has anyone ever come out of their sleep paralysis screaming bloody murder. I haven’t had it recently but the last few times, I have woken up like horror movie screaming at the top of my lungs. I think it’s bc I’ll be trying to talk/scream while I’m in it and when I wake up all the built up pressure just makes it come out. It scares me and the people I livr with and I just want to know if anyone feels the same. I also feel insanely like physically tired when I wake up from it like I’ve been exercising or something.

I 19F previously suffered from ptsd, so I am unfortunately familiar with terrible nightmares, and I had experienced sleep paralysis once a few months before too, the regular "scary entity crawled from my window to my bed" thing. What worries me is what happened this time felt nothing like I had ever experienced before?
I woke up around 6 am, I thought I'd not sleep back so I took my morning med which is 40 mg Citoles. It's hard for me to swallow pills so I take a saline version, which sometimes causes me to accidentally take a bit more than my usual dose, and this morning I accidentally took 70mg. Ik citoles isnt a heavy med and although I have BPD and AUDHD I don't think it could've effected me or triggered anything?

Before the seizure-like thing, I experienced a common occuring dream theme I have again where I wake up in the dream, to the pov I would wake up irl too, except the environment around me is either slightly or completely distorted. This time I saw the plushes in my bed and in my room besides the window frames of the windows belonging to the buildings I could see out of my window upon waking up. Usually dreams in this theme are more overwhelming, I see the colour of everything more vividly? And I feel so nauseous during them, and usually they feel too long, when I wake up I feel fatigue and nauseas asf, though this time it was so so so much shorter and not much nauseating.

Anyway and then I "really wake up". I'm not sure at this part if I was awake, because I felt too many things and it all felt so so so real, and I could think too. But somehow it didnt feel as real or I ddint feel nowhere mear as awake as I was when I was experiencing sleep paralysis. So when I "woke up", I felt a slight buzzing noise in my head, like a battery working mixed with static noise? Anyway, so I see the mirror in fromt of my bed, and I see a black thing behind me. I'm used to seeing shadows out the corner of my eye, I wasn't sure if its sleep paralysis and I keep trying to convince myself that its not and it's just me miss-seeing something, and that there's nothing there. I try to move but I can't , I can't make noise at all either. I try to call for mom, I can't. The buzzing static noise keeps increasing and I can feel the vibrations in my head, it gets worrying and I start to believe I might be experiencing a seizure, so I try to reach for my phone, it's hard but when I do the buzzing noise stops and everything is back to normal?

I don't know if this is sleep paralysis because I was so sleepy throughout it, I didn't feel as awake as the other time, but everything was so real, I had never experienced a dream or anything similar like that before. Even the most realistic ones weren't like this, I PHYSICALLY FELT the buzzing in my head. I felt everything, I was just really really sleepy. I don't understand what it is?

I’ve been experiencing SP for at least the last 12 or so years. It used to only occur when i was sleeping on my back, and as soon as I flipped on my side it would go away

Last night, I was trying and failing to sleep for several hours. It was 5am by the time I felt sleep coming for me. But alas it was a bout of SP, which was hyperrealistically woven into my dreams, and I even got groped… worse still, it wouldnt go away no matter if i was on my back or my side.

Anyone also experienced this issue and managed to make it go away / improve? Desperate and so sleepy now

I’ve had the exact same experience twice in the past month, and I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar.

Both times, it started as a completely normal dream. Then, at some point, I suddenly found myself standing still, feeling someone or something poking me extremely hard in the back of my side ribs.

The pain felt unreal, almost as if my ribs were being crushed or my bones were breaking from the inside. I tried to move my head, torso, and legs, but I couldn’t move at all.

I then tried to fight back using my hands. I grabbed the hand that was poking me and tried to pull it away, but no matter how hard I pulled, I couldn’t remove it. Eventually, I started pinching the hand as hard as I possibly could, almost as if I were trying to pinch the flesh off it.

But instead of stopping, the poking just got harder and more intense.

Then, while I was pinching the hand, I felt multiple hands grabbing and restraining my own hands with an abnormal amount of strength. I couldn’t overpower them, and the painful sensation in my ribs continued until I suddenly woke up.

What makes this so strange to me is that the exact same phenomenon has happened twice, with the same intense physical sensations and inability to move.

Has anyone experienced anything like this? Could it be sleep paralysis, even though it happens within a dream? I’d genuinely like to hear from people who have experienced something similar.

I don't experience sleep paralysis as often as other people do, maybe 2-3 times a month, if Im lucky, once a month. But I have had like 2 maybe 3 types of SP epidodes and i want to know if it is normal. The first is less common for me but is what i see to be more common for others which is the, "cant move and see OR feel someone in the same room", this one is rare for me and sometimes i feel someone in the room, sometimes i do see a shadow. The other which is more common for me and is not one i hear about often and my doctor has also never heard of it but it is usually when I come home from work or school SO tired that i just hit my bed and knock out, usually on my side (I mention this because when I sleep on my back, that is when I get the first type of SP that i mentioned) and then suddenly I feel awake but my eyes are shut and I cant move and I don't actually feel someone there but im like supper panicked, then I feel like I can rock myself a little, so usually I try so hard to rock myself until i can fully have control of my body and I this is how I alway get out of these type of episodes.

I guess my question is, does anyone else have more than one type of SP episodes. and can anyone relate to my 2nd type of SP episode.

As the title says, I experienced sleep paralysis for the first time last night. Maybe I was just lucky, but it wasn’t a dreadful/terrifying experience. I still wouldn’t want to do it again.

Not sure if it’s important, but I very rarely experience exploding head syndrome (usually once every few months), usually, it’s a flash of red or white light in conjunction with a sound resembling loud TV static or a gunshot. I’m instantly snapped fully awake when this happens. It didn’t occur during this experience.

Last night, I was asleep and lying on my left side, facing my bedroom door. Sometimes I’ll wake up at night to adjust my position or drink some water, which is what I assumed was happening. I panicked a little when I wasn’t able to move. I opened my eyes and saw a shape moving around my room, exploring and sniffing like a curious dog. It was pitch black and resembled a quadrupedal canine with pointed ears (think of that recent video floating around of the maned wolf at night) and it had small glowing green points of light for eyes. Once I was aware of what was happening, it turned to look directly at me with an unnaturally smooth motion before slowly walking toward me, stopping at the side of my bed and looking down at me. It leaned forward and seemed to sniff my face before taking a step back, but I didn’t feel anything.

It was fairly tall, my head was about level with its chest while I was lying down. It seemed to emit a soft, almost mechanical humming sound that, while not loud, overpowered the sound of the fan in the room. It then spoke to me. It had a soft, deep male voice that sounded like several voices layered together. It said “Hey, how are you? Are you okay? You should be okay. Don’t let them find you. Goodbye.”

It then backed away, still staring at me before turning around and walking toward my bedroom door. It seemed to liquefy into a puddle that slid out of the room through the small gap under my door. I was able to move as soon as it was gone, looking down at the two cats still happily sleeping next to me. The entire experience seemed to take 30-60 seconds, but I could t say exactly.

I didn’t have any sense of pressure or fear during the experience, and I had no feeling that the thing was malicious or that something else was watching me, it was all just very strange.

I have had Sleep Paralysis off and on since I was a kid. But typically I dont have any of the visual side effects. It's usually just me waking up, unable to move. It's always been distressing and terrifying. But a few weeks ago, I had my first visual side effect.

So if I am in bed, laying on my left side, my bathroom door is directly across from me. When I work up, experiencing my sp, I could see a dark outline in the bathroom doorway. It was tall and person shaped.

While I was still unable to move, I started rationalizing it in my brain. "Oh it's probably just a towel you have hanging on the bathroom door." It wasn't until i fully woke up and was able to move to turn on my light, that I remembered that I leave my bathroom door open and I dont have a hook or anything on it for a towel. I always drape my towel over my shower rod. 🤦‍♀️ but in that moment between asleep and awake I had convinced myself that that was the only explanation

I've had multiple dreams where I've suddenly felt someone poking my back inbetween my ribs and hips in that sensitive area on and I am unable to wake up in time to disrupt the pain and discomfort until I wake up, but feels like its going on for half a minute or so. Its excruciating and keeps happening, I've had at least 4 sleep paralysis experiences but feeling the sensition over the last two weeks. Any insights on this? Similar experiences?

i need your help figuring out what this is. Sometimes when I try to go to sleep, my body will stop moving. I’m awake, but i’m also having an intense dream or nightmare. It’s not sleep paralysis. My eyes aren’t awake. Although I used to have regular sleep paralysis and my eyes were closed but it has evolved into something so much more. Sometimes i will feel like i’m about to die. As if my body is crushing in on itself. Loud, excruciatingly loud noises often accompany this phenomena. What i see is often very vivid, or very distressing. Just now i “woke up”, even though I was technically trapped in a dream of 2 cranes attaching themselves to a mountain with one eye in the middle. Like an illuminati symbol. I felt like the mountain in a sense that it felt like literal cranes were attaching themselves onto my head and it actually hurt very bad and i couldn’t get out. Meanwhile super loud noises are playing in my head. The whole time i know im stuck, and I know im having an episode. Another example, I will literally feel like im slipping away out of consciousness, like about to die, but it’s an unpleasant excruciating feeling. Only when I accept it and it gets to the absolute brink of my discomfort do I wake up. What is this??

I often wake up very disoriented or dizzy from these situations. Sometimes it’ll be really bad and I’ll wake up as if nothing just happened and go back to sleep. As I type this right now, my head literally still hurts. Please help

My husband helps when I have sleep paralysis. I know what's happening during it, but I still feel trapped and try to scream.

Even after it's over, I'm afraid to go back to sleep. For those whose partner helps too, what do you want them to say or do once you're awake?

I’ve had sleep paralysis a few times, I’ve never seen anything in my room and thankfully my partner has woken me up because of my whimpering.

This time I was back home alone visiting my parents. Middle of the night, having a dream about some sort of humanoid entity hurting people. It was out back kind of trapped in a garden area in a house I’d never been in before. Felt like a city I’d never been to, too.

Come to find out the only way to get the entirety to leave is let it enter my body then fight it off from within.

So I did. It felt like sleep paralysis, and I recognized it as such, but from within my dream. Maybe I was partially awake, since part of me knew I was dreaming.

Regardless, I struggled with it within me and used all my might to break free, and when I did it was gone; but I didn’t wake up. Dreamt for a little while longer and felt a lot of relief, and people were really thankful around me.

Bizarre! Curious if anyone has had something similarly where they willingly went into sleep paralysis?

Edit: typos. Do my best proofreading after posting 🤦🏻‍♂️

I have been having sleep paralysis since college (I am 43 now) and seems to become more intense as I age. I don’t have any auditory or visual hallucinations, but I still cannot calm myself; trying to wiggle a toe or finger to get out of it, like they suggest, feels impossible for me. It’s like my brain immediately goes into fight-or-flight mode and always convinces me that THIS is the time I’ll be able to get out of it if I try hard enough. It ends the same every time; I start panicking and struggle to get a moan out to wake my husband, I feel him shaking me but I still can’t get out of it. I get worried when he stops shaking me, because I’m still not out of it, and use all my energy to moan again so he shakes me harder. He has been having to shake me harder and harder for longer periods of time the last 2 times. The panic gets amplified the longer it goes and I start convincing myself I’m having a stroke or a heart attack and it’s terrifying. When I finally come out of it, it’s almost like my brain hurts and is fuzzy from struggling so hard to moan and get it out of it. Last night I was so scared to go back to sleep, I had to turn the tv on and distract my mind. It’s so scary because I feel like I’m going to die, although logically I know I’ve been dealing with this off and on for the last 20+ years. I do struggle with anxiety and take clonazepam as needed, but not every night. I do notice it happens more often on the nights I don’t take it. However, I don’t believe it’s medication related because I started having SP long before I was taking any kind of benzodiazepine anxiety medication. I did take Effexor, an SSRI, for depression in college. I weaned off it in my late 20’s and haven’t been on an SSRI since. The very first SP episode I had in college, I was taking a nap and opened my eyes to see my roommate in our room, getting things out of her drawer. I tried to talk and wake up but couldn’t. It was very scary, and it turned out she wasn’t home that day so it was the only time I had a visual hallucination with it. It got so much worse in my 30’s after I had kids; the erratic sleep and deprivation that comes with pregnancy / babies made it start happening several times a month. It got better for a period of time, and I think when I started taking Clonazepam, but I obviously don’t want to be dependent on it or take it every night for that purpose. I know what a slippery slope benzo dependence is and I don’t want to risk it. Right now I’m having SP every few weeks.
Does anyone have any suggestions for not going into that immediate fight-or-flight panic? I read that the adrenaline makes it worse, but I literally can’t NOT fight against it. Should I stop trying to get my husband to wake me? I read the shaking can make it worse. I keep thinking that there is something wrong and I am going to have a heart attack one day because I truly feel like I’m suffocating / dying. The fact that it’s been taking longer and longer to get out of it is causing so much anxiety. I don’t know anyone who has SP so any tips are much appreciated.

I’ve never had sleep paralysis until this morning October/26/2026, I had a very powerful sleep paralysis event. I realized I couldn’t move and it felt like it got more powerful the more terrified I got because images of an entity kept intruding my thoughts and the more it visualized itself in my mind the more helpless and stuck I felt like someone holding you down without any hands. The images were flashing so powerful it was hard to stop. I heard a buzzing noise similar to a low deep vibrating pitch frequency and I thought something bad was gonna happen so I tried moving and could only make my wrist vibrate from trying to think about moving and started thinking about me leaving my room over and over again until I could move my body out of the room. It seemed demonic as it felt like something was in the room with me. A couple days before that, the tv in my living room randomly turned on by itself and a church sermon was playing.

Idk if it’s me, but has anyone else had any coincidental or weird events happen before or after a sleep paralysis event?
It’s my first one and idk how to feel about it?

Last week, I had the most intense night of sleep I’ve ever had.
It started with a normal dream. I was in my room when my grandmother came in and climbed onto my desk to clean something on the ceiling. The strange part is that she has emphysema and could never physically climb onto a desk like that.
That impossible detail made me realize, “Wait… this is a dream.” It was my first real lucid dream.
But about five seconds after I realized I was dreaming, I “woke up” in my bed. Except I couldn’t move. I was in sleep paralysis.
I had experienced sleep paralysis once before, about three years earlier. That time, I felt extreme pressure on my body, like gravity had been multiplied, but I didn’t hallucinate because I was facing a wall and couldn’t see anything.
This time was different. I was facing my wardrobe. When I opened my eyes, I saw strange shapes and face-like figures getting closer to me. Because I already knew what sleep paralysis was, I didn’t panic as much. I kept my eyes open on purpose because I was curious and wanted to see what the hallucinations would look like.
After the paralysis ended, I didn’t get up, turn on a light, or check my phone. I just thought, “fuck it,” and went back to sleep almost immediately.
But as I was falling back asleep, about three seconds later, I saw my grandmother’s face again. This time, it looked zombie-like and skeletal, with completely black eyes, and she was staring at me. I fell asleep with chills all over my body.
When I finally fell back asleep, I entered another lucid dream. But this time, I wasn’t excited about it. Because of what I had just seen during sleep paralysis — the figures, the faces, and my grandmother’s zombie-like face — I immediately wanted to get out of the dream. I was afraid the entities would come back.
So I kept trying to wake up. I would try to force myself awake by giving myself sudden impulses or trying to move violently. Each time, I thought I had finally woken up, but after a while I would realize I was still dreaming. It was a false awakening loop.
The longer it went on, the more scared I became. At one point, I genuinely thought my parents were going to visit me in a hospital because I was in a coma, and that I would never be able to wake up from the dream.
Eventually, I did wake up for real.

8-10 Months back I had this experience and it was awful, to be honest, awful doesnt do it justice. Basically, plain and simple, right before bed as I was falling asleep, I started to hear this static and that was that, I couldnt move at all. The static grew and grew and I was lying facing the wall so I could only imagine there was something behind me, something just awful, I couldnt move and I felt so sick like I was about to vomit and my heart hurt so bad, this sense of impending doom and dread was on me like it was my time to die, I didnt see anything, and after a minute, that was it, I could move and I will never forget that feeling.

i’ve always experienced sp. but this time is different.

my typical sp experience is “waking up” in my room. and this has been so typical that i come to recognize it, relax, and make it just pass by.

but last night was different. i was dreaming and the scene/scenery has just paused. i was NOT in my room but was in this fantasy world, unable to move. it’s like my background has all become a painting still and i could not move forward to the next scene! so imagine i am in a movie and someone just hit pause. that is how it felt like. it’s also a new exp, that i didn’t recognize it was sp right away.

when i woke up suddenly, it’s when i realize i was on sp and unfortunately, it took on a new form. i am so tired

I already wrote this entire thing and it got erased and so I'm gonna sum it up real quickly. For starters, I do a lot of weird stuff in my sleep. I sleep walk, talk, text, call, and roleplay(don't ask). I've even woken up right after a dream one time, thought it was real, ask my parents about it thencfulky wake up and just be like, "what the hell did I just say??" Now the problem, it first started when I woke up one night at around 3am and felt like I was being watched and thought it was just my mom or dad at first putting firty clothes in the closet but I didn't hear them leave or any breathing. I was laying on my stomach facing the wall and waited for the feeling to go away, my eyes were open but I felt something approach me and trace my leg. I eventually fell back asleep and woke up the next morning a little shaken up.

Same thing happened the next night but on my shoulder. This thing did not feel kind, it felt terrifying malicious. This house was my great grandpa's and he passed it to my mom when he passed but he didn't die in the house. He cat did though, so we got a friendly little ghost cat, that's not important though. I didn't have another night like that for a while but one day when I was drawing in my room, I was laying on my stomach and felt something rest on the bed by my feet. I thought it was my cat but them heard some distorted messed up meow from the corner where I would feel something watching me in the middle of the night.

I snapped around and nothing was there, no cat, nothing. I was obviously shooken up and left my room for a bit and found out that my cat was actually in the basement so it couldn't have been him. I told my parents and that convinced my mom to splash some holy water left behind by my great grandpa in my room. Didn't do anything. I had another night where I woke up feeling like I was being watched and touched. During these nights I would be too scared to move and barely even dared to breathe. Another day, I had a similar experience with meowing but instead in was like a low distorted hiss from the corner. I left my room again and my cat wasn't in there. This stuff happened over a year ago and I've always thought it was something paranormal, I've always been a skeptic and my parents and some friends believe I might be psychic or something, whatever that means. But I've recently looked back at this and thought, maybe it was sleep paralysis. I don't know what that would mean about the noises in the corner of my room though. It just doesn't seem right. I never tried to move during these nights so I'm not sure if it was sleep paralysis or not. I guess I'm looking for advice or guidance? If anyone knows what this is or can give me some kind of advice.

Hey guys, I myself don't have Sleep paralysis and these stories will be many years back. A friend of mine mentioned having sleep paralysis today and I remembered these stories. I asked my brother and he retold them to me again the way he remembers them.

For context, both of these happened when he had loft bed, which was when he was around 3rd grade (9 years old) and are the reason we got rid of it.

The first nightmare(?) Was of him waking up in his bed and the room being really bright, and he looked down to the door (which was visible from his bed) and there was a burning person. Doubt that was sleep paralysis from the little I know about it, but I might as well put it in here.

The other one sounded much closer for me. He woke up with his blanket being partially off (so not entirely covering him) and a dark figure was moving up his beds ladder. In this one he was entirely unable to move.

Like I said before, he was very young at that time and I don't really know much about Sleep Paralysis. This was just a 2am thought that occurred to me because of a conversation earlier and he couldn't give a definite response. Nothing like this has happened again since the second one (and we got rid of that bed).

Thank you for reading all that :)

P.S.: english isn't my forst language, apologies for any mistakes I made in the post.

Edit: Also, he is 21 now and his narrative sounded pretty much like what I remembered from what he told me as kids. He also said that he will never forget that. Understandably so.

ok i knew i fell asleep with my phone by me i wake up facing the wall but im unable to move i’m trying super hard it was like someone was holding me down i finally get able to move my arms but it seems delayed like i am doing daggering movements and my hands are following thru after all of a sudden i go down and wake up again in the same spot i know im conscious in aware and i’m scared i do my hands again this time slightly easier to move but my legs are unable to move at all the only thing i was thinking about was getting up i go down again and wake up this time i was like i need to call my sister unable to get my phone i wanted to use the hey siri feature i couldn’t even talk it was muffled not clear i pick my phone up now i see my reflection and im distorted then all of a sudden my phone goes to my face i wake up again but now im out of it

just to clarify i’ve never experienced anything of sleep paralysis before

I was way too scared to open my eyes after it woke me up last night, since this most likely happened around 3am/the witching hour, so I’m posting this now. I was in between dreams (they were kinda random, as they tend to be when I get headaches), but I felt weirdly conscious of myself sleeping in my room. It felt like I was already awake, and I swear I heard a voice loud and clear say “Karen and Kris, prepare to cry.” I had no idea who the voice was talking about (I don’t know anyone named either, irl), though I have cosplayed as Kris from the game Deltarune before, so I wonder if it meant me? Nothing more happened with me or the voice, but I tried to ask who was speaking, and my voice didn’t work for at least a full minute. It could have been longer if the paralysis altered how time went. I’ve been playing a lot of Stardew Valley, and I’ll be honest, the voice sounded a lot like I imagine the witch from the game to sound. “Witch” was the only word that would form for me while I was trying to converse, but I still couldn’t say anything else. It was the weirdest, most migraine-inducing, nerdy sleep paralysis, I swear, but it still scared the crap outta me.

I just remembered how i experienced a kind of strange sleep paralysis like two years ago - i was in a car and like really tired and i had my eyes closed, trying to fall asleep. But then this like weird feeling came onto me like my lids are increadibly heavy and i need to close my eyes. But the thing is it didnt happen automatically, it was my choice if i wanted to close them, but it was kinda hard to fight the feeling, so i did close them. After that I couldnt open my eyes!! I was normally aware of my surroundings, I could hear everything but i couldn't open my eyes, move or talk but i did let out a hum and i remembered how youre supposed to move your fingers first so i did and i think that i even opened my eye a tiny bit, but it was still like my lids are heavy and cant completely open them and after like a minute maybe i could move again and everything was normal.

does anyone have any ideas about this? the thing that seems weird to me is that i wasnt sleeping when it happened, i was completely awake, just with closed eyes, but not sleeping. And also that I could kind of choose whether i submit to the weird feeling of needing to close my eyes.

just experienced a sleep paralysis. I was having a vivid dream about work then I felt the second it transitioned to me sleeping in my room and I felt three pokes. by the second poke I felt annoyed but after the third I felt that I was held down and repeatedly pushed hard into the bed. I had a suddent urge to yell. idk if I did in the paralysis dream but I heard a loud suction sound which was probably me taking a breathe in realtime then I woke up and turned on the light. it happened quick like within 30 seconds. it was wierd… only other time I had a paralysis dream was when I was like probably 4 or 5 which I remember it was this clown that was half bloody half in back and white laying behind me on my bed with an armed propped to lift their head as they stared at me and smiled and I was able to slightly turn my head back to look but I couldn’t move. Eventually I called for my mom and that ended. Such a weird feeling lol

I use a blue light in my bedroom. Just for context. That night when I walked into my room, my ears immediately started ringing and I felt off almost like I had been drugged and parts of my body just exploded with nerve pain. I have chronic illness so I just kind of chalked it up to that and didn’t think anything of it, but I was freaked out. I could just tell something was off, but I got into bed and I must’ve fallen asleep with the blue light still on. I had a disturbing dream and in the dream basically ended up with feeling something holding me down and when I opened my eyes, I could see things in my room because I left the light on accidentally. Still had clothes hanging out of drawers and things on my nightstand I could see in my peripheral vision that was all there that night that I fell asleep. So I knew I was awake like there was no way I was dreaming. That’s when I realized there was pressure on my ankles, and when I focused in front of me, there was this version of me like it had my face, but it was so pale. It had almost like see-through electrical tape, (you know the black kind.) over the eyes in one long strip and over the Mouth in one long strip as well, but I could see my facial features like my eyes and my lips through it. Around the body was the same sort of tape or bandage? And it just had this essence of black smoke kind of hanging around it. That’s when I realized I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t move and I’m just staring at this thing that’s looking at me and I can’t really describe what her facial features were, but it almost looked like longing or curiosity? I was screaming like in my head, let go of me and kicking in my mind and I just couldn’t move or make a sound and it’s almost like this weight released off of me and my body did exactly what I was thinking of and I kicked and screamed like coming out of a trance and the demon thing just sunk back into a mirror that is by the foot of my bed. Needless to say I was pretty freaked out and I grabbed every Crystal I had even though I don’t really understand any of that shit at this point I know I need to do more research so don’t judge me on that.😂 but I just slept with all my crystals because I didn’t know what else to do. I had a pretty big life change happened during this and I had some other weird things going on that almost felt like the universe was picking a bone with me. Giving all of this for context just to see if anyone else has experienced this too? Anyone else have a sleep paralysis demon that looks like a messed up version of you?

I've had sleep paralysis a few times: awake, can't move, and the feeling that something is pressing down on you.

What fascinates me is that nearly every culture around me has a name for it:

Malaysia: kena tindih, being sat on

Indonesia: ketindihan

Vietnam: ma đè, the ghost pressing down

Thailand: phi am, the spirit that covers you

Philippines: bangungot, tied to nightmares people are said not to wake from

Science explains it as the brain waking before the body does. But it's striking that so many cultures, separately, describe the same thing: something heavy, sitting on you.

If you've had it, did you see or feel anything? And what does your culture call it?