Hey weirdos, it's Ash here, ready to share a little secret.
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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
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Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is a mini Morbid.
It's so little. We both are this small. So tiny small.
Mini, mini, mini, mini, mini morbid. Mini morbid, mini morbid, mini morbid.
And it's kind of brought to you by you, for you, but also by Elena.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a nice little mix. This week for the mini episode, can I tell them?
Yeah, you can tell them. We're going to be talking about Dremelina.
Sleep paralysis. What? So here's how it's gonna go.
I'm gonna set up straight. She sure is. Sorry.
Elena is going to read you a lot of research that she did about sleep paralysis.
And I'm going to read you emails that I... researched from our Gmail folder, where you share your sleep paralysis stories with us.
And I also have some emails that I picked out.
Because she does it all. I do. I do it all.
No, I'm totally kidding. Why are your pants up so high?
I don't know because it's comfortable. I'm tired.
I just looked over and she's like Steve Urkel-ing the shit out of life over there.
I am like Steve Urkel right now. Oh god, I'm not holding this far enough away from my fucking voice.
Deal with it. So, yeah, sleep paralysis, guys.
We asked you last week, no, a few weeks ago, a couple weeks ago, in another time, another space and time.
We asked you to send in your sleep paralysis stories.
You guys did not disappoint. This will not be the only time we read these.
We're going to throw them into the regular listener episodes because there's so many and they're so good they're awesome but we just picked a few to go along with the research tonight so yippee we want to thank you for sending them in Why don't we start?
Okay. So sleep paralysis is something that you either you can experience it once.
Or you can be someone who experiences it on the reg.
I happen to be one of the unfortunate folks who experiences it on the reg.
I had a recovered memory. did you i have experienced sleep paralysis two times whoa look at that i'll tell you about it later Um, I, I get it like monthly.
Like I get it like a lot. And I used to get it a lot more when we lived in our old apartment with a ton of roommates.
I don't know why that would be, but... So...
What sleep paralysis is, is it basically has to do with there's two types of sleep that we all hopefully get through during one night of slumber.
I doubt that you do. You don't sleep. i sleep not good oh i sleep great when i sleep you don't sleep long enough No, I don't sleep long enough, but you know what?
I'm one of those lucky people that when I place my head on the pillow.
Yeah, me too. Boom. out skis like there's no i don't sit there and worry about the world's problems or anyone anything like a lot of people do nope i just go to sleep I experienced that this week because homegirl put her head on the pillow and started snoring like a damn man.
Like a damn man. Because men snore. A bear?
A hibernating bear? They go up there and eat.
You were snoring something awful. I know.
I'm a snorer. I admit it. And your eye looked over and your mouth was like...
That whole thing in Frozen when Anna wakes up and her hair is literally like... in a whole other dimension and she's got drool coming out of her mouth and her mouth is wide open Every time that comes on the screen, John goes, there's mama to the girls.
And it literally is me. Um, so what you have is you have REM sleep and you have non-REM sleep.
Ochre. When you first go to sleep, you fall into N1 stage of non REM sleep.
And that's not when your eyes are rapidly moving.
No, we'll get to that. Cool. This stage normally is like five to ten minutes.
It's light sleep. Very light sleep. You can be easily roused from this sleep.
Which is always the fucking worst. Yeah, it's no good.
This is when your heart, breathing, and muscle movements slow a little bit.
They relax. And your eye movement also relaxes.
Okay. Not rapidly darting back and forth.
Brain waves and activity slow and temperature goes down.
This is when that falling thing can happen that you get jerked out of sleep.
We were just talking about this with my mother-in-law.
They're called hypnic jerks. Hypnic jerks.
I'm going to start calling people hypnic jerks.
You roused me out of N1 non-REM sleep. You hypnic jerk.
You hypnic jerk. This is when I'm sure everybody has felt it.
I fucking hate these things. The feeling of free falling.
When all of a sudden you feel like you're falling and you shoot yourself awake and your heart is beating like crazy.
You're like, fuck. Like, it's one of those things that you're like, God damn it.
Yeah. I hate those. Fuck. Um, so then there is N2 non-REM sleep stage and that lasts about 10 to 25 minutes.
Everything relaxes again and slows even further.
Eye movement completely stops. It's still considered light sleep.
Then you're going to move into N3 stage of non-REM sleep.
It lasts about 20 to 40 minutes. This is deep.
This is a deep sleep. This is the sleep you need to actually function like a human being the next day.
Like when you've hit this sleep. This is the good, like, restorative.
This is the good place. This is the good place.
Everything is in deep sleep and recharge mode here, so... you are sleeping fucking hard during this sleep your heart rate your breathing slows to their lowest levels that you get to during sleep but like Safe levels.
Your blood pressure, your body temperature, your heart rate and your muscle activity decreases a ton.
And there are there's no eye movement during this. that's spooky now this is when nightmares night terrors sleepwalking sleep talking that's when this starts to happen nightmare nightmare nightmare exactly You aren't paralyzed, but muscle activity is certainly not like when you're awake and alert.
So this is when you'll be having a nightmare and you'll see someone start moving and twitching and stuff because your muscles aren't paralyzed yet.
So you're... kind of acting out your dreams but not like fully huh Yeah.
So the next one is true REM sleep. This is when you're not going to see people jerking and shit.
That's that good good. It typically happens about 90 minutes after falling into N1 non-REM sleep.
The cycles of REM sleep increase in length throughout the night, but the first one is usually only for like 10 minutes. okay because again remember you're not just going through these like n1 n2 n3 rem and then that's it you cycle all the way back like you're gonna you cycle through these okay So sleep is weird.
Now, you know someone is in REM because their eyes will rapidly dart from side to side under their eyelids.
How can you tell that's happening? Well, if you look at someone who's in REM sleep, you can see it under their eyelids.
Can you? Yeah, you will watch. You can see like their eyes will move like. like darting back and forth.
Like that? Yeah. Like they go literally side to side.
Your eyes are literally darting side to side under your eyelids.
I've never seen anybody in REM sleep. Yeah, it's crazy.
I want to see it. Your heart rate is going to now increase instead of decrease like it was in non-REM sleep.
Your blood pressure rises a bit Okay Not aggressively Your body temp is going to fall even lower To it's lowest point and breathing gets shallow and faster.
Oh. Is that why people snore? Yeah. Okay.
I mean, that has something to do with it, but mostly people snore from, like, deviated septums and like also just leaving your mouth open and but why is it that like when you're really fucking tired that's when you snore Probably, it's, I mean, it all has to do with breathing.
Okay. And the rapid, or the slow rapid breathing is what happens.
Okay. Or slow rapid breathing. I meant shallow rapid breathing.
Do you like that? I was just like, okay.
You were like, yeah, totally. That makes perfect sense.
I was like, those are two contradictory things, but okay.
I often say that. state contradictory things during this stage your muscles are paralyzed completely This is likely so you they think so you don't act out your vivid dreams.
So you're not like, oh, I'm running down the street and you don't just stand up and run down the street.
Remember that guy that killed his wife and her parents?
What now? There's a guy that killed his wife and he claimed to be sleeping.
The sleepwalking killer. Oh, really? I don't know about that one.
I don't know if he killed her parents. I know he killed his wife.
That's a bullshit reason because... he said he was sleeping the whole time well yeah he like straight up drove a car so yeah he was a non-rem sleep and fuck that he was not no Liar.
So your muscles are paralyzed. Your brain allows this, allows them to paralyze, and it's referred to as a tonia.
Okay. This is when your most vivid dreams and images occur. that you're more likely to remember your dreams if you're woken directly from this part of REM sleep.
Okay, I never remember my dreams. I remember mine a lot.
But I do lately. I'm also, I was just actually saying this to my mother-in-law.
I'm like a super lucid dreamer. Does that mean that you can control what you do in your dream?
I can do that too. I do it all the time.
I'm a very lucid. I can wake myself up if I'm having a nightmare. yeah and mostly mostly when I'm having a nightmare what happens is like I have a lot of nightmares about like serial killers chasing me or like someone coming into my house yeah and Nine times out of ten, I will realize that I'm dreaming and I'm like, fuck, I don't want to have to go through all this shit.
Like I'm like, this is a dream. So you wake yourself up.
Like it's somebody with like a knife or something.
And I'm like, I don't want to deal with like dreaming about you stabbing me.
Like I'll like think about it. It's very odd.
I'm always, it's, it's odd. And then sometimes if it's a good dream, I can be like, Ooh, I want to keep this going.
I'm going to do this now. Or I'll be like, this is a dream, so I can just do this.
Yeah, it's very odd. I was better at that when I was younger.
Really? Yeah. That makes sense. So yeah, so you'll remember your dreams better if you're woken up from REM sleep.
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According to the National Sleep Foundation, your brain can actually become more active than it ever is during the day during this phase.
That's cool. Yeah. And it actually begins processing all the input you received during the day.
And this allows you to store all that information for long-term memory.
So that's when everything you've done and learned during the day is going into your long-term memory.
So if you... Do drugs and stuff that can mess with that part of the brain that like helps you in sleep to make long term memories.
Yeah. I mean, it's going to mess with your ability to like store memories for sure.
But the whole takeaway here is that you need REM sleep to do that, to store these memories.
Okay. So REM sleep is really important.
Got it. So sleep paralysis happens when you are transitioning out of REM sleep.
Because your muscles are paralyzed at this time.
So what occurs is you're waking up, but your body is still experiencing the atonia of muscle paralysis.
Mm-hmm. So you're aware of your surroundings and your reality, but unable to move.
So your body is still in REM sleep, but your mind wakes up while still dreaming.
Oh, yeah. So a lot of time people experience hallucinations.
That's what's happening here. um what people are seeing when this happens is their actual surroundings of where they are like your bedroom But you're hallucinating.
Like you're looking at your real bedroom in real time, but your nightmare is projected into your reality.
Ugh. Why do our bodies do this shit to us?
Now, about 75% of the time... people hallucinate during sleep paralysis.
And only about 8% of people experience sleep paralysis regularly.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's interesting. So most of the time it's like scary shit.
But sometimes people see nice things. Like if you're dreaming of something nice, it can be projected into your reality.
I want that. That's never happened to me.
So I don't know. Well, do you have nice dreams ever?
I do. I have a lot of nice dreams, but it never happens during sleep paralysis.
I have great dreams. I have great dreams, okay.
Now, it was interesting to me because it's thought that the legends of like incubus and succubus are derived from the experience of sleep paralysis.
Huh. The incubus is said to be a male demon who will have sex with unsuspecting women while they're sleeping.
The succubus is a female demon that has sex with men while they're sleeping.
Sometimes the legend says that this was kind of interesting to me. that the succubus will have sex with the dude gather his sperm and then transform into an incubus to then transfer the seed into a woman, and that's how devil babies are born.
Whoa. Isn't that crazy? Rosemary's baby.
Like, that shit. How many of the dudes that we cover on this podcast, or the women for that matter, like nasty people, are probably...
Succubus babies. The creation of fucking succubi turning into incubus or incubi and then...
It's like fucked up metamorphosis. I'm saying.
At Hilary Duff. Hashtag devil babies. our minds are two different places wow that is us that really was this is us this is us we're not sponsored by them no There's an innate feeling of being suffocated or someone pressing on your chest that can occur during sleep paralysis.
That has happened, like, I know that feeling, and it is, like, it feels like something is sitting or pressing on your chest.
This is also what the Incubus legend will, like... kind of explain the demon sits on your chest as the way to get to you so that's why people would like blame it on an incubus because that They felt like something was sitting on their chest during sleep paralysis.
In fact, sleep paralysis, the experience is sometimes referred to as the incubus phenomenon.
Okay. because of the visual hallucinations of demons and bad things that can accompany it.
Many people, including myself, experience extreme unmatched anxiety during an actual attack.
A lot of people, me included, like specifically feel like they are actually going to die during a sleep paralysis oh that's really scary And let me tell you, my personal ones, I always I usually see the same kind of thing.
And it's always a dark figure in my room approaching my bed slowly. and every time that it happens and i i would try to explain this to john and until i researched and finally figured out what sleep paralysis was i thought i was fucking nuts Really?
Because I kept telling him, I'm like, no, it's real.
Like I'm opening my eyes. I'm seeing the bedroom.
Right. I'm there. It's happening in front of me.
And I don't know what's going on. And I kept saying to him, and when this thing is approaching me, the first thought in my mind is, holy shit, this is actually happening.
Someone's in my room and they're gonna kill me.
Oh. And it's like this un... like... you cannot convince yourself that this isn't real.
Like, to you, This is what's happening in your reality right now.
You're sitting there looking at this thing walking towards you and you're going, holy shit i'm gonna die because there's a fucking demon in my room like you're literally that's how this ends like it's really gonna kill me i hate that yeah And like a lot of times I'll see something in like a corner of the room and it's like something that's getting bigger and bigger and I'll like watch it and I'm always like, holy shit i'm really seeing this because it's real because you're in your room you're sitting there spooking me so hard right now And you're sitting there the whole time being like, whoa, this is real.
I can't believe I'm seeing what I'm seeing.
Like your brain is convincing you that it's real. really fucked up i'm so glad that you didn't get sleep paralysis while i was like having sleepovers with you i was getting it at that time i just no no no like this past oh this week Yeah, I didn't get it.
I haven't gotten it in a little while, knock on wood.
Oh, my God. Now it's like... You're talking about it.
You're going to process it during your sleep.
I feel like John has like kind of understood like the signs of me having it.
And he'll, like, hit me out of sleep. If he notices that I'm, like, if he happens to, like, turn over.
If you're paralysis. Because it's usually me like wide-eyed and like...
I can usually get myself out of it by trying really, really hard to like move something and finally I can break out of it.
You also get like demonic when you sleep though.
Yeah, I do. My sleep is serious business.
So the night that John was sick and we were downstairs feeding Luna.
I thought you were going to kill me. I'm not kidding you.
I remember you told the story on the podcast.
I know. Yeah, but I think a lot of the stories that we've read and we're going to read in a second involve like people being like i swear it was real it was fucking real and that's the worst part of sleep paralysis is your body has paralyzed so your brain has paralyzed your body But your mind is not paralyzed.
But your mind is awake, but now your mind is still convincing you that what you are seeing is real.
That's funny. So it's like it's fucking you up in several ways.
And I hate it because it's like the most out of control.
Your mind is abusive. it is it's abuse man um so one of the most common sites that is seen in a lot of stories which is really weird is people see the hat man.
Oh. And that's, I've seen this man. That's what I picture when you say what you, when you got.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's literally like a shadow figure wearing a large hat.
Oh. Studies have shown that tons of sufferers see this version of a shadow figure in some way can i sleep in your bed tonight it's really fucked and that's just a brief overview of you know sleep paralysis, the science behind it, the legends that go along with it.
And now we're going to read a couple of your stories.
You go first. So I'm going to start out with a really scary one.
Awesome. It's called Sleep Paralysis, the Singing Eyeless Demon.
Why is it singing? This is from Hannah. Hi, Hannah.
Says, hello, Ash and Elena. My name is Hannah.
I'm very excited to tell you one of my many fucked up tales.
I have been wanting to send in a listener tale, but I think this story is one you will enjoy for the special episode.
This experience has probably been one of the scariest things I have had to encounter, only because there is something about unexplained things caused by your own mind that is sinister and terrifying.
I agree. That's exactly what I think. I have had many sketchy and scary things happen when I was living with my mother like fearing getting murdered for a drug deal gone wrong. or being left alone with a creepy with creepy men my mom is a trash bag not even a glad trash bag More like the shitty trash bags that are from a dollar store that break and have those stringy things attached to that trash bag. wow the most relatable sentence ever read damn sorry hannah those will be stories for another time but this experience invoked true psychological terror wow Whenever I have night terrors or sleep paralysis, I see the same thing every time.
It is something I don't tell a lot of people about only because of how bonkers it sounds.
Even I think it's ridiculous. Nevertheless, it still scares the shit out of me.
The first time I had sleep paralysis, I was sleeping laying straight on my back, which is never a thing usually.
Also, by the way, that triggers it, doesn't it? back will often trigger sleep paralysis if you are prone to it.
And I suddenly envisioned in the pitch darkness of my room a creepy crusty skin burnt chicken nugget looking ass creature with no eyes Sitting on my chest, strangling me.
Chicken nugget? Creature. It's long gone. spidery hands were wrapped around my throat making the skin on my neck burn and the worst part of it was that it was peering right at me with its blank emotionless face and and those fucking staring black eye sockets.
Oh my god. I awoke and realized it wasn't real, but I never knew what this sensation was called. almost eight years later i had an experience that still scares the shit out of me it was late it was late night and my boyfriend and i had a big argument before he went to work Now again, stressful situations, anxiety, fights can trigger it as well.
It was 2 to 3 a.m., the goddamn witching hour.
I was really upset and hysterically crying.
Oh, and I couldn't sleep. I tried to drink straight vodka to calm my nerves, but I've never really wanted to just drink from the hell of it like that, so it just tasted bad and was straight shitty.
I laid in bed for hours, my hair wet from all the tears.
And finally, when exhaustion had come over me and I felt myself drift off to sleep.
However, this is when all the fucky shit started happening.
Fucky shit. Your consciousness enters this in-between where you aren't quite asleep but you are not fully awake.
I know it well. I have always been a lucid dreamer and to some extent sometimes control what happens in my dreams.
But this was a whole nother level. As I started to drift into what I will call fake sleep, my body lost its tenseness and all the muscles relaxed.
There was a couple of moments of silence before I heard what sounded like someone coming into the kitchen in the other room from outside.
I heard the door open and shut. I thought in my brain that my boyfriend was home from work, but thought that strange because it had been way too early for him to be home. maybe he forgot something I thought before I went to speak out and call his name even though if I had wanted to I couldn't in the state I was in Yeah, you can.
The sound usually can indicate weight and how fast slash slow they walk.
My boyfriend wears big work boots and is tall.
So it's obvious when he's in the house. However, I could sense a startling unfamiliarity with whoever was walking around in my kitchen. the footsteps sounded oddly quiet and indecisive as if they were walking rummaging around looking for something or someone fuck off this was not fucking normal i fucking panicked my thoughts were holy shiitake mushrooms I say that all the time.
Someone broke into my house and now they are going to murder me. this is a you're gonna get the chili chills no as if whatever it was could read my fucking mind It started singing.
No. In a sing song voice that sounded like a grown ass man trying to sound like a little kid.
Stop. It's saying over and over I'm coming to get you.
I'm coming to get you. you i'm crying i'm sobbing right now i hate i'm it's like the golden state killer i'm in pain right oh my god i have tears i have tears Oh, it gets worse.
No, why? To make it worse, I could hear it whisper, going to kill her in between its fucked up little choruses it sounded like it was trying to hold back laughter as it spoke i just got like a true true chill are you gonna sit up with me for hours on the couch after this the truest Hold on, I'm putting my hood on.
All right. Wait, that's the blanket. It works too.
The scariest part of this was that the entire time this felt entirely real.
I felt like I had the power to look around and be in control of my body, but in reality I wasn't.
I could hear the voice echo in the hall and it slowly got closer to my bedroom.
My heart was pounding at this point. Me too.
Fight or flight kicked in. and I felt myself wanting to get up, grab the shotgun in the closet, and cap this motherfucker, but my dumbass self was equivalent to a boulder. i could not move i started to lose my mind in terror as i could feel that eyes were watching me from the bedroom doorway nope Side note, I am fucking terrified of Michael Myers from Halloween.
I feel like in general, things with no eyes scare me, and so my mind envisioned myself getting turned into a butcher knife pin cushion for this fucking thing just like in the movies.
I could feel my body start to tense up in anticipation.
Finally, I just suddenly snapped out of it.
I was finally free from the nightmare, but when I looked down at my clock, I realized that only a few fucking minutes passed by.
That has happened so many times to me. I'm so scared.
Where it's like this whole situation happens where you're sitting there like, oh, fuck, I'm going to die.
There's someone in my robot. and it feels like it's like it feels like it's like 10 minutes at least or like a half an hour it feels like you're sitting there forever and then you look and it's like literally been two minutes that's since you fell asleep it's crazy i was so confused scared and upset i tried to fight to stay awake but now I was twice as exhausted as I was before and at this point I couldn't resist sleep.
I began to dream about the thing. Only this time I could see it.
It was a shadowy figure and had no feet.
It stood or should I say floated? in the doorway, staring straight into my very soul with those freakish black eyes.
It stood so still and moved so slow, but as I inched closer, I could feel the overwhelming feeling of fear make my blood run cold.
No. And as soon as it began and ended once more, I called into work the next day and got to sleep finally when the sun came up.
I had the dream of the shadow person again on a later night.
And finally, the third time I had this dream, I was able to lucid dream style, quote unquote, will myself to break the paralysis i don't know how i did but it was fucking awesome after this happened i never had the dream again thank god but to this day it still freaks me out to think about how real it felt.
Thank you for reading my story. Oh yeah, that's fucked.
No. Hannah. fuck that fucking a the singing is not okay oh my god it's so golden state killer yeah it's not okay I always like get, I'll read the emails and it'll be like, fuck you guys.
Like I listened to your last episode and then it like rerouted me to the first one.
Oh yeah. That happened to me in my car the other day.
Thank God it was the morning. And it just starts out.
And I was like, are you fucking kidding me?
I nodded to it. No. Oh, Hannah. Mine is short, sweet and to the point.
It says, hello, you perfect angels. So nice.
I just barely started listening about a month ago and I've listened to probably 75% of the episodes already.
Wow. Damn. You get it. You get it. I might enter a deep depression when I'm caught up and can't binge anymore, but whatever. whatever that wasn't me doing a Boston accent okay so I realized I needed to write in because I'm a hairstylist sup ash and the ending of this story happened in the salon we talk about the We talk about the most off-the-wall shit at work, I swear.
Same. Yeah. So, sleep paralysis. The first sleep paralysis episode I had that scared the shit out of me happened probably five years ago.
I was napping on my sister-in-law's couch where the left side of the couch faced my niece's room and the love seat was facing me parallel to the couch I was on.
I hope that makes sense. I didn't realize I had fallen asleep because I could hear my brother and sister-in-law talking behind me I opened my eyes unable to really move And saw an old woman in a white nightgown with long hair standing in the doorway next to my niece's room.
That's another common one. Yeah. It's called like the crone.
Yeah. I for sure thought I was having a weird dream now, but the dogs that were on the love seat were staring right at me as I was trying to wake myself up. i looked back to the old woman right as she jumped over the side of the couch crawled onto my chest and started screaming in my face i I hate when stories are like, and then it screamed in my face.
Like, that is just not, I'm like, no. she didn't have any demon-like features but she was old as shit and terrifying as is after this happened i experienced night terrors frequently but not sleep paralysis Fast forward to 2017.
I always fell asleep before my boyfriend, and this night he came upstairs to check on me.
He caught me right in the middle of a sleep paralysis moment.
Sorry. He caught me right in the middle of a sleep paralysis episode where the old woman was back in my doorway.
But there was a younger woman with short brown hair standing between the old bitch and my bed.
I must have been moving around. Why are you all in my room right now?
Please go. Ew. Ew. And I explained that the house probably wasn't haunted.
He was getting ready to move in that week and I didn't want to scare him.
Fast forward again a couple months. I'm a hairstylist and one of my clients who was very in touch with the other side came in.
She was talking about her different experiences with seeing operations, feeling energies, and her adventure in being a medium.
I told her how I didn't know if I was being followed by a spirit or if my now frequent sleep paralysis was being triggered by a med change or what. i you not guys i didn't even finish explaining my last episode when she said was it a lady with short brown hair I look over to my nail tech who knew the whole story and we were both shook.
My awful night terrors and sleep paralysis happened nightly in that house. and I haven't experienced a single one since being in my new place.
I have no clue if that house was legitimately haunted, but I don't care to go back and investigate that spooky shit.
Holy shit. Yeah, that gave me the creepages.
Fuck that. Somebody crawling on top of you and yelling at you.
I'm not into that. I'm not going to sleep tonight.
And that is one of the things crawling on top of you or sitting on your chest is like one of the things.
Anyone touching me at all is the worst. Like I took I took like an art history class in college where we like looked at like old fucking art.
It was pretty cool. Makes sense. It was cool, though.
And one of the images I saw was called The Nightmare.
No. And I remember I was like, whoa, I fucking love this painting.
It's just so spooky as fuck. And it's by John Henry Fuseli.
And it's from 1754. And people think it is an early depiction of sleep paralysis. that's so cool and this is the photo Oh, I'll post.
I'm going to post this on our Instagram.
Wow, that's wild. Yeah, I'll post it on the Instagram for you guys to see.
But it was always like one that stuck in my brain.
So that just made me think of it like things sitting on your chest.
So my next listener story is sleep paralysis slash hat man.
No. See? no um this is from t hi t so it the first line is hat mofo amazing hi ash and elena i know everyone says this but i got it too you guys rock My only complaint is I normally use podcast to fall asleep at night and morbid keeps me up for hours.
I only started listening a couple weeks ago, so I'm still catching up.
The Lizzie Borden episodes might have been the funniest yet.
I almost peed myself and had to get up to use the bathroom, which I hate doing in the middle anyway keep doing what you're doing because even though i rarely sleep anymore it's beyond worth it by the way if this is long feel free to leave out anything boring no way no way To understand why my sleep paralysis journey was so extra flipping terrifying,
You have to understand two things. First, this all happened in the time before, in the before time.
Sorry. In the before time, no Google, no Surrey, no Facebook.
Oh, I was like, what? was internet, but our home computer was mostly used by my douche canoe of a stepfather for porn surfing and let's be real here.
I'll take shadow people over touching that wank stains disease infected keyboard any day.
Wank stain. The second thing is that when I was really young, I was basically a badass little witch.
Not witches and bitch. I was totally fucking charming.
I mean witches and creepy. Same. same my grandmothers both thought i was special some of the babysitters just thought i was i was a fucking sideshow and others like my birth dad refused to be alone with me i'm adding a story about why my dad was afraid of me here because it's entertaining as fuck but you can skip it if you want because it has nothing to do with sleep paralysis I kind of want you to include it.
I'm going to include it because it's a quick story.
So when I was but a wee ragamuffin, my dad was home alone with me.
I'm in a high chair and he goes down to the laundry room and happens to see a toy airplane on the floor that belonged to another tenant.
Being the thoughtful, kindhearted fuck that he was, he promptly threw it in the trash.
When he got back upstairs, I was still in my high chair. was right pissed and glaring at him what he said you shouldn't have done that I replied angrily what he asked again That was that little boy's and now he's going to cry.
You shouldn't have done that. Oh my God. his bravery, my dad apparently pulled me out of the high chair and holding me in front at arm's length ran all the way to my mom's work.
Like I'm picturing the way cartoons run with their arms straight in front.
And anyway, he ran all the way to my mom and put me on the counter and said something along the lines of you take care of this little fucking witch after that he just wouldn't babysit me anymore but i digress Same.
Mm-hmm. And logically, I just assumed I was cursed or some shit.
Needless to say, I suffered alone. No way was I going to inform my sweet, innocent mom her beloved daughter was some kind of hex she-devil probably decided to spawn the son of Satan.
Oh my god, stop. On with the story. From around age 14 to about 18, I would experience these things maybe two to four times a week.
The first was Floating Dreams. I'm not talking about soothing floating through the clouds dreams.
I'm talking about trying desperately to reach my bed but not being able to.
Usually it would happen just as I was waking up.
That's when sleep paralysis usually happens.
And I would feel like some invisible fuck was lifting me by the legs.
The thing is, it didn't usually stop when I woke up.
I'd still be fighting like a savage to get back on my feet, on the bed, for the first few seconds to a minute after being fully awake.
This was a huge motherfucking nope in my books, but I couldn't tell anyone because as stated above, she devil, blah, blah.
Does anyone else need to have your feet tucked under the blanket to feel safe?
Yes. Well, this is where that started for me.
The second thing, which I discovered was called sleep paralysis some 20 years ago, was that I would have a nightmare that typically ended with me trying to scream.
Only I couldn't. Same. I would wake up still trying to scream and be completely aware that I'm awake but still unable to scream.
I would also realize I couldn't move other than blinking.
When it first started, I was so fucking petrified I'd keep trying until eventually I got my voice back.
Then I'd carry on like a banshee another minute because fuck this shit I can and I will.
This usually brought my mom to my doorway or resulted in what I can only assume was a broom to the ceiling beneath me.
Up yours, you broom-wielding fish wife. You have no idea what I just went through.
As these occurrences became more frequent, I won't say I got used to them, but I started learning to deal with them at least.
As soon as I realized I was awake and couldn't move, I'd stopped trying to scream, stopped trying to move, and closed my eyes.
Thank fuck my eyelids still worked. I found the whole thing less horrifying if I wasn't struggling.
This method was fairly effective until the night I opened my peepers just a little too soon and saw the motherfucking hat man at the foot of my bed no i won't lie i promptly resumed my previous tactic of attempting to scream Remember, this was before movies about shadow people, before you could image search Hat Man and see thousands of pictures of him.
To me, he was just some fucking guy in a trench coat and fedora at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night.
In my scared as fuck but still paralyzed state, I did the only thing I could, close my eyes.
I'm not sure how long I waited, but it was a lot longer than it took to regain movement because no way was I going to risk another peek at that shit.
When I did finally open my eyes, he was gone.
I never told anyone and he never came back again.
But now that I think about it, it wasn't the first time I saw him.
I had my first flu when I was 13 and I saw him then.
But being that it was my first time really sick, I was right out of it and everyone said I was just hallucinating.
Looking back, I'm pretty sure I wasn't. So fast forward like 20 years and I'm scrolling through Facebook, quenching my daily thirst for knowledge, when all of a sudden this fucking monster from my past is staring at me from my screen.
I kid you not, I almost shit myself. I literally hadn't even thought of him in like two decades.
Let the Googling begin. I found out tons of people have seen him and the pictures look exactly like the ones I drew of him when I was a kid.
I felt relieved that I wasn't crazy after all, but also fairly fucking creeped out.
So that's my story. Keep it weird. But not so weird that you choose shadow people over touching your porn-loving stepfather's gluttonous keyboard of pestilence.
Pestilence. P.S. I still have crazy nightmares and wake up screaming now and then, but at least the only one standing there looking at me these days is my cat.
Bless her sweet little gray heart. He puts up with a lot.
And also that cat is adorable. That cat is adorable.
And that's so crazy because one of the things that happens to me too a lot And John will say, I wake up and I can hear myself scream out loud when I wake up, like a half scream.
Yeah. Because I'll scream so hard in the dream to try to scream.
You're like continuing to. When I finally wake up, my voice actually lets it out and I'll like wake myself up screaming.
Jesus. Yeah, it's crazy. I bet that's really fun for John.
I bet it is. He loves me though, so. Yeah, of course.
That's love. When you stick around through sleep paralysis, that's love.
That is love. Okay. My next one is called sleep paralysis.
Hey, spooky queens. So it's called sleep paralysis.
Hey, spooky queens. First of all, I love you both so much. much.
I love you. I love you too. Thanks for making your horde of weirdos feel less alone by bonding over all the spook spook shits.
Just so I don't blush even more about my undying love for your creepy ass macabre mistresses.
Whoa, that was like a... tongue twister I liked it though also my whole leg is asleep so I did I jolted in the middle of saying that um I'll get into my story of sleep paralysis So my wicked amazing boyfriend and I are both army veterans and both suffer from PTSD.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. His is combat related, but mine is sexual assault related.
Just to clarify, our PTSDs have affected our sleep.
I have always struggled with sleep issues to include insomnia and sleep paralysis.
When we first started dating, he just came back from his third deployment.
Jesus. I know. Wow. Thank you so much. Ever since the first night we spent together, date two, because I couldn't wait any longer for this beautiful piece of man feet.
Yeah. I have woken up to him. I'm screaming.
I have woken up to him sleepwalking or talking.
These instances range from mild to funny.
As in opening the dresser drawer, peeing in it and saying, Roger that, Sergeant.
And closing the drawer for me to... and closing the drawer to me waking up to him strangling me.
After being sleep strangled twice, we decided to create barriers of pillows between us at night.
But ever since my sleep paralysis has gone from just feeling stuck when I'm feeling asleep or waking up to me dreaming he's strangling me with a slender man looking demon telling him to kill me.
Me actually waking up and not being able to move and sometimes even breathe.
He's woken up to me gasping for breath and he has had to pound on my chest to give me breath again. that's awful before my boyfriend I've always had the dream of a Slenderman looking demon and it was always right after my falling asleep paralysis Or I wake up and can't move.
I don't usually believe in the paranormal, but I also had a feeling lately that the demon is real and trying to kill me and now is trying to use my boyfriend to do it. oh i'm oh i'm so sorry that's awful i hate this uh anyways as of late my boyfriend has gotten through many of his issues and hasn't been sleepwalking for almost six months.
That's awesome. Oh, damn. And I have been in therapy to deal with my fucked up mind.
Same. Yay. So kind of a happy ending. Hooray, bitches.
If you choose to read this, feel free to use my name.
Also, the trauma I suffered might be an interesting listener tale, but it It is a super bummer and major trigger warning for sexual assault, stalking, and child abuse.
So maybe when I'm ready to actually write about it. uh anyways thank you for reading and i hope you keep it weird af gabrielle oh my god gabrielle You've gone through a lot.
I love you, girl. I love you. And I'm so glad you have a great man meet. man meat great piece of man meat get you a piece of man meat get you that it's like man gabrielle Manmeet just reminds me of Oscar Mayer.
Okay. I feel like his name should be Oscar Mayer.
Or Jimmy Dean. Yeah. Oh, there you go. Jimmy Dean.
Jimmy Dean. Your turn. So this is my last tale because I'm falling asleep. oh no and i'm scared i'm so scared this is entitled sleep paralysis a life guide on how to shit yourself oh goody and this is from connor hello i finally got the courage mrs doubtfire i don't know it's awesome though hello hello I finally got the courage to write in so here I am I owe you seriously.
My name is Connor. You can say my name. I'm not shy.
Thanks, Connor. And I have a few spooky boy things that have happened in one specific room in my current house.
I still live with my parents, even though I'm 21, trying to figure my life out still.
Blah, blah. Dude, 21 is young. I still live with my parents.
You're good. Well, not my parents. you're like my grandparents yeah there you go this specific room is where most of my sister's experiences come from as well as she grew up in there too I've moved around a few rooms in my house over the years and never really experienced much, just minor things.
But to keep it short, I won't get into that junk now.
Maybe five years ago? I moved out of the garage that's been converted into a room into this psychotic hell portal of a room. there's always been shit kind of happening in that room but sleeping in it is something else let me tell you The first few things I remember while being in that room is when... is whenever I slept, whether it be napping or full sleep, I end up waking up to a massive bug.
Flying above my bed, it seems so real as it happens.
Whenever I saw them I get an intense sense of dread and fear.
And contrary to sleep paralysis, I black out into a fight or flight mode to get my ass away from that thing.
What? all over the walls everywhere just glowing all this stuff is minor compared to the big daddy demon though The very last time I saw stuff before I moved out of that room, I woke up after about an hour of sleeping.
I saw this, like, naked... pink humanoid creature crawling out of my closet on the ceiling.
No, no, no. Anything on the ceiling can fuck off.
Can fuck off. right off i don't even care if it's the ceiling fan fuck off fuck off ceiling fan uh fuck up you beautiful chandelier It was all pink and had gaping holes for eyes with a slight grin.
No. It was so vivid. I can literally see it staring at me to this fucking day.
And I get the chills just talking about it and start shaking. staring at this thing staring at me I kind of freeze but I got this insane feeling of fear and I describe it as my first experience of genuine fear.
I agree that's exactly how it feels. I have goosebumps all over my entire body right now.
I booked it the fuck out. of my room in full panic screaming blacking out everyone in the house and described it everyone in the house described it as a murder scream something they'd never heard before and never expected it to come out of me.
I think I had a full-blown heart attack at that point.
Oh my god. I can't explain. Can't explain the fear level I can't explain that fear level God about two months later I was researching some stuff while talking about it and and came across something called The Rake.
And it's some creepy pasta thing, I think. but it resembles that thing I saw to the T and I'm paranoid it'll come back whenever I talk about it.
This all happened before I even knew what the rake was, knew what it looks like.
I still get creepy vibes in that room today but fortunately I don't sleep in there anymore.
Once I moved out of there, though, all the paralysis and hallucinations stopped.
Portal? Probably. Fuck that room. Thank you for the reading.
Thank you for reading this absolute chunk of text.
Sorry if it's sporadic. I'm at work right now trying not to get caught typing this.
Oh my god, me. thank you for making my work days interesting keep the podcast coming so that rake thing can stay the fuck away from me thanks much love from Arizona Connor oh shit Connor He was fucking all up.
Keep that rake out of here. Stop. I hate it.
Oh, I'm so freaked out. I'm not into it.
What time is it right now? It is like midnight.
It's midnight. It is midnight. Dude. And I'm done with this sleep paralysis because it's freaking me out.
I think we should just end on that yeah i think we should end on connor's pink humanoid creature do you have hostess cupcakes because i'm gonna need one i do have hostess cupcakes okay Well, guys, thank you for writing in your sleep paralysis stories.
I think even though we just took last week off, I'm gonna need next week off.
I'm freaking out. Just kidding. No, totally fucking kidding.
And we're also, we'll be reading more sleep paralysis stories like intermixed with the listener stories. not for like another three months so don't worry you'll hear yours okay um so follow us on instagram morbid podcast hit us up on twitter a morbid podcast join the facebook group morbid calling a true crime podcast facebook group it's awesome in there send us a gmail more of your podcast at gmail.com i want you to check out our website too morbidpodcast.com because we have all the tour dates there.
We hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. but that's so weird that I have to get out of here because I'm freaking the fuck out right now and I have to sleep on your couch tonight and I'm really nervous about sleeping on your couch with only one blanket to protect me while you're sleeping upstairs with your husband even though like I was sleeping with you like the past few nights because I was helping you out and like can i just sleep there again and have john sleep on the couch because i'm really freaked out by no If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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