Morbid - Episode 118: Sleep Paralysis

Episode Date: February 17, 2020

Tonight's episode is a dive into the terrifying world of sleep paralysis. If you have ever experienced this weird place between dreaming and reality, then you know how nightmarish it truly can be. We will cover the science behind it, some legends born from it and then read some of your stories about it! Visit our sponsors! Imperfect Foods Start saving time, saving money, and saving waste RIGHT NOW - because when you go to Imperfect Foods.com/morbid now through February 16th you’ll get TEN DOLLARS OFF your next FOUR orders -- that’s a total of FORTY DOLLARS OFF! First Leaf Sign up with my link and you’ll get an exclusive intro offer! 6 bottles of wine for only $29.95, plus free shipping! Just go to TRYFirstleaf.com/morbid.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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That's ANGI, ordered download the app today. Hey weirdos, I'm Ash, and I'm Elena. And this is a mini morbid. It's so little. We both are small. So tiny small. Mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, more bed. Mini, morbid, mini, mini, mini, mini more bed. Mini more bed, mini more bed, mini more bed.

And it's kind of brought to you by you for you. But also by Elena. Yeah, because this little mix. This week for the mini episode, can I tell them? Yeah, you can tell them. We're going to be talking about Dr. Molina. So here's how it's going to go. I'm going to set up straight. She sure is. Sorry. Laina 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. But I don't know because it's comfortable. I'm tired, man. I just looked over and she's like Steve Irk going to show you that I'm a live phone man. I have a live phone man. Steve Irk will right now. Oh god, I'm not able to open this bar enough away

for my fucking voice. Deal with it. So yes, sleep paralysis, guys. We asked you last week, you know, 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 too 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 yippie, we want to thank you for sending them in. Why do 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. 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 department with a ton of roommates.

I don't know why that would be, but so what sleep paralysis 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. Out of the skis. Like there's no, I don't sit there and worry about the world's problems.

Are 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. I can, because men of bear, a hibernating bear. They go there.

You were, damn, you were snoring something awful. I know, I'm a snorer, I admit it. And I looked over and your mouth was like, oh yeah, like if that whole thing infrosen when, when on the wakes up and her hair is literally like, in a whole nother dimension and she's got drool coming out of her mouth and her hair is literally like, in a whole nother 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. So what you have is you have REM sleep and you have non-REM sleep. Oh, correct. 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 5 to 10 minutes. It's light sleep. Very light sleep. You can be easily roused from the 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. Hypnic jerks. So I'm going to start calling people hypnic jerks. You rouse me out of N1 non-rhymes. You hypnic jerk. You hypnic jerk. This is when I'm sure everybody has felt it.

I fucking hate these feelings. 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 and you're like, fuck. Like it's one of those things that you're like, god damn it. Yeah. I hate it. Yeah. I hate those.

Fuck. So then there is end to non-rem sleep stage in that last 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 end three stage of non-rem sleep.

Last about 20 to 40 minutes, this is deep. This is the deep sleep. This is the sleep you need to actually function like human being the next day. Like when you hit this sleep, this is the good, like, restorative. This is the good place. This is the good place. Everything is in deep sleep in recharge mode here. So you are sleepin' 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'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. Okay, so this is when like you'll be having a nightmare and you'll see someone like start moving and twitching and stuff because your muscles aren't paralyzed yet So you're you're kind of acting out your dreams, but not Fully huh. Yeah

So the next one is true REM sleep. This is when you're not gonna see people jerking and shit That's that good good. That's that good good It typically happens about 90 minutes after falling into N1 non REM sleep This 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 N2N3 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 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 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 wanna see it. Their, your heart rates is going to now increase.

Okay. Instead of decrease like it was in non-rem sleep. Your blood pressure rises a bit. Okay. Not like to an un-sleeved- Not aggressively. Your body temp is gonna fall even lower to its lowest point. And breathing gets shallow and faster. Oh, is that why people snore? Yeah, okay. I mean, that test something to do

with it, but mostly people snore from like deviated septums and like also just leaving your mouth open. But why is it that like when you're really fucking tired, that's when you snore? Probably, 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'm in shallow rapid breathing. Do you like that? I was just like, oh, you were like, yeah, I was like, I was like, those are two contradictory things, but okay, I often stay contradictory. 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 do? 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. What? There's a guy that killed his wife and he claimed to be sleeping. The sleepwalking color. Oh, really? I don't know about that one. I don't know if he killed

her parents. That's a bullshit. That's a bullshit reason because he said he was sleeping the whole time. Well, yeah, he like, he like, he tripped over cars. Yeah, fuck that. He was a non-rem sleep and fuck that. He was not. No. Laya. So your muscles are paralyzed. Your brain allows this, allows them to paralyze, and it's referred to as atonia. Okay. This is when your most vivid dreams and images occur. Studies show 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're doing? Yeah, I can do that too I do it all that 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 10, 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, I think 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 like to think about it. It's very odd. I'm always, it's odd. And then sometimes if it's a good dream, I can be like, oh, 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 like do this.

Huh. 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 walking up from REM sleep.

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You can listen to ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. 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 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 take away here is that you need REM sleep to do that to store these memories. 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. 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 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 you're looking at your real bedroom in real time

But your nightmare is projected into your reality And why do our bodies do this to us now about 75% of the time People who loosen eight 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 really? Meaning of something nice. It can be projected into your reality. That's never happened to me, so I don't know. We'll do have nice dreams ever. I do, I have a lot of nice dreams. I never happened to sleep paralysis.

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. 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. Now 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.

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... The creation of fucking suck you by turning into incubus or incubi and then it's like fucked up metamorphosis and pain at Hillary Delphine. Hashtag devil babies.

Wow. Wow. Wow. 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 experiences sometimes referred to as the incubus phenomenon. Okay. Because of the visual hallucinations of demons and bad things, I can accompany it. Many people, including myself, experience extreme unmatched anxiety during an actual attack. A lot of people, me included, specifically feel like they are actually going to die during a sleep paralysis experience. Oh, that's really scary. And let me tell you, my personal ones, I usually see the same kind of thing. Yeah.

And it's always a dark figure in my room approaching my bed slowly. And every time that it happens, and 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. 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 going to kill me. And it's like this un, like, you cannot convince yourself that this isn't real. Like, 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 like, 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. You're thinking me so hard right now. Yeah. 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 really, it's 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 didn't get it. No, no, like this past week. Oh, this week. Yeah, I didn't get it. I haven't gotten it a little while. No, come on. Oh my god. And now it's like, you're talking about it. You're gonna process it. I feel like now you're asleep. I feel like John has like kind of understood like the signs of be having it. And he'll like, what if he's asleep? If he's notices that I'm like, if he happens, you're like,

because it's usually me like, wide-eyed and like, and I can usually get myself out of it by trying 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 You're so the night that John was thick and we were downstairs feeding Luna. I thought you were gonna kill me Yeah, I'm not kidding joke. I was like, I remember you told the story of 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 parallel 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 fucked. 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 abusing the shit out of you. It is.

It's what's happening. It's what's happening. It's what's happening. It's what's happening. 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 what I've seen. That's what I picture when you say what you got.

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 say it 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 gonna read a couple of your stories You go first so I'm gonna 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, Ashina. My name is Hannah. I'm very excited to tell you one of my many fucked up tales. I've 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've had to encounter, only because there's 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 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 no stringy things attached to trash bags. 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 trigger that does the sleeping on your back, which is never a thing usually. Also, by the way, side neck, sleeping on your 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 at us creature with no eyes, sitting on my chest strangling me. Chicken nugget? Creature.

It's long gone. Spightery 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 those fucking staring black eye sockets. Oh my god. I woke and realized it wasn't real,

but I never knew what the situation, so sensation was called. Almost eight years later, I had an experience that still scares the shit out of me. 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 two to three a.m. the goddamn watching hour. I was really upset and hysterically crying Oh, and I couldn't sleep. I tried to drink straight vodka to charm 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 shit I laid it full. I laid him 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. Your consciousness enters this in between, where you aren't quite asleep, but you are not fully awake. I know it well. I've always been a lucid dreamer, and to some extent sometimes control what happens in my dreams, but this was a whole other level.

As I started to drift into what I will call fakesleet, my body lost its tenderness, 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 this state I was in. I listened carefully to the footsteps. I don't know if you have this, but sometimes you can tell who is walking around your house by their footsteps. Yeah, you can. The sound usually can indicate weight and how fast, slush, 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 shittaki 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 chips. 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 It's saying over and over. I'm coming to get you. I'm coming to get you. I'm crying I'm sobbing right now. I hate, I'm- It's like the Golden State Killer.

I'm in pain, Ray. Oh my god, I have tears forming. I have tears forming. Oh, it gets worse. No, why? To make it worse, I could hear it whisper, I'm going to kill her. In between, it's fucked up little choruses.

It sounded like it was trying to hold back laughter as it spoke. Oh, it's got like a chew, chew, chew. Are you gonna set 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. Yeah. 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. No! My heart was pounding at this point. Me too.

My 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 and 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 gonna die this, I'm gonna die. Oh my god. And 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 too far to sleep. 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 still

and moved so slow. But as I inched closer, I could feel the overwhelming feeling of fear make my blood run cold. I was paralyzed and forced to look at it. Its face was in my face, inches away. No! I wanted to scream and cry. And as soon as it began, it 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. Keep it weird, Hannah. PS, here is what the kind of thing, the thing kind of looked like. Sorry for any nightmares, that may cause LOL.

Oh yeah, that's fucked. No. No. Hannah. Fuck that. Fucking A. The singing is not okay. Oh my God. It's so golden. Take color. 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 thank God it was the morning To start a son and I was like are you fucking kidding me? Not into it. No, I'll hang on minus short sweeten 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, you get it. You get it I just barely started listening about a month ago and I've listened to probably 75% of the episodes already. Wow, dude.

You get it. You get it. I might enter a deep depression when I'm caught up in campage anymore, but whatever. Whatever. That wasn't me doing a boss knock. That was just whatever. 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 most, we talk about the most off the wall shit at work

I swear. Oh, I'm seeing. 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 coach I was on. I hope that makes sense. I didn't realize I had fallen asleep because I could hear my brother and sister and lot talking behind me. I opened my eyes, unable to really move and saw an old woman in a white night gown with long hair standing in the doorway next to my niece's room. That's another common one.

It's called like the crown. Oh. 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 crouch, crawled onto my chest and started screaming in my face.

I hate wind stories. I like, and then it screamed in my face. I hate when stories are like, and then it screamed in my face. Yes, like that's just not. I'm like, no. She didn't have any demon-like features, but she was old as shit in terrifying us. 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 stairs to check on me. He caught me right in the middle of a sleep paralysis woman. 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? I must have been moving around. Why you all in my room right now? Right. I must have been moving around because my boyfriend woke me up and the first thing he said, the first thing I said was, is she still here?

He looked around, clearly confused, asked who, 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, failing 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 frequency paralysis was being triggered by a med change or what. I shit 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 know the whole story and we were both shook. My awful nightdress and sleep paralysis happened nightly in that house, and I have an experience to single one since being in my new place. What the fuck? I have no clue if that house was legitimately haunted, but I don't care to go back and investigate that spooky shit.

Sorry, this was so long. You two are the fucking best, and I hope this gave you the creeps like it did for my nail tech, and I- Holy shit. Yeah, that gave me the creepages. Fuck. Somebody crawling on top of you and yelling at you? I'm not into it.

I'm not going to sleep tonight. And that is one of the things- it's 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's 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 fucking spooky as fuck. And it's by John Henry Fuselli, and it's from 1754.

I mean, see? And people think it is an early depiction of sleep paralysis. That's so cool. And this is the photo. I'll post, I'm gonna post this on our 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's 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. This is from T. Hi T. So the first line is

hat mofo. Hi, Ashina Lina. I know everyone says this, but I got it too. You guys rock. My only complaint is I normally use podcasts 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 Lizzy Board and 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 of the night. Anyway, keep doing what you're doing

because even though I really 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, there actually 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 Wangstain's disease-infected keyboard any day. Wangstain! The second thing is that when I was really young, I was basically a badass little witch. Not Witches in Bitch, I was totally fucking charming. I mean Witches in Cre creepy. Same. Same.

My grandmother's both thought I was special. Some of the babysitters just thought I was, I was a fucking side show. And others like my birth dad refused to be alone with me. I'm asking her 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 gonna include it because it's a quick story. So when I was a, 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 in the trash. When he got back upstairs, I was still in my high chair. He was right-pissed and glaring

at him. What he said. You shouldn't have done that. I replied angrily. Oh my God. 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. In all 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 Oh my god 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

Long story short when I started having sleep paralysis in my, it was in my early to mid teens, I had no way of knowing other people had experienced it. Same. And it logically, and logically, I just assumed I was cursed or some shit. Needless to say, I suffered alone. No way was I gonna inform my sweet innocent mom, her beloved daughter with some kind of hex-she-de she devil probably decided to spawn the son of Satan. My God, it's John with the story. From around age 14 to about 18 I would experience these things maybe two to four times a week. Oh my God.

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, I didn't, 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 devol-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 result in what I can only assume was a broom to the ceiling beneath me. Up yours, up yours you broom-wielding fishwife.

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, stop trying to move and close 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 in Fedora at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night. In my scaredest 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 of my eyes, he was gone. I never told anyone and he never came back again. The 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 for 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 stepfathers. Glotinous keyboard of pestilence. P.S. I still have crazy nightmares and wake up screaming now and then. But at least the only ones standing there looking at me these days is my cat. Bless our sweet little grey heart. He puts up with a lot. And also the cat is adorable. The 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 he, 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, continue. That I will. And 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. it out and I'll wake myself up screaming. Jesus. Yeah, it's crazy. But that's really fun for your John. I bet it is.

He loves me though, so. Yeah, of course. 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.

That's what it's called. Sleep paralysis. Hey, spooky queens. First of all, I love you both so much. I love you. I love you too. Thanks for making your Horde of Weirdos feel less alone by bonding over all the Spooks, Spooks shits,

just so I don't blush even more about my undying love for your creepy asses. Creepy ass Macabre mistresses. Well, that was like a tongue-paste. That was so nice. I liked it though. Also, my whole leg is asleep, so I jolted in the middle of saying that. 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 minussexual 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-beat. I have woken up to him. I have woke it 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. And closing the drawer to me waking up to him strangling me.

After being sleep-stringled 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 me up, he's woken up to me gasping for breath and he has had to pound on my chest to give me breath again. Oh my god, that's awful. Before my boyfriend I've always had the dream of slender man looking, a slender man 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. Ugh. I'm so sorry, that's awful. I hate this. 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 where I suffered might be an interesting listener tale, but 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. 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 girl I love you I'm so glad you have a great man meat man meat great piece of meat get you a piece on my

And we get you that it's like man Gabrielle man meat just reminds me of like Oscar Meyer okay I like I feel like his name should be Oscar Meyer Or Jimmy Dean. Yeah, oh there you go Jimmy Dean. Jim and he your turn So I this is my last tale because I'm falling asleep Oh no, and I'm scared I'm so scared. This is dead-end sleep paralysis a life guide on how to shit yourself. Oh goody And this is from Connor Hello, I finally got the courage. Plierce misses Delphire. I don't know, it's awesome though.

Hello! I finally got the courage to write so- and so here I am. This podcast is the only way I can make it through my shitty boring office job. So thank you for saving my life every week for eight hours a day. 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. 21 is young. You're good. You're good. Well, not my parents. You're like, my group parents. Yeah, they go. This specific room is where most of my sisters experience has 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. Oh, good. 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, at where it at, blah, blah, 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. Blink, it's our good weapon. I experienced those bugs things a few times, but I also wake up randomly in the room being covered in vibrant red wire slash strings. 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. Yeah, it can fuck right off. I didn't even get into the ceiling fan. Fuck off. Fuck off, ceiling fan.

Fuck off 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. 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. I booked it the fuck out of my room in full panic screaming, blacking out everyone in the house and described it at everyone in the house described it as a murder scream. Oh my god. Something they 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.

I 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 came across something called the rake. And it's some creepy pasta thing, I think. But it resembles that thing I saw to the tea.

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, amazing. 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, you just fucked it all up. Keep that rake out of here.

Stop. I hate it. Oh, I 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's midnight. It is midnight, dude. And I'm done with the sleep paralysis

because it's freaking me out. I think we should just end on that now. I think we should end on Connor's pink humanoid creature crawling out of the ceiling. Do you have post-discop cakes? Because I'm an evil. I do have post-discop cakes. OK. Well, guys, humanoid creature. Do you have supposed to cupcakes? Because I'm an evil. I do have supposed to cupcakes. Okay.

Well, guys, thank you for writing and you're sleep paralysis stories. I think even though we just took last week off, I'm gonna need next week off, because 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 podcasts. Hit us up on Twitter. A morbid podcast. We love Facebook, grow morbid, call into true crime podcast, Facebook, group, it's awesome in there. Who said does a Gmail? Woooo! Morbid Podcasts at gmail.com. I want you to check out our website too. MorbidPodcast.com because we have all the tour dates there. We have a gay blozine. We hope you.

Keep it weird. But that's a weird that I have to get out of here because I'm freaking the fuck up right now and I have to see you put on your couch tonight. I'm really never supposed to be on your couch with the only one bling into protecting me while you're sleeping upstairs with your husband even though 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 the chance to be on the 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 a chance to be on the couch because I'm really freaked out by No Hey prime members You can listen to morbid early and add free on Amazon music Download the Amazon music app today or you can listen add free with Wondery plus an Apple podcast Before you go tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.