I’m dozing off in bed, and the whispering starts. I can’t make out what the whispers are saying. I try to turn to see where they’re coming from. That’s when the crushing weight begins to hold me to the bed. My breathing starts to get shallow, and I’m paralyzed. I try to fight it, but the more I fight it the more intense the crushing weight becomes.
The whispering gets louder, until it's like a gun going off in my ear. Finally, I quit fighting and let the paralysis take over. That’s when it all suddenly stops. I open my eyes and I’m still laying in my bed, except I can move now. It didn’t feel like a dream, it felt real. It wasn’t until almost two years later that I learned what had happened to me.
My next episode occurred on my plane ride back from Europe over a year later. I was exhausted, but couldn’t get comfortable in the seat. I began to doze off anyways. It didn’t start with whispering this time, it started with the paralysis.
My body tingled and there was a crushing weight on my chest. I opened my eyes, and the only person on the plane was a woman sitting diagonal from me. She didn’t look real; her eyes were hallowed out and her skin was leathery. She twisted her torso until she was looking at me. She started whispering and I couldn’t make out what she was saying. The whispering got louder, and the weight got heavier. Then when I quit fighting it, it stopped. I opened my eyes, and the plane was back to normal with full occupancy. I looked over and there wasn't a woman sitting diagonal from me, there was only a middle-aged man.
I told my mom about these experiences, and she told me it was night terrors, so I did my research. It didn’t make sense. Night terrors sounded nothing like what I was experiencing. People wake up screaming and confused from them. When I wake up, everything is calm, like nothing has happened. The paralysis lets go and it’s as simple as opening my eyes. Also, I remember everything as if it were real.
I gave up researching night terrors because I knew it wasn’t what I was going through. About another year later, I had to do a research paper for my English class. I decided to research sleeping disorders because I’d had a few more episodes. I had to know what was going on. That’s when I discovered sleep paralysis. Every story and symptom was exactly what I had experienced. I finally had my answer.
Sleep paralysis occurs when you are transitioning between wakefulness and sleep. Your body is asleep, but your mind is trying to stay awake. Episodes last about an average of two minutes, but they feel longer. People can experience crushing weight on their chest, paralysis, inability to speak, trouble breathing, hallucinations, etc.
The most interesting thing about sleep paralysis is the sleep paralysis “demons.” People often claim they hear or see demonic creatures during their episodes. The whispering I heard and the woman I saw on the plane are both pretty tame examples of sleep paralysis demons. I have had several episodes of sleep paralysis since my first one. There’s not much you can do for sleep paralysis, except improve your sleeping habits. I could go the rest of my life without an episode, or I could have one tomorrow. It is definitely one of the oddest sleeping disorders, and it started my interest in researching the world of sleep.
