Issue date: 10/30/09 Section: The Verge

Oct. 12 I was lying cozy in my bed trying to sleep around 2 a.m. I spent the whole day doing the daily routine of classes, work and then more work. Let's just say my little pink bunny needed a recharge by this point.

All was at peace as I began to drift to sleep. I started to dream of family and friends from home like my dad, my brother, my best friend from seventh-grade and even an ex-girlfriend. It was all pure and blissful as we reminisced of passed times and caught up on our lives now.

Then suddenly I realized an image of me trying to sleep, but still in my dream state, all of these people grabbed me by the arms tightly as I began to gravitate away from them.

I opened my eyes and glanced down at my wrist as I lay in head to toe paralysis. What I saw was two black shadows for arms and hands grabbing my wrists as though they were confiding me to the bed as if it were a prison cell.

I closed my eyes, and I began to focus. Nearly this same situation has happened many times before. All I needed to do was tell myself to wake up and it would all be over.

But it wasn't working. I started trying to move with all my desire. I couldn't budge. All my focus shifted to telling myself to wake up by moving my neck.

Suddenly I felt a twitch. I tried with every ounce of strength in my capabilities and began moving my neck to and fro until I was truly awake. I looked at my wrists, and I tasted sweet freedom in the chilled air.

Sweat trickled from every limb, as I lay shaking, but still motionless, in a state of shock.

According to the Web site WebMD.com, sleep paralysis is "a feeling of being conscious but unable to move," and "it occurs when a person passes between stages of wakefulness and sleep." The Web site continues by saying people can experience speechlessness, pressure and even a sense they are choking.

My mom told me this next story a couple years back, and I never understood its meaning until now.

I must have been in kindergarten, when she remembers me never wanting to sleep in a room alone. My mom came to the understanding that I was either afraid of the dark or I just wanted to sleep in my parent's room. Usually instead of arguing she would just make a bed for me in my brother's room.

One night, for what reason she can't remember, but I slept in my own room. She awoke to my blood-curdling scream. She ran into the room and I was sweating shaking and had pushed my way between the bed and the wall. She remembers this story because there was no consoling me.

I laid in shock white as pure cotton and pushed her away each time she tried hugging me. My words were all screams and cries as I laid motionless staring at a corner gap in the meeting of the walls and the ceiling.

She explains the story as if ghost or a demon visited me, but what it really was, I'm still unsure.

"Over the centuries, symptoms of sleep paralysis have been described in many ways and often attributed to "evil" presences: unseen night demons in ancient times, the old hag in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and alien abductors," according to WebMD. "Almost every culture throughout history has had stories of shadowy evil creatures that terrify helpless humans at night. But sleep researchers now know that, in most cases, sleep paralysis is simply a sign that your body is not moving smoothly through the stages of sleep. Rarely is sleep paralysis linked to deep underlying psychiatric problems."

So I "rarely" have to worry about psychiatric problems. I can't guess when this will happen. There isn't a known cure. Or, for all scientist know, I could truly be possessed by the devil, because there isn't a way to prove this wrong.

So tonight when you go to bed, don't let the demons get you, they rarely lead to any other problems.

Brad York can be reached at 581-7942 or bayork@eiu.edu.

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