided by this advanced form of “communication.”
What knowledge I have imparted is easily attained.
What knowledge I keep in confidence is damning.
Do not tarry, friends. Look.
Look.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome sounds like what happens when people see themselves die in a dream. It isnt the dream that kills them, its the shock of actually seeing themselves die.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Sorry to have to play editor, but you meant to write “breathe” not “breath”. Kinda kills the mood.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
good, but it sort of ruined it for me when it said “breath” instead of “breathe” EVERY SINGLE TIME. but i’m a spelling nazi so whatever :]
July 10th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
“Mr.Welldone, no one asked what it was.. everyone is friendly here really, I don’t believe there is any need to be cocky.
July 11th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Forgot my other quote on “Mr. Welldone,” sorry.
July 12th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Thank you all for your kind thoughts. Will try to remember breath/breathe. I was in a bit of rush when I wrote this and didn’t proof-read very thoroughly. I had this happen to me once, and it is very terrifying, when you see things that ‘aren’t’ there. Bhawawa
C. Noel Huff
July 17th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Maybe a jealous daughter of Lilith?
I dunno. Just a thought…
July 21st, 2008 at 11:46 pm
i get sleep paralysis on purpose just to have a good fight with that bitch
July 26th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Can someone help me with the end?
July 27th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I had this happen to me once, except that the thing with black claws was on a door. That scared the shit out of me when I couldn’t move and my heart was about to bust out of my chest.
August 3rd, 2008 at 2:38 am
I get this quite often, and it terrifies me - usually because its accompanied by various hallucinations of my death by various means, with the most common being suffocation.
Am I being told something, perhaps?
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:13 am
Dear god I am so badass and mysterious.
August 6th, 2008 at 2:45 am
Did you know that waking during sleep paralysis is one of the suggested reasons for “alien abductions”?
Just change the old hag to alien grays in this story and you’ll see what I mean.
August 10th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Hello.
You are wrong.
August 10th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I’ve tried sleep paralysis before but I keep failing. MUST DO SLEEP PARALYSIS!!!!
August 17th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
I once made a mysterious pie of mysteriousness and came all over it cause my behavior is mysterious.
August 19th, 2008 at 3:21 am
Only upon seeing his wife’s blood pooling in the bed did he realize. This is why you never ask Garfield, “I can has cheezburger?”
August 25th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
thank you mr. well done!
i think i love you!
i hav hypnapompia [it occurs while u try to wake up while hypnagogia occurs while you are trying to fall asleep]
ive seen unbearable things, even had about 8 episodes in one night, i get it very often
and i can hear screams and i feel like i’m being raped sometimes, and i see sum1 coming to slap me, or a man without a head…
it’s not fun ><
btw, the end of this was stupid…
August 30th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Yeah i’ve had sleep paralysis too that shit is not even fucking funny ><
August 31st, 2008 at 8:06 pm
I once had sleep paralysis. I didn’t see anything as vividly as in my actual dreams, but two green blurry shapes across the room I imagined to be those earth-ruling reptilians from conspiracy theories just looking at my helpless unshakable form. Terrifying.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:12 am
I had sleep paralysis a couple nights ago. It was awesome. I had no hallucinations, at least none that I can remember. I just woke up in the middle of the night and felt very light. When I tried to move I just couldnt. I could barely even curl my fingers. It felt like I was extremely high. After a couple minutes I think I just passed out. Bottom line: It was like being high for free.
September 14th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I get sleep paralysis, when I was little I had night terrors, it really sucks.
September 19th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I only remember having sleep paralysis once in my life. I was about 7 years old, and it scared the shit out of me. I thought I died in my sleep and that I was stuck.
The hallucinations didn’t help much either.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
I’ve never had Sleep Paralysis before, but one time when I woke up, I sat up and thought I heard something in the room. A second later it felt like an invisible fist slammed into my gut, knocking the wind out of me and throwing me back down against my bed. Later that evening, I had a large fist-sized bruise on my stomach… Creepy, no?
November 7th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
omg. well creepy cheesey pasta
god- i didnt no that actually existed! My friend about 5 months ago told me that she had one of these episodes and saw dwarfes running around her room and they tied her up with silver rope!!!!
i laughed! Damn!
November 13th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
“Old Hag Syndrome?” I don’t get it.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Sleep paralysis usually only happens when awakening from a lucid dream, and usually only happens to lucid dreamers. Even though it may be scary, all the hallucinations are merely in your head, and are caused because even though your eyes are open, your brain still thinks you’re in REM sleep (which is also why the body’s paralyzed). The easiest way to get out of it, in the rare chance you get it, is to try to move any of your fingers or toes. If you can move just one of them even slightly (which isn’t that hard), then you’ll snap out of it.
November 20th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
scary…