Sleep Paralysis? I Think NOT (Real Life Account)

Source: thesleepparalysisproject.org

During my school days – and let me bring you to the time when I was 14 –,I had an aptitude for art – according to my teachers. Of course, those were compliments that would come after the teachers were done with telling my parents how I was first in class, from the bottom up.

Most of my time during lessons in school was spent filling the empty spaces in my books with all sorts of different drawings, from just colours (Power Rangers’ teleportations, anyone has any recollection?) to dragons, and swords to many different types of weapons. I was pretty much a boy who couldn’t sit through boring classes. Anything (almost) non-sexual would be illustrated through my pens and pencils, because I was too innocent to know what’s sex (actually, the damages would be lesser when the teachers were to do checks, if you know what I mean).

Then this hobby came to an (almost) abrupt stop. Let me tell you why.

The whispers; those crazy talking and that huge crowd of people who were around me. That night was insane, and creepy to even remember. I’m sorry, have I got you lost in track? Let me start again.

I vividly remember it was one weekday evening, and clock was showing bedtime. I had nothing to do except my homework that would be due the next day and tidying my room, so I opted to expend my energy through drawing. Because drawing was essential for a good night’s sleep. With papers and pencils on my hands, I sat on the desk and started sketching for the next 2 hours. I had around 4 to 5 pieces of sketches done before my mom came into my room with a beautiful inverted smiles and singing her favourite and beautiful “GO TO BED NOW!! YOU’VE SCHOOL TOMORROW” song to me.

I have to add here that I think I was quite a good boy during my teenage years, because usually, I’d listen to her and go to bed with more blank papers and pencils. That evening was nothing off the line of norm.

Don’t ask what year was that. I don’t appreciate you knowing my exact age, so I will not tell you.

Just know that in the story I am sharing with you, after my mom’s nice visit, I got in my bed, and continued with my sketching of Iori Yagami and other characters from the video game King of Fighters (KOF). Because KOF 97 at that time was the in thing…. wait. Have I just given clue of my age?

Anyways, the last character I drew was Iori, and it was after completing the shadings when I started to feel a little tired. I left my stuffs – the drawings and my stationery – on my desk and switched off the light. It was B-time + 2 hours already; translated to the word “midnight”.

It didn’t take me very long before I drifted off into sleep mode. By “sleep mode” I mean I knew totally nothing about what I was doing. Totally zero knowledge of my consciousness. Then…

I heard whispers. Many people, numbers perhaps ranging from tens to hundreds (I don’t know), from adults to children, were whispering around my ears. I could hear, and feel them around me. You know how it’s like when your mom and your aunts are around your shoulders talking about the last time they caught you masturbating, don’t you? Just know that the voices were in languages you couldn’t understand, and imagine the volume around whispering decibel. We’re getting there now.

Let me interrupt the story to remind you that one word I’ve used earlier was the word “vividly”. Which means I’m emphasizing that this is something scary that I have not been able to forget till date. Remember, it’s so scary that I’ve not been able to successfully erase this incident from my memory till even today.

Back to my story: those whispers went on for a long time – because scary shit will never be short – before dying off gradually, like the finishing of an old 80s song. The voices, the chatterings…those people around me sort of went away, and the silence I needed to go back to sleep returned. Just as I thought I could disregard them and go back to drifting in dream space, they showed me how wrong I was.

They didn’t leave. No one did. If you had experienced the feeling of someone squatting behind you, then jumped at you scaring you shitless, multiply that by a room of people whom you can’t see, but only hear. And oh, replace their voices by eerie laughter.

That was what I got.

They came back, laughing eerily. The voices got louder, and their laughter was moving fast toward the tipping point that I couldn’t bear. I thought I had enough, so I decided to open my eyes and check things out.

But I couldn’t.

Something, or someone, was holding me down. I opened my eyes, and I saw shadows around me. If you think that I was scared, you were wrong. It was more than that.

I was petrified, horrified, and – if this could describe better – terrified. Goosebumps were all over my body from the scratches I felt on the back of my neck. I could see, but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even move my head. I opened my mouth, trying to seek help, but no voice was coming out. I was paralysed.

I stayed on that position for a while, and when something as spine-chilling as this was taking place on me, time seemed to stop. I prayed, hoping that some invisible friend would help me (namely the one called God), but nothing worked.

Just as I thought nothing would be able to help me, those voices started to go away. Perhaps they thought it wasn’t as fun as they expected. Bit by bit, or one by one, those voices left the “room”. It was after a period that felt like forever to me, before they left me alone in my dark bedroom. I tried turning my head, and when I could, the first thing I did was to jump out of bed, and switched on that damn light.

Then I sat on the edge of my bed, sweating over what happened to me moments ago. I was in cold sweat; panting and breathless. Then I felt something telling me to check out my desk.

I walked over, and I saw the sketch I drew just before I went to bed. The first piece on the top of the stack of drawings was a face of Iori Yagami looking into my eyes – like it was a real person.

I’m not trying to imply that I can draw very well, but that very sketch was very alive when I looked at it. I could almost ascertain it was the culprit behind what I encountered. Everything was very real.

You don’t need to be a genius to know what would happen to that drawing – I threw it away that night. I am not able to show you how it looked like, but I’ve a sample here that you can refer to:

Picture it being a sketch, with eerie eyes looking right at you. That was what I saw on my desk, the moment I looked over.

I spent that night sitting in the living room with the lights on, and dozing off when the tiredness finally overwhelmed me. That was also the last time I drew something like that. No more, I guess. I don’t think I have the courage to try this again.

Sleep paralysis? I don’t think so.

 

Andy Lawson is the average man on the street that you’ll not even trouble yourself looking at him if he passes by you. He’s sensitive to bullshit, and he hates mediocrity in most people.

He is the author of his self-published book: Facts and Fiction of Fengshui: Facts that Masters are NOT Telling You.

He doesn’t have Facebook or Twitter, because he hates to be associated with people who tend to be passive-aggressive online, but he does have a very limited set of vocabularies, terrible grammar, a twisted mind that makes himself God in his own twisted world and an ability to communicate with people who wish to be his friend.