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?
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/
Sources:
Sleep Paralysis Paintings: Visualizing the Nightmare Experience
https://morpheusgallery.com/Dariusz+Zawadzki/
Nightwalks 