Living With Sleep Paralysis (SP)

by Karina
(Latvia, Europe)

I have had my first SP episode when I was 12 years old, it never leaved me since then. Of course for a child like me it was the most scary thing that could ever happen.

I remember being awake but I didn't really feel paralyzed because I felt like someone grabbed my legs tight so I was so afraid even to move knowing that I should be all alone in the room. This entity started to rock me back and forth like a mother rocks a baby. So I tried to move and I thought I did move, and then this entity violently grabbed my blanket and tried to pull it off of me.

After this ended I was able to move again and couldn't really figure out was it a dream or was it really happening to me, but I knew for sure it was very different and I never experienced this before. Time after time it would happen with me, most of the time it was sort of like a dream but a feeling was different. I always tried to sleep turned to a wall, because whatever was behind me I didn't wanted to see it, but I sure heard it every time.

Most of the time it would be like someone screaming or talking, I always heard this noise like when u have it in the ear, but this one is always loud. Being younger I was always afraid of it mostly because I didn't have any explanation for it, and other reason was when the noise would start and I would try to move and I couldn't I knew it's happening again.

The feeling was always like something is pulling me down, deeper into my dream and I always thought if I won't try to move and try as hard as I could to fight it, I would die. To make a difference between awakeness and being in this state I would leave a radio on all night long, to know if this again happens with me if I'm awake at this time or its just a bad dream, and when I would leave radio on I never had a singe episode of SP.

Growing up I a few times did have visions and I thank God I had them in the morning when it's bright light. My first vision wasn't terrifying. I saw a woman in a black dress standing away from my bed, I couldn't really open my eyes wider so I didn't see her face. She was saying something to me and tried to reach out to me with her hands. It seamed like she was calling me to go with her, or called to help her.

The second time I saw a vision with dark entity black like myst was right behind me laying on my back, I felt pressure like there was a grown person who was pushing on me and it was really hard to breathe. I saw its hand was on my face I saw this black myst all around my eyes, it had a form of the fingers. He would breathe heavily into my ear and say something I couldn't understand.

Growing up with having SP and not really knowing what that is and why it happens to you is devastating, but I knew this wouldn't go away and I would just have to live with it. I didnt want to share with anyone because I thought I was the only one like this and people would think I'm crazy.

By pure luck 4 years ago I watched a documentary film about alien abduction and a doctor there described a condition called sleep paralysis (SP). When he started to talk about SP, what that is, and what happens I almost jumped up from the chair because the symptoms and whole thing he described matched with my episodes I was having.

Immediately I googled Sleep Paralysis and I felt big relief beacuse after more then 10 years of having it I finally knew what I'm dealing with. After knowing what that is I was happy to know that I'm not crazy and I actually wanted to talk with people about it more and I didn't wanted to hide it anymore.

I started to know more and more about it and it was easier to fight with it during nights, or even prevent this happening. I have noticed that if I fall asleep in one place like on the couch and someone would wake me up to go to my room, when I'm not quite woken up I would go in to my room with eyes closed and fall in to bed, then I would 100% have a SP episode.

So to prevent it I try to wake up fully before going to sleep again. Sometimes I would still have it because whatever you do you can't really escape it.

I can have up to 4 episodes one by one during the night until I wake up fully and go to sleep again. I have always had a feeling of sleepiness after SP, the feeling I cant resist, really hard to open eyes and stay awake, so after having SP I would fall asleep again and I would have immediately the next SP episode and another one and another one until I get up from the bed, wash my face, drink water, watch TV a bit, play some games in the cellphone. Only after that I can go to sleep without having it again.

Sometimes it's annoying but my visions are not so violent like other people have so I can live with that. After doing this all to make sure not to have it, my SP reduced to only a few episodes a year. I'm really glad I found this site and I can share my story and meet people who have it too. Makes me feel good knowing I'm not alone.