Welcome to the Nightwalks…

Last week we delved into the causes of sleep paralysis, what it is, its influence on literature and folklore, and how it was viewed in history. But how has it been portrayed visually?

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Welcome to the last part of “The Sleep Demon” trilogy of posts. You can find parts 1 and 2 here:

Throughout history, artists of different cultures and traditions have created works depicting their experiences with nightmares. There are medieval European paintings of incubi and sucubi and Japanese ukiyo-e prints of evil spirits, though sleep paralysis began to really be explored in Western art in the late 18th century, when more scientific interest in the human mind and sleep disorders started.

The hallucinations involved in sleep paralysis are fairly consistent across cultures and individual people, often consisting of shadowy figures or forms looming over the bed, a feeling of crushing or suffocation, or the sense of a malevolent entity in the room.

Some people report seeing demonic beings while others say they saw alien-like figures or ghosts. These hallucinations — along with the inability to move or cry out — have lead to the sort of terror that has inspired many works of art.

The most well-known painting is Henry Fuseli’s “The Nightmare” (1781), which portrays an unconscious woman sprawled over a bed, an incubus perching on her chest while a spectral horse’s head peers through the curtains in the background.

There is also Francisco Goya’s “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” (1797-1799).

More recently, Nicolas Bruno, an artist who has had sleep paralysis since he was 15, makes photographic works that bring his nightly terrors to life. His art often depicts surreal landscapes peopled by faceless figures, symbolic objects, and bizarre juxtapositions.

https://www.nicolasbrunophotography.com/portfolio

The artist Shawn Coss made some work titled “Sleep Paralysis” here, using ink, copic markers, and watercolour:

http://www.shawncossart.com/sleepparalysis/

There is also Dariusz Zawadzki’s “Sleep Paralysis” series, which have contorted figures trapped in unsettling landscapes.

https://morpheusgallery.com/Dariusz+Zawadzki/#cnt

For more surreal nightmare art, go here: https://morpheusgallery.com/

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Sources:

https://neurolaunch.com/sleep-paralysis-painting/

https://morpheusgallery.com/Dariusz+Zawadzki/

https://morpheusgallery.com

http://www.shawncossart.com/sleepparalysis

http://www.nicolasbrunophotography.com/portfolio

Yesterday we took a look at what sleep paralysis is, its possible causes, and how to cope with it. Now let’s see how sleep paralysis was viewed in history and folklore, and its influence on literature. Because why not?

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Many types of hallucinations can be experienced during sleep paralysis, often involving an intruder or malevolent presence in the room. The intruder can take the form of an incubus or a succubus. There can also be an out-of-body sensation or OBE, (something which I have experienced a couple of times in the past). For more about this see part 1.

SP in History

From Mesopotamia in 2000 BC all the way up to the Roman Empire, a demon called the incubus (from the Latin for “to sit on”) was held responsible for bad dreams and physical immobility during sleep.

The earliest treatment recommended for the incubus / nightmares was put forward in the 7th century by Paulus Aegineta, a Byzantine physician. He said that the issue should be treated with “bleeding, drastic purgatives and friction of the extremities.” He reckoned the head was the source of the problem, and suggested that if the above treatment wasn’t successful, then cupping and scarification of the throat, a restricted diet, and shaving the head would work.

The 10th-century Persian Akhawayni Bokhari was the first person to view the disorder as a purely medical complaint without demonic cause. A believer of the old medical “humours” theory, he surmised that SP was caused by vapours of phlegm arising from the stomach into the head, suffocating the brain during sleep. However, his prescription wasn’t so different from earlier treatments – it involved bloodletting.

During the Christian era, SP was seen as a sign of demonic possession and those affected were given prayers and exorcisms.

In Old English, the incubus demons became mare or maere, which derives from the Old Norse word, mara. It comes from the verb merran or “crush”. These were not demons but supposedly people who used magical powers to “ride” their victims just for the thrill of doing evil.

Following that, the mara became the Old Hag or Night Hag myth in folklore. Shakespeare used this for his Queen Mab speech in Romeo & Juliet.

In 1664 a Dutch physician, Van Diemerbroeck, wrote a book, “Of the Night-Mare” detailing the nightly hallucinations of a 50 year old woman.

In the 1700s, SP was understood via the scientific method due to the Age of Enlightenment. Treatment of someone suffering an SP episode now involved shaking them awake, changing their body position, speaking loudly to them or pricking them with a pin.

In 1876, sleep paralysis was called “night palsy” by Silas Weir Mitchell, MD. In 1928, the term “sleep paralysis” was coined in the medical literature by Neurologist A.S.K. Wilson.

In the 19th century, sleep paralysis was often blamed on diet or sudden change in diet.

Samuel Johnson originally defined sleep paralysis as “nightmare” in his A Dictionary of the English Language, but as time went on the word “nightmare” was used for bad dreams in general.

These days, the sleep paralysis demon has likely morphed into the phenomena of alien abductions and other paranormal reports.

Depending on culture, time, and place, sleep paralysis or SP has been and can be experienced in different ways, some more negatively than others. Scientists have suggested that if sleep paralysis is feared in a certain culture, that conditioned fear can worsen the SP experience and lead to higher rates of people having SP.

For example, high rates and long durations of SP episodes have been reported in Egypt, where people have beliefs about SP involving evil spirits called jinn. Fifty percent of Egyptians with SP are extremely afraid of it and associate it with impending death.

In Folklore

Witches

Sleep paralysis has been blamed on “the night hag” in cultures around the world.

In Newfoundland, Eastern Canada, SP is called the Old Hag and sufferers of a “hagging” are said to be “hag-ridden” on waking. Despite the name, the hallucinatory assailant can be male or female, or even an animal that sits upon the sleeper’s chest. In some areas, the hag is believed to leave her physical body at night and her spirit is what is sitting on sleepers’ chests. The Old Hag is well-known enough here to appear in films, plays, and crafted objects, and according to folklore here the hag can be summoned to attack other people. Here they believe the Old Hag can be kept away by sleeping with a Bible under the pillow, calling the name of the sleeper backwards, or even sleeping with a “Hag Board” – a shingle or board with nails in it strapped to the chest.

In Italy, the Pandafeche is an evil witch or ghost – or a bizarre catlike thing – that sits on the victim’s chest and tries to cause harm. Here they believe that the best way to keep her away is to have a bag of beans or sand close by the bed. The witch is thought to stop and become distracted by counting the beans or sand grains. (Hello, Dracula?)

In North Italy, the Trud is also a witch that sits on sleeping chests, suffocating them. She has to be chased away by making the sign of the Cross (hmm, difficult to do if one cannot move!)

In Scandinavia, the hag or mare is related to incubi or succubi but is believed to be a “damned” woman, who is cursed and whose body is mysteriously transported during sleep without her knowledge. Her body is moved onto the chests of other sleeping people, causing them to have nightmares.

In the southern U.S., SP is known as “witch riding.” During the Salem witch trials, many people reported being attacked at night by witches, and these attacks may have been down to SP.

In Hungarian folklore, SP is either caused by a witch, a fairy, a wraith, or a demon lover.

In Brazil, the pisadeira or “she who steps” is a tall, spindly old woman with long, dirty nails, tangled white hair, a long nose, red staring eyes, green teeth and a sinister laugh. She lives over the roofs, waiting to step on the chests of anyone who goes to bed with a full stomach.

Demons / Jinni

In Sardinia, a being known as the Ammuntadore or Ammuttadori sits on people’s chests to give them nightmares, and this being shapeshifts, taking the form of the person’s fears. Sometimes he rips the person’s skin with his nails. Some parts of the island believe he wears seven red caps on his head, and anyone who can resist the pain and steal one of his caps will find a hidden treasure.

In Fiji, SP is known as kana tevoro or “being eaten” by a demon. In some cases the demon can be the spirit of a recently deceased relative.

In Nigeria, it’s known as “the Devil on your back” and is called Dannau by the Hausa people. The Yoruba people of Southwest Nigeria call it ogun oru or nocturnal warfare. The nightly problem is attributed to demonic invasion of the body and psyche while a person is dreaming. There is a perceived feud between the sufferer’s real-life spouse and a “spirit” spouse, and anyone who eats in their dream is bewitched. It is treated with Christian prayers or traditional rituals meant to remove the ingested demonic elements.

In Swahili-speaking areas of south-east Africa, SP is called jinamizi or “strangled by jinn.” It is thought to happen when one sleeps on their back.

In Egypt, SP is called Kaboos or “compressor” and is similar to Ja-thoom. The jinn in this instance may be doing it out of evil, accidentally, or for mischief.

In Turkey, SP is Karabasan or “the dark presser.” A supernatural being known as a jinn comes into a person’s room and holds them down, strangling them. To banish the jinn it is believed that you should recite passages from the Qur’an and pray to Allah.

In Malay, SP is kena tindih or “being pressed,” thought to be the work of demonic entities that occur in the blind spots of one’s vision.

In Pakistan, SP is seen as an encounter with Shaitan or Satan, evil jinns or demons who have taken over the body. The ghoul can be known as bakhtak or ifrit. It’s also thought that SP is caused by black magic performed by enemies or jealous people. Some buildings or places are believed to be haunted by satanic or other paranormal beings that attack people living in them, especially at night.

In Arab culture, SP is attributed to Ja-thoom or “what sits heavily on something,” a shaytan or ifrit that sits on top of a person and chokes them. To keep it at bay, you have to sleep on your right-hand side and recite the “throne verse” of the Qur’an.

In Kurdish folklore, SP is caused by the demon motakka who steals the breath of sleepers who breathe heavily, particularly young children.

In Greece and Cyprus, SP occurs because of a supposed ghost-like demon called Mora, Vrahnas, or Varypnas. It tries to steal the victim’s speech or tries to asphyxiate him or her by sitting on their chest.

Sprites / Goblins

In the Philippines, the Batibat or bangungot takes on the shape of an ancient, grotesque, tree-dwelling female spirit that sits on victims’ chests. She is believed to enter a house when the tree she was living in gets felled and turned into a support post for that house. In revenge, anyone she finds sleeping near the support post gets attacked by her suffocating them and invading their dreams.

In Iceland, Mara, a succubus or goblin, is believed to cause nightmares and SP.

Animals / Creatures

Someone mentioned that in East Chinese folklore, it’s believed that mice can steal human breath during the night and that human breath gives mice strength and a long life along with the ability to become human at night, in a similar way to fox spirits. The mouse supposedly sits close to the person’s face or under their nose. (I cannot vouch for the truth of this statement, but it’s an interesting idea all the same.)

In Kashmiri mythology, SP is caused by the Roch, an invisible creature that supposedly lives in every house and only attacks if the house hasn’t been cleaned or if the victim has been doing something satanic or getting happiness from the bad luck of others. The creature is also known as pasikdhar, sayaa or GharDivta by Kashmiri aboriginals of the Hindu faith.

In Catalonia, SP is caused by the Pesanta, a gigantic dog or cat that enters homes at night and lays itself on people’s chests, causing breathing difficulties and nightmares. The animal is hairy and black with steel paws, but it has holes so it can’t actually take anything.

Ghosts / Spirits

In Fiji, the instance of “being eaten by a demon” or SP is sometimes attributed to the ghost of a recently dead relative who has come back to complete something unfinished or to pass on an important message. Often, people close to the person experiencing SP say “kania, kania,” or “eat, eat!” to prolong the possession so they have a chance to talk to the spirit and ask it questions.

In Albania, SP is caused by a male spirit in a golden fez called Mokthi. He comes to women who are tired or suffering and stops them from moving. If they manage to take his fez, he grants them a wish but then keeps on visiting them, though he isn’t dangerous. There are talismans women here use to keep Mokthi away, or they put their husbands’ hats by their pillows while sleeping.

In Cambodia, Lao and Thailand, SP is caused by one or more ghosts known as Phi Am, and they can cause bruises.

In China, SP is called “ghost pressing on the body” or “ghost pressing on bed.”

In Korea, SP is gawi nulim and is thought to be caused by a ghost laying down on top of the sleeper.

In Hmong folklore, sleep paralysis is caused by a pressing spirit, dab tsog. Dab tsog attacks by sitting on people’s chests, sometimes trying to strangle them. Some people think dab tsog is responsible for SANDS (sudden arrhythmic death syndrome).

In Vietnam, SP is ma đè, (held down by a ghost) or bóng đè (held down by a shadow.)

In Persian belief, SP is caused by bakhtak, a ghost-type creature that sits on the victim’s chest and makes breathing difficult. It is thought that if the dreamer reaches out and holds his nose, he will tell them the location of a treasure.

In Pashtun culture, SP is attributed to khapasa, a ghost without thumbs. It tries to suffocate by sitting on the chest and pressing the throat, but without thumbs it cannot do this effectively.

In Ethiopia, dukak (depression) is used to describe SP, which is thought of as an evil spirit that possesses you in your sleep. Some folks think it’s a symptom of withdrawal from the stimulant khat. The dukak is an personification of the depression which often happens after stopping chewing khat. He often appears to khat-quitters in their hallucinations and gives them weird punishments for offending him by quitting. These punishments often take the form of unfeasable physical things (e.g. the dukak puts the victim inside a bottle and shakes it hard) or outrageous tasks like expecting the victim to swallow a bag of gravel.

In Latvia, SP is a torture or strangling by Lietuvēns, the soul of a person murdered by strangling, drowning, or hanging. It attacks people and domestic animals. If under attack, you have to move your left toe to get rid of the soul.

Magic and Shadow

In Mongolian culture, nightmares and sleep paralysis are referred to as khar darakh (written as “kara darahu”), meaning “to be pressed by the Black” or “when the Dark presses.” Kara means black and might refer to a personification of one’s dark side. Kharin buu means “shaman of the black” (shamans of the “dark side” exist in far-northern Mongolia while tsaghaan zugiin buu means “shaman of the white direction” (i.e. shamans who only invoke beneficent spirits). This compares to the Turkish ‘karabasan‘ or the dark presser, which could originate from pre-Islamic times when the Turks had the same religion and myths as the Mongols.

In Tibet, SP is called dip-non or dip-phok which means “oppressed / struck by dip.” Dip means “shadow,” referring to a sort of spiritual contamination.

Even in present-day Western belief, SP is sometimes attributed to beings known as “shadow people.” Victims often describe a shadowy man in a brimmed hat, an old hag, or a hooded figure.

The influence of SP in literature

Some writers appear to have had sleep paralysis and put their experiences into their books.

For example, Herman Melville described something very like sleep paralysis in chapter 4 of Moby Dick, where Ishmael recalls a childhood memory of “a supernatural hand placed in mine” but being unable to move.

J. M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, said that in his early childhood “a sheet… tried to choke me in the night” and there are passages in the Peter Pan stories that hint he was aware of the feeling of loss of muscle tone while in a dreaming state. Barrie described a few parasomnia and neurological symptoms in his books and used them to explore the nature of consciousness.

Other writers who are likely to have had SP include Guy de Maupassant, Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Hardy, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway.

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Sources

https://wellcomecollection.org/stories/sleep-paralysis-a-brief-history-of-fear-treatment-and-artistic-creativity

https://academic.oup.com/book/24530/chapter-abstract/187681185?redirectedFrom=fulltext

https://eachnight.com/sleep/sleep-paralysis-history/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_hag

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I used to suffer from sleep paralysis (or being “hag-ridden”) and I’d do a post about that. So, here it is.

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From at least three or four years old, I had night terrors. They wore off as I grew but when I was in my mid-teens, the problem resurfaced as sleep paralysis. What follows is an investigation into what these things are about and what causes them, peppered with my own personal experiences. After that I will include some tips on how to avoid or “get out” of a sleep paralysis episode, or SP for short.

Night terrors tend to happen after the first one to two hours of someone falling asleep, and the person having the night terror is not conscious of whatever it is they are doing (namely sitting up in bed and crying, gasping, and screaming with a high heart rate and an expression of, well, terror). The person has no or very little recollection of whatever they were dreaming to cause such a reaction, and they don’t hallucinate. They don’t remember anything about how they reacted to their fear either. Night terrors usually affect small children but adults can sometimes have them too.

SP occurs while a person is either falling asleep or waking up. The brain stays conscious for a short amount of time while the physical body is asleep and therefore paralysed. This causes vivid dreams or hallucinations that are usually terrifying and unpleasant, where the person sees, hears, or feels things in the room with them that aren’t actually there in reality. It can happen as a one-off episode in someone’s life or it can recur, even happening a few times a night. An episode of SP only lasts for minutes but the terror can make it seem like a small eternity.

Between 8 and 50% of people will have an SP episode at some point in their lives, and it affects males and females equally. It is harmless, though it can cause sleep deprivation.

SP has been described throughout history and might be a reason for people’s accounts of alien abductions and other paranormal phenomena.

Sounds heard during SP often take the form of a signal like humming, hissing, static, buzzing or zapping. Other sounds experienced include strange voices, whispers, roars, growling, or screaming.

Physical sensations can include a feeling of pressure on the chest and sometimes head pain. Also the feeling of either sinking or drowning, something dragging you out of the bed, numbness, flying, or electrical sensations such as tingling or vibrations throughout the body, inability to breathe or difficulty breathing.

Visual hallucinations often include an evil presence or a strange dark figure in the room. These figures are called sleep paralysis demons or “shadow people.”

Emotionally, there is usually paranoia or fear and panic.

My first SP episode happened when I was perhaps fourteen, after reading a book in which a woman was staying in a castle and a strange presence would get into the bed with her during the night when the room was totally dark. The stranger didn’t touch her or do anything to harm her, but it paralysed her with fear (perhaps by magic as well, I can’t remember). One night shortly after this an invisible entity seized hold of me while I was dreaming – though in the dream I thought I was awake in bed – and wouldn’t let go, and I was calling out for help but my voice wouldn’t resound. A bubble inflated out of my mouth instead. Then I truly woke up, my heart beating so fast my body was shaking.

I had no idea what that was about and wrote it off as a bad dream… but it kept happening at least once every four to six weeks, and I began to wonder whether I was being haunted or whether there was some kind of demon trying to possess me, although I’m not religious. After some research on the internet, I realised it was sleep paralysis and nothing to worry about. Though that still didn’t stop me from dreading sleep!

Over the next few years I would occasionally be “visited” by this tall invisible presence who may or may not be human. He usually approached from my right side, through the wall somehow, and would lie on the bed behind me (I sleep on my left side usually). Pretty soon I learned to sense when it was going to happen in my dreams and would put up a “physical” fight (though I was dreaming) before he seized hold of my body, preventing it from moving, because I knew once he got hold of me I’d have to wait for him to let go. Often the fight would be for nothing and I’d lose, and it was exhausting. During these episodes I’d be trying to shout for help but my voice wouldn’t sound, or if it did it would emerge as a sedated mumble or a whisper. My heart would race and dread flooded me with ice, an age would seem to pass and finally my eyes would open, he’d be gone, and I could move again, fully awake. I’d sometimes have to pant for breath. There would be a cold sweat, especially if I was a little too warm in the bed.

However, I hardly ever get SP nowadays. I will share what worked for me in getting rid of it later in the post.

What is the cause?

Nobody knows for definite.

It may run in families and be caused by certain genes. Studies of identical twins have shown that if one twin has SP, the other twin is likely to have it.

One theory is that SP is caused by a dysfunctional overlap of REM and waking stages of sleep. Studies have revealed that SPers have shorter REM sleep latencies than normal, along with shortened non-REM and REM sleep cycles, along with fragmented REM sleep.

Another theory is that the neurological functions controlling sleep states are a tiny bit out of whack, causing some sleep states to overlap. The cholinergic or “sleep-on” neurons are hyperactive, while the serotonergic or “sleep-off” neurons are under-active. This means that cells capable of sending signals for waking up have difficulty overriding the signals sent by the cells in the brain that keep you asleep.

During normal REM shuteye, stimuli from the surrounding environment has to be pretty loud / obvious to rouse the brain. In people with SP, the brain doesn’t block out that external stimuli very well, which means it is more likely to wake up while the rest of the body is still in sleep mode. Studies have shown that although SPers cannot move or speak during an episode, they can still move their eyes.

More research is needed to find what genetic component leads to SP and the exact mechanism behind it.

What Triggers SP episodes?

• insomnia or sleep deprivation
• an inconsistent sleep schedule / poor sleep hygiene
• stress
• physical fatigue
• sleeping on your back
• sleeping on your stomach
• sleeping too hot in bed (in my experience)
• being afraid of having an episode (in my experience)
• not having body parts fully supported/ prevented from “dropping” suddenly during sleep (in my experience – more on this later).

Tips and Tricks

Being young when it started, I did try praying out of a sense of desperation. Obviously, this had no effect – probably because I’m not religious, so my brain didn’t believe that method would work. (I even tried telling the “entity” to leave me alone in the name of Jesus Christ, after reading on an online forum that some people found that that worked for them. I even tried sleeping with a small cross on a chain next to the bed, then an ankh.)

I had been keeping detailed dream journals from the age of 12 or 13, so I wrote down all the details of my SP episodes as well, trying to interpret their meaning or find a pattern. It was a cathartic thing to do and took some of the anxiety out of it.

As time went on, it got to the point where I’d be having a mix of SP and false awakening dreams – so I’d dream I’d woken up and it was all over, but I was still dreaming and the entity would pounce a second time. I began to routinely ask myself whether I was really awake or asleep during daily life.

I rarely slept well during my teenage years due to school-related stress anyway, along with difficulty regulating my body temperature and aches and pains (which would later be diagnosed in my twenties as hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and Fibromyalgia). A typical night would involve me turning in at 9.30pm or 10pm then waking up at 1 or 2am, then lying awake until 5am or almost dawn, hot one minute, cold the next, aching, tired, sometimes exhausted to the point of nausea. The sleep deprivation was likely causing the SP.

So, I tried going to bed cold. I made sure to turn my radiator down to zero at least two hours before bed. If it was warm enough I’d also crack open a window for a few minutes. I improved my sleep hygiene as much as possible by avoiding caffeine full-stop and having a warm bath a couple of hours before bed, avoiding screens in the evening, not eating or drinking straight before bed, etc.

That seemed to work for a few months. Then all of a sudden it didn’t. The SP came back. I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong.

I read through more online forums about SP and got more advice, though it was counterintuitive.

The best way to get out of an SP episode is to stop fighting it or fighting to wake up. The more you panic, the longer it lasts. (I saw the sense in that, though I didn’t much like it!)

Someone else said the best way to get out of an episode was to mentally “move” yourself in the direction of the pressure rather than against it, imagining yourself sinking through the bed.

Someone else said the best way to wake up from SP was to try to make a tiny movement rather than a large one, e.g. twitching a toe or twiddling one of your fingers rhythmically, or pulling an exaggerated scrunched-up face like a grimace.

I utilised all of those methods as well. Though the frequency of the SP episodes did reduce over time as I left school (and also learned not to be afraid of having an episode) I still hadn’t completely got rid. There must be something else.

As time went on, my conditions meant I had to start experimenting with stacking different cushions and pillows around myself in bed to keep my joints and spine more aligned whilst I was unconscious. I found it was a little better to put a pillow between my knees and a pillow under the armpit of the arm I wasn’t lying on to save my shoulder.

During all of this I realised something: without the pillow under it, my right arm was getting poor circulation and slithering forwards off my side when I reached a deep sleep, creating a confused sense of a foreign arm reaching over to grab me from behind. That was what the strange invisible entity had been: me. My sodding arm moving by itself. Which then sent my unconscious brain into panic mode and caused a sleep paralysis nightmare.

I haven’t had an SP episode for years now.

So, a recap on how to beat SP:

• Have a consistent sleep routine
• Maintain good sleep hygiene
• Avoid caffeine (and probably alcohol) before bed
• sleep at a comfortable temperature
• don’t stress
• make sure joints are adequately supported
• If you do get an SP episode, don’t panic – either try to twitch a finger or a toe and / or grimace and scrunch your face up.

In part two (dropping tomorrow) I’ll be covering sleep paralysis in history, folklore, and art.

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Other News:

My flash fiction “You Are What You Eat” has been published in Slash magazine. It’s a tongue-in-cheek horror about a weird being that takes on the properties of whatever it ingests:

https://www.theslashmedia.com/you-are-what-you-eat/

And my poem “Landscape One” has won first prize in the poetry category for the “Prithvi” anthology competition run by The Chai magazine. It will most likely be released later this year.

You can see past issues of Chai magazine here:

https://www.chaimagazine.com/