You'll Never Believe Who My Sleep Paralysis Demon Is

Everyone experiences sleep paralysis differently. It usually happens right after a nightmare for me. What happens is the nightmare scares me so badly that part of me wakes up, but the rest of me is still asleep. I'm aware that I just woke up from a dream, and I'm frozen in place in bed. It's usually almost pitch black, but I can slightly see the environment around me. I don't know if I could feel a presence, or if I'm just scared that there could be something hiding in the dark. Nothing ever happens though. I just lie there perfectly still, absolutely petrified with fear. Nothing ever comes out of the shadows however.

After years of experiencing this, I developed a trick to wake myself up. I scream. Of course nothing comes out at first. My jaw is clamped shut, my vocal chords paralyzed. I keep trying harder and harder to scream. My vocal chords start waking up as all my screams come out as just moans. The chords become stronger as the moans become closed mouth screams. Finally, I wake up crying out. Now of course once I'm fully awake I'm not actually screaming. It's just that startled yell people make when they are woken up unexpectedly.

I've come to find that I was dreaming the whole time. When I'm finally fully awake, it's usually bright. I think I have a tendency to experience paralysis only during daylight hours, I'm not sure why. I also notice the room I'm actually in is very different from the room I was just experiencing. In the dreams I'm usually on my childhood bed, the couch from my grandmother's house, or somewhere else that I might have spent a lot of time when I was younger.

I don't experience this nearly as much as I used to. Months, sometimes even years will go by between episodes now. I can't even remember when I had the last one. Well the last one before the recent bout of episodes.

Recently I've started experiencing paralysis again, but the frequency has only just increased. There's something different this time though. I'm fully aware during the episodes now. They're not dreams. It's like I'm not asleep at all, just fully paralyzed. I can pick out all the different sounds around me. I can see all the details of the objects within my field of vision. I can even smell the environment, and when I can finally move, nothing changes. It doesn't feel like I'm waking up. I'm in the exact location I was during the episode. Lying in the exact position.

The first time this new experience happened, I had just woken up from a nap on my couch. My eyes opened up, and I was lying on my side staring in the direction of the TV. It was in the middle of the day and the whole room was drenched in light. Obviously I started freaking out immediately. I couldn't move a single limb on my body. All I could do was blink. My girlfriend walked into my field of vision. I tried to get her attention, but my vocal cords were completely seized up. While walking across the room she arrived in the center directly in front of me, she stopped in place. I was half expecting her to look over at me, but she never did. She just stood there staring forward. I tried my trick of screaming to wake up, but I couldn't get it to work. I just lied there staring at my girlfriend standing completely still with her arms at her side, staring directly in front of her.

I thought maybe I was stuck in a moment in time, similar to what you might experience during a psychedelic trip. However as the minutes turned into hours, the light in the room started to dim. Time was moving forward, and the sun was beginning to set. Eventually the room was bathed in darkness, being lit by nothing but the ambient light from outside. I could do nothing but stare at the silhouette of my girlfriend who continued to just stand perfectly still.

I remembered another trick I used to use to get out of this situation when I was a kid. I would just relax and let myself drift back into another dream. I was terrified, but I had no other choice. It used to work, and it has to now. I concentrated on relaxation techniques I've been collecting throughout a lifetime of living with anxiety. I slowed my breathing, deep breaths, in and out. I focused my mind, trying to empty out all thoughts. I felt my heartbeat slow down, my eyelids get heavy.

I woke up again, it was sometime in the morning the next day. I immediately tried to move and my entire body jolted. I was no longer paralyzed. My girlfriend started walking across the room again, my heart leapt. This time she immediately turned to look at me.

“Did you sleep the entire day away yesterday?”

“Um.”

I was still trying to collect my thoughts, my brain still waking up.

“It's fine,” she continued, “but we really need to try and take care of some chores today.”

She then continued walking by and into the kitchen.

“Were you able to get anything done yesterday?” I spoke with my voice raised so that she could hear me in the kitchen. She didn't respond at first. I thought maybe she didn't hear me.

“Um, I got caught up with my game. It's fine, so we both took the day off, we need that every now and then.”

There was something off about her response. It was almost like she was trying to think of a lie. I brushed it off.

When it happened again, I was in my bed, but she wasn't there. I lied on my side facing the empty side where she was supposed to be. The ambient light spilled over and around the curtains. It wasn't much, but it was enough for me to make out the world around me,I just couldn't see any details, mostly just shapes. The problem was, since I was on my side, there was an entire half of the room I couldn't see. I felt a presence. That shouldn't cause me fear, it's just my girlfriend, but it did for some reason. I could swear she was standing directly behind me. I could almost hear her breathing, almost feel the warmth radiating off of her, and then it slowly faded away. She was backing off. I could even hear the subtle sound of her feet moving across the carpet. I heard her walking around behind me, occasionally moving something, like she was looking for something, or even just something as benign as stretching her legs to relieve some restlessness. There was nothing actually sinister happening, so I practiced my meditation, and fell back into sleep.

In the morning while we were both getting ready for work, I made a mention of it.

“Trouble sleeping last night?”

“Nope, slept like a baby. Why?”

“Just thought I heard you get out of bed.”

“Oh, probably just got up to pee while I was half asleep, okay well I got to go babe.”

She kissed me and was out the door. It was so odd the way it felt like she was dodging my questions.

The next night I woke up on my back. I could see the entire room this time. She wasn't next to me again, but I also didn't see her anywhere else in the room. The bathroom door was wide open, and the light was off, so she wasn't in there. I wanted to go see if maybe she was just grabbing a midnight snack, but of course I couldn't move. I lied there for quite some time waiting for her to come back into our room. I was fairly calm due to the circumstances. It was odd how I was starting to get used to this new version of sleep paralysis. Like, I was still frightened, but I was fully awake and aware, knowing it was eventually going to end. Where was she though? It felt like I had been lying there for an hour, and she still hadn't come back to bed.

That's when something caught my eye. Nothing had moved the entire time save for the blades of the ceiling fan. No, there was something there this whole time that I hadn't noticed yet. Just at the foot of the bed, there was something round barely poking up from behind it. I focused my eyes on it. That's when I was finally able to make out my girlfriend's eyes peeking at me. She didn't move when I noticed her. She just stayed there staring at me. I tried to scream, I wanted to know what she was doing. We just stared into each other's eyes until the first rays of the rising sun started seeping into the room. Eventually her head slowly dropped down out of view. That was it, she didn't go anywhere, she just stayed hidden behind the foot of our bed.

My eyes bolted open as the alarm clock started going off. I looked over to see the light in the bathroom on. I snoozed the alarm.

“Honey?” I called into the bathroom.

“What?” Her mouth clearly full of toothpaste.

“Everything okay?”

I heard her spit into the sink.

She appeared in the bathroom doorway looking confused.

“Yeah, why?”

I dug around my brain to find a response, but came up empty.

“No reason,”

She returned into the bathroom. I heard the shower start.

“I'm just worried about you.” I continued

She returned to the door to look at me.

“Why?”

“You just seem to be getting up more in the middle of the night.”

“What are you talking about? I've actually been getting better sleep than I ever have.”

She turned around taking off her shirt.

“Is there a history of sleepwalking in your family?” I called out

“Can we talk about this later?” I heard the shower door slide open and then closed behind her.

“Sure.” I said defeatedly

When I got home from work she was on the couch with a laptop sitting on her criss-crossed legs. The TV was on, her favorite show playing, probably just filling in the background. I picked up the remote and paused it. She hardly even registered it. She didn't even acknowledge my arrival home.

“So, it's later.”

She looked up at me, raising her reading glasses onto her forehead.

“What?”

“You asked if we could talk about it later, well, it's later.”

“Oh, I don't even remember what it was you wanted to talk about.”

“If it's possible that you might be sleepwalking.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“I mean sure, I guess, but I don't think so.”

“I've been waking up in the middle of the night to you up and doing things.”

“You told me that you've always had vivid dreams.”

“No, I'm fully awake when it's happening.”

She lowered her reading glasses and looked back at the computer screen.

“What about that lucid dreaming thing you said you like to practice?”

“I never got good at it, and plus I haven't done that in years.”

She looked back at me over the glasses sitting on the tip of her nose.

“Clearly you're having side effects from the new sleep medication.” She looked back towards the screen. “I'll make you an appointment with Dr. Franz, and you should probably stop taking it.”

I gawked at her. I couldn't believe the way she would just gas light me like that. What was her angle, what was she trying to pull? Is this some big elaborate prank? I just couldn't believe she would use information I confided in her with against me like that. I stormed out of the room, it seemed like she didn't even notice.

I didn't talk to her for the rest of the day. I don't know if she noticed me intentionally staying out of the room she was in. It was childish I know, but I was just so angry. I stood there next to the bed staring down at her. By the sound of her breathing, I knew she was deep asleep. I really didn't want to get in bed next to her. Was I really being that petty? Then I remembered the couch. Yes, I am going to be that petty.

The problem with pettiness is that you always just end up hurting yourself. Specifically my neck. I slept with my head at a 45° angle against the arm rest of the couch. I forgot to grab a pillow, and I didn't want to go back to that room to get one. What I saw when I opened my eyes made me want to scream, but of course I couldn't because of the paralysis. There she was, the tip of her nose against the tip of mine. I couldn't see anything except for her eyes. They say eyes are the windows to the soul, and here I am not seeing one. Her eyes seemed dead, like there was no one looking back at me.

We remained locked, staring into each other's eyes for hours. No matter what breathing exercises I did, I could not calm myself down. I was absolutely petrified. When dawn finally arrived, I started to wonder if we were just going to stay there forever. Eventually she stood up and walked out of the room. This only frightened me more. Was she going to do something to me? I was completely defenseless. I heard her doing something in the other room. What could she be doing? Eventually she came back into the room fully dressed for work. She just glanced over at me for a moment and just kept walking. I heard the front door open and shut, the sound of her jingling keys, and the locks being engaged. She was gone for work. I could finally relax, and I fell asleep.

I woke up much later, the alarm faintly going off in the other room. I wandered in and shut it off. I called in to work and told them that there was a family emergency. I packed a bag and threw it into the passenger seat of my car. I just started driving to my parents house, which was several hours away.

I pulled over at a rest stop to take a leak. I looked at my phone to see a text from her.

“Hey, I know you're mad at me. Whatever it is, I'm sincerely sorry. Let's talk about it tonight. I love you so much. <3<3<3.”

I ignored it and got back on the road.

Normally I would just let myself into my parents house, seeing as how I have my own key, but this visit was unannounced, so I'll ring the bell. I didn't want to scare them or anything. My dad opened the door.

“Heeey! Well this is unexpected!”

“Hey dad.” We embraced for a hug.

“What brings you around to this side of the woods?”

“Uh.” I was at a loss for words.

“We'll get to that later, come on in, your mother is going to freak out when she sees you.”

I followed him through the house to my mother's sewing and crafts room.

“Hey, look what the cat dragged in.” My dad said as we walked into the room.

My mom was sitting in a rocking chair, a crochet hook in each hand, and a thread of yarn leading down into a duffle bag that I'm sure was full of several spools. She looked up and pulled down her reading glasses, letting them hang from her neck.

“What in the world?” She immediately smiled ear to ear and placed her project down on the TV tray to her right. She stood up and made her way over to me.

“Hi mom.” We squeezed each other tight. She always has to mention how much she likes my bear hugs.

“What are you doing here? I mean, it's not that I'm not elated to see you.”

I rubbed the back of my head.

“Well I..”

“Wait, where's..”

“Back at home.” I cut her off.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just..uh..”

My parents looked at each other with silent communication. It was obvious they think we're in a fight.

“Oh okay,” she said sorrowfully, “well you know that you're always welcome to stay as long as you need to.”

“Thank you.” My phone started ringing. It was her. My parents looked at each other again.

“We'll be in the front room.” They both walked out. I felt bad, I didn't mean to kick my mom out of her space.

“Heey Babe.”

“Hey, are you stuck at work?”

I closed the door to the hallway.

“I am so sorry I didn't tell you before I left, but I didn't want to bother you at work. I'm at my parents house. Buster has taken a turn for the worse.”

“Oh no! I'm so sorry.”

“Yeah, I took a week off work. I wanted to spend some time with him before he crossed the bridge.”

She took an extra long pause.

“A whole week huh?”

“Yeah, that felt appropriate to me. I'm not sure if he'll even last that long though. Probably stay an extra few days to be here with my parents while they grieve.”

“Okay, I'd head over as well, but I don't know if I can take that time off work right now.”

“Hey, don't worry about it, I'll see you when I get home.”

“Okay, be safe, love you.”

“Love you.”

Those last words did not ring hollow, I really did love her. I do love her. I love her with all my heart. I just don't know what's going on.

I opened the door to a chihuahua terrier mix wagging their tail.

“Buster!” I said in a playful gravely voice

I picked him up, and he licked my face.

That night I was looking through my bag.

“Shit, I think I forgot my medication.”

“Your sleeping pills?” My mom asked.

I looked up at her, “no,” and looked back down into the bag. “I don't take sleeping pills.”

“Really? I thought you did. Oh, maybe that was…”

“Yeah, she does, not me. Damn!” I looked back up at her defeated. “They're not in here.”

“Well, what do you take, maybe your father or I have something you can take instead.”

I started rummaging through my bag again, this time looking for my toiletries.

“I can't remember what it's called, but it's for anxiety, my doctor just switched me over to it, since the last one wasn't working.”

“You take your anxiety medication before bed?”

I pulled my tooth brush out and set it to the side. I kept rummaging.

“That's what the label says to do. Well anyway, it's not that big of a deal, I literally just started taking it, I guess I could go another week without it.” I looked back up at her, “do you have any extra toothpaste?”

I slept just fine for the entire week I was there. I guess I just needed a break. Maybe the stress of my job was interfering with my sleep. I was still worried about going home. My anxiety grew the closer the time came that I would have to go.

“Did you patch things up?” My mom asked while I was packing my things.

“Not exactly, we'll talk about it when I get home.”

“Remember what I said, you're free to stay here as long as you need to.”

I looked up at her, "Believe me, I wish I could stay here indefinitely,” I continued packing, “but I've got to get back to work.”

I got home really late, she was already fast asleep. I looked down at her, I was suddenly struck with guilt for lying to her. She was so beautiful lying there peacefully asleep. I really am still absolutely madly in love with her. We're going to get this patched up, I have a feeling this nightmare was about over.

I woke up in the middle of night, I was immediately terrified that it was all happening again. Right up until I felt my fingers move. I tried turning my head, and it obeyed me. A wave of relief washed over me. I chuckled to myself and sat up putting my feet on the floor. Oh man, I think I really did just need a break. It was just stress. I stood up and turned around. There she was, standing in the middle of the floor, staring directly at me. I yelped out in fear.

“Oh my god, you scared the shit out of me.”

She didn't respond.

“Hun?”

I walked up to her, she didn't follow me with her eyes. She just stayed locked in the same position. I waved my hand in front of her face. I snapped, I clapped, I even shook her. She wouldn't budge. It suddenly dawned on me that I forgot to take my medication last night. I ran into the bathroom and opened up the medicine cabinet. I found my anxiety pills and found its generic name [REDACTED]. I then pulled out her medication bottle, it had a different name. Both labels with Dr. Franz printed on them, which was unsurprising since we both see the same family doctor.

I went and grabbed my phone off the side table and unplugged it. Holding my phone along with the two bottles I went and sat on the couch. First I googled mine. It wasn't anti-anxiety, it was in fact a sleep aid. Why would he prescribe that to me? I don't have problems sleeping. Aside from that, I couldn't find much more information. I had to dig really far to find a paper on it. It wasn't old at all, in fact it was from last year. It hadn't even entered human trials yet. I then looked up the medication my girlfriend was taking. It was also a sleep aid that was experimental. Why would he put us on two different sleep aids? The paper I found for her medication was actually from this year. It had just entered human trials, and there was only one test subject. I looked back at the front page and saw the authors name Dr. [REDACTED] Franz. With a sudden realization, I went back and searched for my medication again, this time with the keyword: Franz. Sure enough there it was. It entered human trials this year, with only one test subject.

I became very angry.

“I never signed anything!”

Then another realization hit, and I smiled.

“Wait, I never signed anything."

We were about to be very rich. I'm going to sue the absolute shit out of everyone involved. As soon as her medication wears off, and she wakes up, I'll tell her everything. We'll stop taking this poison, and everything will go back to normal.

There's just one problem, it's been three days since I've come home, and she's still standing in the middle of the floor. She won't snap out of it, I don't know what to do.