I haven't had it in years, but I do remember one from my childhood. I was in bed, convinced I was awake, and looking out of my bedroom door. There was a man standing there in a trenchcoat and fedora (not that I knew the names for those pieces of clothing at the time). I couldn't see his face, which was all in shadows, but I was terrified. I remember trying to scream and being unable to . . . and then I could. I was still in the same position (up on my elbow), but definitely awake, as the man had vanished. I just remember being paralysed and being convinced that I was awake.
yeah, it turns out it's not ...uncommon, exactly. Mention it in a group and you'll often get one person who goes 'oh, hang on, *that*?'
Everyone's heard of alien abduction/succubus/black hag, but since it's not often that said 'victims' ever break down the experience properly and tend to add a whole bunch of fantasising over the top, the people who aren't attention seekers tend not to tell anyone else, having dismissed it as bad dreams once they properly woke up. (the program I watched also went through the personality type of the ones who insisted they'd been abducted. A bit lonely, intelligent, often not quite social, and a whole heap of attention seeking.)
I think it’s one of those phenomena that’s common enough for a significant number of people to experience, but still rare enough for few people to know about it. The lack of intersection between the two groups is what gives rise to folklore.
I’ve had it a few times, but not regularly. The one I remember best was absolutely classic Incubus: I was seemingly conscious, aware of my surroundings, but paralysed by a crushing, invisible weight on my chest. And I was convinced, while in that state, that I was being attacked by Yog-Sothoth, which only goes to prove that it’s your own mental landscape that provides the ‘cause’: in times gone by, evil spirits, and aliens these days.
Once I’d awoken, and was lying there trying to remember how to breathe, I remember the small area of my brain that was still rational connecting the experience and what I’d read about the Incubus legends and so-on, and thinking: “Well. That explains a lot…”
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I haven't had it in years, but I do remember one from my childhood. I was in bed, convinced I was awake, and looking out of my bedroom door. There was a man standing there in a trenchcoat and fedora (not that I knew the names for those pieces of clothing at the time). I couldn't see his face, which was all in shadows, but I was terrified. I remember trying to scream and being unable to . . . and then I could. I was still in the same position (up on my elbow), but definitely awake, as the man had vanished. I just remember being paralysed and being convinced that I was awake.
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Everyone's heard of alien abduction/succubus/black hag, but since it's not often that said 'victims' ever break down the experience properly and tend to add a whole bunch of fantasising over the top, the people who aren't attention seekers tend not to tell anyone else, having dismissed it as bad dreams once they properly woke up. (the program I watched also went through the personality type of the ones who insisted they'd been abducted. A bit lonely, intelligent, often not quite social, and a whole heap of attention seeking.)
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I'd add to "wake up completely fucking exhausted" "and the last thing you want to do is go back to sleep" but that last part may not be as universal.
For once, I want it to turn out to be simply night terrors. If only to *not* pander to the alien abductees.
Me too.
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I think I heard it referred to as sleep paralysis once, but is there a technical term for it?
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I’ve had it a few times, but not regularly. The one I remember best was absolutely classic Incubus: I was seemingly conscious, aware of my surroundings, but paralysed by a crushing, invisible weight on my chest. And I was convinced, while in that state, that I was being attacked by Yog-Sothoth, which only goes to prove that it’s your own mental landscape that provides the ‘cause’: in times gone by, evil spirits, and aliens these days.
Once I’d awoken, and was lying there trying to remember how to breathe, I remember the small area of my brain that was still rational connecting the experience and what I’d read about the Incubus legends and so-on, and thinking: “Well. That explains a lot…”
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