This is the craziest fucking thing I have ever read in a newspaper
AMAZING! I am putting the text here too, just in incase the Chronicle Herald website takes it down.
Nocturnal visit leaves me shaken
By Peter Duffy
THE INCIDENT was so terrifying, it haunts me still.
Even now, three weeks later, the memory of that dream makes me go cold.
If it really was a dream. . .
It was a Friday night and I’d been late getting to bed.
I’d been at a downtown Halifax hotel, guest speaker at a banquet for the provincial branch of the War Amps.
It had been a very pleasant affair but one that ended on a stressful note. Halfway through my speech an elderly woman collapsed at one of the tables.
I saw the whole thing and, quite frankly, I thought she’d died, right before my eyes.
Thankfully, she hadn’t; she’d only fainted. But even so, I was extremely shocked.
When I got home, I poured myself a finger of Scotch and sat reflecting on the evening.
Then I went to bed. It was midnight, late for me.
And that’s when it happened.
I became aware of a strange presence in the bedroom, something emitting waves of malevolence.
And then I saw it; something was rearing over me.
I don’t know how, or why, but instinctively, I knew it was a demon of some kind.
I recoiled in horror, trying to make myself small, unable to tear my eyes away.
There was no face. The thing had a human form but it was swathed in a black cowl-like covering, like some kind of monk.
And then it was on top of me, soundless and unstoppable, smothering me, assaulting me.
There’s no delicate way to put this; I was vividly aware of this creature violating me.
I yelled, but nothing came from my lips. My struggles were in slow motion. I was helpless.
And then, as suddenly as it appeared, the creature was gone.
I lay there in shocked disbelief. What the hell just happened?
Was it a nightmare - or was it something worse?
Was it real? Could I actually have been possessed that terrible night?
That’s what I’m trying to discover.
My first call is to Evelyn Hare, the well-known Eastern Passage psychic-astrologer.
It may have been a self-induced warning, she says. I may have been aware subconsciously that I was about to revert to ways unhealthy for me.
"Your imagination or your intuition is thinking something isn’t right in the way you’re thinking. Your subconscious is trying to shake you up, put you back to the right mood."
I wrack my brains. Am I starting down some path that will eventually prove bad for me?
"I don’t think anything is going to hurt you," Evelyn soothes. "Maybe you were too tired."
Whatever it was, she concludes, don’t be afraid.
But I am.
My quest for information leads me next to Arthur McCalla, a professor of philosophy and religious studies at Mount Saint Vincent University.
I want to ask him about two particular demons, the succubus and incubus. Over the centuries, these evil spirits have gained a reputation for sexually attacking sleeping humans. Is it possible I was visited by one or the other that awful night?
Arthur tells me these two aren’t confined just to Christianity. It seems they’re well-known in various cultures and have different meanings in each.
In terms of Christianity, however, he says they were tempters of early holy men known as "desert fathers," hermits who spent long periods in the wilderness, praying for the early Christian community. To sway these solitary monks from their devotions, these demons appeared in different guises, including that of beautiful women.
"But why would they come after me?" I puzzle.
Arthur suggests part of the answer could be what’s known as a displacement of anxieties.
"In psychiatry, there’s a recognized disorder called ‘the incubus syndrome.’ "
He says the succubus and incubus, in their non-Christian aspect, can have a couple of meanings.
One involves a strong sexual content, an erotic dream. Another is that such a dream represents a weight, either on top of the sleeper or under him. In a nutshell, it’s about stress.
"Stress, as a general term, is a weight, pressing down," he says.
"But the thing that came visiting me was so real!" I interrupt.
Arthur nods. "Something real is being expressed in an unreal symbol."
What you need to do, he tells me, is focus on the meaning behind the experience.
"Don’t obsess about the symbol," he urges. "Ask what the symbol is pointing to."
I shake my head, still not convinced what happened to me was actually a dream.
"How did this ‘thing’ even find me?" I whisper.
Saturday: Still shaken, Duffy talks with a priest.
( pduffy@herald.ca)
Peter Duffy appears Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday.
Now there's been response from angry letter writing
Perpetuating myths
I am writing concerning Peter Duffy’s recent columns concerning his experience with an "evil spirit." Mr. Duffy, this is the 21st century. Ghosts, goblins and evil spirits are leftovers from the superstitious Middle Ages.
Instead of consulting charlatans such as psychics, astrologists and priests, you should have asked a psychologist or psychiatrist, who would have told you that what you experienced was a hypnagogic hallucination: very real and very scary, but only a trick of your own brain. These are well-known phenomena and occur when falling asleep (hypnagogic) or on awakening (hypnopompic). You are conscious, but still in a dream-like state, and so the experience seems very real. In Newfoundland, they call it the "old hag."
Stop perpetuating myths and superstitions. The sooner we rely on science and reason instead of fears from the dark ages, the better off we will all be.
T.A. Rohland, MD, Pubnico
What’s next?
Re: Peter Duffy’s Dec. 7 "nocturnal visit" column.
Is The Chronicle Herald so hard up for intelligent columns that it needs to resort to publishing clap-trap about spooky demons molesting writers in their sleep? Yes, sleep paralysis can be terrifying (which is surely what Mr. Duffy suffered that night), but is it necessary to then write an entire column about the mystical voodoo of psychic powers, demon infestation and astrology?
Sleep paralysis happens when the brain leaves REM state, but the body is still asleep. This can result in hallucinations such as sensing an evil presence, seeing people walking around the room, not being able to breathe, and feeling chest pressure. Exactly what Mr. Duffy experienced.
Is it really appropriate to suggest that a well-known experience like sleep paralysis is actually the result of demons? What’s next? A column about reading tea leaves to diagnose heart problems?
Alicia Belliveau, Lunenburg