Never has this icon been more apt

[celiaka]

My sleep pattern is more than a little screwed at the moment and I woke up about an hour ago and there appeared to be a girl standing right by my bed, who then aged into an old woman and hovered over me. I was frozen and couldn't move. She may have been trying to talk but there was a strange crackling noise in my ears that meant I couldn't hear.

Comments

[andabusers]

oooooo. there's a specific phenomenon of seeing old women standing over you. can't remember what it's about exactly, but I seem to recall it's another one you get when you're having trouble breathing in the night. like that falling feeling.

[celiaka]

Is it a mythic thing? Portents of doom perhaps?

[burntcopper]

all tied up in the wonder that's sleep paralysis - your brain starts producing images and shapes out of the shadows. And due to the way the human brain is fixed, we start anthropomorphising and trying to see specific shapes where there are none - most often human-shaped and eyes and hands. It being a bit dark and misshapen and blurry = hunched old woman or little person.

[andabusers]

Well, it was decided at some point that this woman was the same woman (rather than separate anthropomorphic hallucinations) and gave her a name (although I'd guess a different name for each culture). Some people have it so that she rides on their chest like a horse, which doesn't sound pleasant, so you're actually lucky in that respect. I vaguely remember her being equated to Baba Yaga (a Russian witch), but not totally convinced; in Polish it's Zmora. There was a documentary on TV about it a few years ago that I found fascinating. See this article.

[andabusers]

And ignore the crazy bits in the Zmora link, I only just noticed ...

[andrewducker]

There is indeed - and I just bumped into this fantastic description of it:
http://lists.unknown-armies.com/pipermail/ua/2004-May/031556.html

[celiaka]

Yep. That was it, apart from I could actually see the girl/old woman.