My sleep seems to be getting more and more terrifying and bizarre. I keep getting trapped in other realms/dimensions and am not able to wake up. I call out but I’m stuck behind a veil and no one can hear me. I reach for the light switch beside my bed but no light will turn on. I don’t know if I’m awake or asleep. On Sunday night when it happened again I felt like something was coming for me from the sky outside. I had the choice to die, to go with it or fight it. And while I want to die all the time, when I had death presented to me like this I didn’t want it anymore. All I could think of was how I hadn’t told my dad that I loved him enough. It wasn’t a nice place I was in. It wasn’t a peaceful place. I believe I’m experiencing some kind of demonic, spiritual oppression. I was being led to death. I wondered when my dad would find my dead body as I sleep so late; he probably would have thought I was sleeping, but this time I never get up. I finally managed to snap out of it. I had been hyperventilating and sweating. I then woke up my dad who I live with crying and telling him I’m so scared.

I don’t know when this all started…. several years ago I think. I wonder whether the marijuana I took many years ago opened the door for these “sleep demons” to get in. I had a drug-induced psychosis which felt very similar except that it was all visible to the people around me.

I was awake all night for several nights recently and I find sleep deprivation seems to trigger these trippy experiences. My dad gave me a bible which someone from his church gave him when he told them about my experiences. She said she’s been visited by dark forces as well and suggested I tell them to get out in Jesus’s name. I think I also need to keep an emergency buzzer next to my bed, like what they give elderly people in case they have a fall. But I’m not sure it would work as I am not able to interact with this world when I am stuck in these other dimensions.

I started searching the internet for people who have had similar experiences. I found this interesting article about near death experiences that are frightening as opposed to pleasant. The bit that stood out to me was the idea that these near death experiences are a message, or second chance, to turn one’s life around. I also started reading about sleep paralysis, which sounds a lot like what I am experiencing. I read three articles: article one, two and three. Basically, sleep paralysis is where you become conscious yet your body is still in REM sleep. REM sleep is the phase of sleep where we dream, and the body is paralysed to stop us from acting the dreams out, thrashing about and injuring ourselves. During sleep paralysis, you are half awake, half asleep. You start to return to waking life, but you cannot move. The experience is usually terrifying and is accompanied by dissociative out-of-body feelings, “hallucinations”, and “delusions” where something very bad seems to be happening. You hear, see, feel, or sense something demonic in your bedroom. The more you panic, the scarier the “hallucinations” and “delusions” become. As I wrote before, it reminds me of the creative filter I have on my camera which turns photos monochrome. I use the filter to changes the whole mood of the picture. That is what this experience is like. Your usual surroundings suddenly feel dark and demonic. Sleep paralysis is different from normal dreams in that it’s set within a person’s sleeping environment.

I watched this video of sleep paralysis caught on camera, and I know it’s real just from the way the poor guy hugs his family when he comes out of it. I can relate to this as I truly feel like I’m dying and am so glad to wake up and be reunited with the people I love.

Apparently sleep paralysis is more common in people who are younger and people who have traits of imaginativeness and are prone to dissociation. Other factors that increase the risk of sleep paralysis include high levels of stress, disruptions to a person’s normal sleep cycle, jet lag, sleep deprivation, chronic pain, substance use, and poor mental health such as depression, PTSD and panic disorder. I thought it would be something people with a schizotypal personality would experience so I searched my schizotypal support group for accounts and found many. One member said they slept with their dogs and their dogs didn’t seem to sense any demons in the room, making them think they were not real/all in their head. But another member wrote this disturbing story:

I used to have a friend when I was a teenager that would tell me she saw demons in her house frequently. I believed her and still do. We were really close but towards the end of our friendship when I was around 18 I had a sleep paralysis and was visited by a female demon. She warned me to let my friend go because the demon said she belonged to her. My friend became increasingly nasty for no reason. I eventually moved across country and the few times we saw each other after were really awkward and strange. She died when she was 38 in her sleep. I think it’s really weird that there was no real cause of death.

None of my meds are working anymore and I seem to be reacting to them very differently from how I usually react, which can be a symptom of dissociation. The benzos aren’t doing anything to help me sleep. Last night I took some strong codeine painkillers as I had a headache and I also find they usually calm me. But I became hypervigilant, paranoid, could hear a buzzing sound outside and was hyper aware of my own mortality. I felt like I was dying. Then when I finally fell asleep I had another awful dream, like the dream I wrote about a bit over a week ago here, where I couldn’t wake up. In the dream I was having another episode of sleep paralysis like the previous night. Again, I was trying to turn the lights on next to my bed but they weren’t switching on. I reached for my phone to call for help but in the dream the battery had died. I dreamt that I managed to make it to the other end of the house to wake up my dad but each time something was off. He didn’t seem like himself. He’d be angry that I woke him, or he’d get up and tell me to have some lunch, when I thought it was night time. Then I realised he’d been replaced by an imposter. I was stuck in a loop. I kept on getting out of bed, walking down the house distressed and babbling nonsense and waking him, only to find it was an imposter. Nothing felt real. Then I finally woke up around 6am. I found I was lying on my back hyperventilating and frozen, so maybe I was having another episode of sleep paralysis as apparently it tends to happen when you’re lying on your back. Unfortunately this is one of the few positions I feel comfortable in because since my overdose I hear my pulse in my ear when I am lying on my side. I was a bit dizzy and so shaken from the experience that it took me a while to compose an email to my therapist.

There seems to be a theme to all my dreams, all my episodes of sleep paralysis, and all my drug-induced “psychoses”. It’s the trauma of being in trouble but being completely alone and trapped with help unreachable or non-existent.

I used to like sleeping. I didn’t have to feel my buzzing head, my tremor and all my nerve issues anymore. But now I am scared of falling asleep. I can’t get relief anytime, whether awake or asleep. These episodes seem to happen between 12 and 6am. I find I am able to get some rest once it is light. I might try leaving a light on tonight and see if that helps. I am starting to wonder if there’s something to the “witching hour” where the veil to the other side is said to be the thinnest in these late night hours. According to Wikipedia “In folklore, the witching hour or devil’s hour is a time of night associated with supernatural events. Creatures such as witches, demons and ghosts are thought to appear and to be at their most powerful. Black magic is thought to be most effective at this time.”

I am also trying to change my perspective on the whole experience. Some consider lucid dreaming (when you realise you are dreaming during the dream) and travelling through other realms a spiritual gift. Some people can’t even remember their dreams. Some people try hard to lucid dream, and here I am doing it naturally. I don’t know whether being curious about the experience will ever take away from how scary it is, and if I could make this go away I would. It concerns me that it’s happening more and more. I feel for people who say they’ve experienced this since they were kids. I have been getting abdominal pain lately so I’m hoping maybe I just have bad PMS and this will settle down once I get my period, though it would suck to have to go through this every month. I think all I can do is try my best to keep my stress levels low. I can feel myself slipping into “little space” a bit right now. My dress style right now is cute, preppy, colourful and Lolita, and that’s the kind of stuff I’ve been buying online. I am eyeing this dress from Glizy Wonderland. When I went to the beach with my disability support worker the other day to pick up a Totoro costume I bought, I saw a little girl in the ice-cream palor who was out with an older lady. She was dressed up in a rainbow tutu. I felt like I was that age, and longed for a mother figure to hold my hand and take me out to nice places like she had. Today I went to Warburton with my mum and I found some lovely handmade felted star wands which I got excited about. My mum told me they were for little girls, not understanding that a part of me still is a 4-year-old girl. I will be going back tomorrow to buy one. I am going to start watching Studio Ghibli again and other cartoons. I just feel like this is what I need in my life right now.