Meet Gonzo, our pumpkin creation for this year. Since we don’t have our own kitchen yet, we froze Gonzo’s guts and instead of my usual Halloween pumpkin food ideas, he is here to tell you a scary story about sleep paralysis. So grab a cup of tea and turn on all the lights, because my Nightmare log stories are not for the faint of heart. Now, as they say in horror movies, the following story is based on real events…
It’s dark. The clock on our nightstand is soundlessly ticking away the night hours and I’m almost asleep. My eyelids quiver in the dark and I can feel my boyfriendโs hand wrapped around my waist like the familiar weight of home. An unfamiliar tingle runs through me and I open my eyes. Iโm standing in a too bright, barren wasteland. Thereโs nothing around me and the ground is a nondescript, brown colour. A minute ago I was at home, in bed, and my mind is confused, but also strangely at peace.
I start walking. Time and direction are meaningless, itโs the steps that matter. A strange hum permeates the air, suddenly and like itโs always been there. I acknowledge it in the back of my mind, thinking it must be the fridge in the living roomโฆbut there is no fridge here. The hum draws insistently closer, becoming a slow, haunting melody quietly assaulting my ears with words I just canโt hear.
Iโm still walking across the empty plane, putting one foot in front of the other and raising up dust as if thereโs something important in front of me, but I donโt know what. My steps slow and I wake up just as I was about to sit down on the dusty ground. Iโm staring at the wardrobe opposite our bed and I canโt move. My eyes are darting left and right and I canโt move. The strange melodic hum is back, as if it never left. I canโt move. Panic starts blossoming in my head, coming to the forefront of my mind and I canโt move. The wardrobe Iโm looking at is shrouded in darkness and the details of its shape and size start to register in my mind, but I canโt move. Iโm trapped in my own body and suddenly I realise why the wardrobe is all wrong: Iโm looking at it from above. I can only see the top half of it, the part where it meets the ceiling and I canโt move. I look down. My body is sprawled on the bed next to my boyfriend in a tense, rigid pose, as if Iโve tried to curl into a ball, but stopped moving mid-movement. I canโt move. Iโm floating above myself and thereโs a third figure on the bed. Its dark shape registers in my body’s peripheral vision and my floating self instinctively knows itโs a him.
I scream, but thereโs no sound except the ever-present melodic hum, battering my panicked brain like a morning hangover. Heโs in our bed and I canโt move. He looks like a solid dark shadow and I can tell heโs tall. Heโs lying on my right side, with my boyfriend asleep on the left. Iโm still silently screaming and I canโt move. Heโs just lying there, pressed into my side, his head against my right ear, but I canโt really feel it.
The second I realise the hum is coming from him I slam back into my body. My eyes tingle, I can feel every eyelash and the dark suddenly has more colour. I canโt move and I can feel soft, insubstantial lips by my right ear humming away the horrid melody thatโs going to haunt me forever. I canโt move. My body is locked tight and my tired, panicked brain finally recognises him for what he is: sleep paralysis. Comprehension dawns and I breathe through it until I wake up.
–
The next morning is grey and rainy and I have to get up for work. My mind snags on last nightโs dream, wondering why the sleep demon is back after years of staying away, then labels it as a fluke due to stress and pays it no mind. The smell of freshly brewed coffee fills the air and events from the dark slip away.
–
I open my eyes. Iโm in a green, sunny glade surrounded by an ancient forest and the air is humming with energy. No, not energy, itโs that insistent hum again: that slow, haunting melody is back. Iโm better prepared this time and as I look around I immediately spot him in my peripheral vision. Always on my right side, always humming away his infernal melody. I havenโt slept well for a couple of days now, even before he appeared and this time I know itโs a dream. I had dabbled with lucid dreaming a bit when I was a child and Iโm desperately trying to remember the rules.
I know Iโm in a dream and I should be able to influence it. The hum is digging into my brain and the forest around me sparkles. The sun is so calm and inviting that I just have to sit on the grass for a moment. Just for a moment. No! I shove away the foreign thoughts of lying down in the warm sun and itโs a physical effort. I need to get out of this and get some real sleep. The shadow on my right side grows. I canโt really see him, but I can tell itโs him, my demon. Heโs the same one I saw in my childhood bouts of sleep paralysis before it stopped.
The more I think about it, the more I try to reason with my own mind, the larger he grows. Heโs mad now. I donโt know how I know, but he got angry. I have to get out. I need to get out soon.
I try to order myself to wake up. I have to get out. Iโm panicking again and he keeps growing, until heโs blocking out the sun. The glade is no longer warm and a chill wind blows across my back. I am truly scared now.
But I am also annoyed. At the back of my mind I know Iโm still dreaming and I should be able to force myself awake, damn him! Heโs pissed now. I still donโt know how I can tell, he has no face, he barely has a vaguely humanoid shape, but I can tell. Heโs mad and growing madder. Tendrils of shadow start to unravel from his dark shape and I panic.
I gulp down air as if Iโm drowning and hyperventilate. Iโm awake, in my bed staring at the wardrobe again and I canโt move. I canโt move and heโs back to his usual size. Lying on my right, inexistent lips pressed to my right ear, humming away. Iโm hyperventilating and I canโt move. I focus on the only thing I can: the melody.
The incessant, insane melody. Iโm no good at music, but even I can tell itโs simple. It is slow, haunting and strangely comforting. It feels important, as if itโs not a melody, but a song. As if there are words wrapped amongst the tunes, just barely there. I canโt hear them and I canโt move. I swear there are words at the edge of my hearing. I feel him press closer, but I canโt feel it. I canโt move.
I wake up with a start, finally able to move my limbs and press myself against my boyfriendโs back. I can still hear the hum in my head, but itโs slowly fading. Iโm trying to calm myself down, because the panic is gone and I am strangely at peace. I try to think about my dream: he got angry when I tried to influence it, to get out. Thatโs new.
–
The day goes by and itโs time to sleep again. This time I am ready. Iโm tired of these incessant nightmares and sleep paralysis, twice is more than enough. I know Iโm not cold, so it must be too hot in the bed. I make sure Iโm not tangled up with my boyfriend this time, wrap myself in my blanket with one leg out and prepare to drift under.
–
Iโm in bed with my boyfriend and weโre half asleep, content. The bed feels small and with a glance at my surroundings I realise weโre at my familyโs weekend house in Croatia, by the seaside. Weโre crammed in a single bed, but it feels nice, very cosy. Suddenly a thought pierces through my head: did we close the outer door on the terrace? I dart fully awake and an irrational fear seizes me. I shake my boyfriend awake: โDid we close the outer terrace door?โ Heโs nods and mumbles that โyes, I did.โ I can feel a draft through the small house and I donโt believe him. The door is important. Itโs everything.
I get up and pad over the cold tiles on bare feet. Thereโs a familiar unsettling presence by my right side. The dark shadow man is back and heโs humming away again. This time the door is more important, the door is everything. I pad through the bathroom to the other side of the house and his presence is almost comforting. My demon and I are friends now.
I enter the kitchen entrance area and I can see a sliver of light shining through the terrace door. It’s open. The door is open and it needs to be closed. Itโs important!
Heโs patiently standing just behind me on my right, manifesting in my peripheral vision like a stain I canโt wash out. I shout for my boyfriend to come and help me close the damn door. I can hear him getting up from the bed and I take a step towards the door.
A cat walks in with its tail held high. My heart melts – โcome here, kittyโ, as I reach out my hand to pet it. Itโs a she and she arches her back, opens her mouth full of razor sharp, abnormally large teeth and latches on to my hand. I scream and I canโt shake her off. Her teeth are in like a hook and I canโt get her off. The more I shake my hand, the worse it gets, until she finally flies off into the night through the open door.
More cats pour in. All of them are insane, meowing and clawing and biting and jumping at my poor bloody, battered hands. My boyfriend is calmly standing by the door and I realise heโs asking me why it needs to be closed. Iโm still screaming and I pause to shout at him that the damn cat monsters are pouring in: โWhy are you just standing there?! HELP ME!โ. The demon at my back on the right drifts closer and hums louder, but he doesnโt matter. The door is everything and I kick away the insane cats with strength I didnโt know I had. But they keep coming.
They keep coming and the door is still open and my boyfriend isnโt closing it. The humming is getting louder, omnipresent and I can hear the words. Theyโre screaming at me, but they donโt register amid the insane cat noise and the pain in my hands. The door is everything and the words can wait. The cats keep coming and the hum is now deafening. Itโs trying to tell me something, but it doesnโt matter. The door is everything. A catโs claw scrapes bone and I scream.
Iโm awake, but I canโt move. I canโt move and heโs pressed against my right side, humming his infernal tune. Itโs quieter now, softer. I canโt hear the words anymore and I canโt move. I canโt move, my heart is beating away like crazy and I canโt move.
–
I wake up, flailing around and whimpering. My boyfriend is holding me and trying to calm me down, telling me it was all a dream. Iโm babbling away about demons and dark figures. Heโs trying to convince me itโs ok and I go to the toilet. Nightmares are often brought on by the urgent need to pee. Thatโs fine, but the demon felt so real.
I come back to bed, telling my boyfriend about the nightmare, Iโm in shock. I felt fear, real fear and I keep telling him how I wouldnโt be surprised if demons or some other night creatures were real and if it turned out theyโre coming here to feed while we sleep. Heโs unconvinced and is trying to get me to go back to sleep. I blab on about things we donโt understand and entities lurking in the dark. Eventually I fall back asleep and sleep like a log.
–
I open my eyes in a cafe. Itโs cute in a vintage, doily-clothed tables with dainty cups kind of way. Iโm staring at a selection of cupcakes and pastries and the people in line behind me are getting annoyed. I have no idea where I am, but the cupcakes with tiny strawberries on top look awesome. I order two and a cup of cappuccino, then move out of the line. The goods are brought to my tiny corner table for one and I think Iโm in Sweden, on one of my solo travels through Scandinavia. The thank you words โTack sรฅ mycketโ come out of my mouth on autopilot and confirm it. Itโs nice, relaxing and it feels like Iโm finally getting some proper sleep.
Then it hits me: sleep โ itโs a dream. And a nice one at that. Thereโs no hum, heโs not here and the dream is nice. Itโs nice! Iโm ecstatic as I bite into the first fluffy cupcake and it is heaven in my mouth. I take a sip of my coffee and it tastes like rot. I lift my gaze and the cafe around me has crumbled to ash. I know it even before I hear it: the hum is back. The stupid, insane melody wraps around me like an old, scratchy scarf. Heโs back on my right, sitting on the side of my vintage chair. The chair is still here and so am I, but everything around my little cafe corner is grey and worms are crawling allover my cupcakes.
I spit out the coffee in my mouth, but it doesnโt come out. I choke on it, trying to force it out, but it keeps slithering into my throat. Iโm choking, coughing it out for all Iโm worth, but itโs fighting me and it tastes like rot. It tastes like the smell of a garbage yard and bile rises up my throat. I canโt stand it, Iโd rather die.
The melodic hum is all around me, drowning out my choking gasps and slicing into my tired, battered brain. I hurl myself off the chair with my last breath, falling into the grey.
Iโm awake and I canโt move. I canโt move again. Iโm stuck in my bed, staring at the wardrobe again and I canโt move. Heโs by my right side like an unwanted extra limb and Iโm angry. This time Iโm the one whoโs pissed off and I canโt move. I shout at him, screaming internally, because no sound comes out of my mouth, because I canโt move. โWhy are you here? Why are you doing this to me?โ. I know how crazy this is, Iโm screaming at my own mind, Iโm arguing with my insane brain and a part of me knows that it’s just stress, the collective trauma of the pandemic years and daily life.
My desperate question penetrates the darkness and the demon on my right smiles. He SMILES. The dark, shadowy, insubstantial figure with no face and a barely humanoid form in my peripheral vision smiles. I almost piss myself. A newfound terror, a horror the likes Iโve never felt before surges through me and I can feel my bladder letting go. No! I am an adult, I know Iโm awake and Iโm not pissing myself in bed.
–
I burst awake with a scream, but itโs muted by the blanket and my boyfriend doesnโt wake up this time. I run to the bathroom and contemplate my insane dreams. He smiled. I know all about the theory of lucid dreaming, about the weird presence our brain manifests during sleep paralysis, the dark shadows we somehow hallucinate to torment ourselves in the half-awake state. But they are supposed to be inert, thereโs no case of them interacting, let alone smiling. I flush the toilet and consider the possibility that the stress might be driving me insane. Either that, or Iโll need an exorcism.
Later in the day I take a shower. As Iโm washing my face with my eyes closed I can feel him at my back and I can even hear a faint echo of that insistent, creepy hum. I jerk away from the water and frantically look around the bathroom. Thereโs no one there, of course, and the hum is only in my mind. This needs to stop.
I talk to my friends about it in the evening and they all find my visceral terror demon incredibly fascinating. On an objective level Iโm fascinated too, but I canโt get rid of the feeling that heโs trying to tell me something important and that time is running out. The talking helps and I agree to write down my nightmares. Perhaps the demon will bleed out of me on the paper and stay there. But what if he is trying to tell me something important? I push away those thoughts, although a part of my mind is screaming at me that he is a part of me and that itโs all in my head. So am I trying to tell myself something?
–
I fall asleep with the mental state of a soldier before battle. Just as Iโm ready to kick ass and finally finish these nightmares once and for all, I find myself in a white, sterile room. Itโs huge and the walls are lined with translucent rectangles. At first glance they look like computer screens and a droning hum confirms it. But wait, itโs not a tech hum, itโs the hum. Itโs my internal haunting melody humming away and emanating from all the not-computer-screens.
A part of me knows they are windows into peopleโs souls. I can feel them, theyโre all connected to me on some level and then it hits me. Such sorrow, so much pain. A dying manโs last breath, a woman in pain in a hospital room, a crying child, a beaten woman, a scared child and a man with hunger pangs all wrapped into one horrible sound, punctuated by that incessant melodic hum. So much death and so much suffering. It all washes over me in a giant tidal wave and it feels like the time I visited a concentration camp. Heavy, horrible and grey.
I stumble back and crash into a dark shape. Itโs the demon, heโs been there all along. How do you crash into an insubstantial shadow? I donโt know and I realise Iโm crying. Iโm crying and Iโm screaming and wailing and crashing against the walls. I canโt get out. The white room starts getting smaller, the translucent soul windows start drawing closer and itโs pure terror.
–
I wake up with a scream and I canโt move. This time itโs loud enough to wake my boyfriend up and heโs shaking me out of my nightmare. I can still feel the dark presence by my right ear, I can still hear the melodic hum echoing inside my brain, but heโs shaking me awake and telling me itโs alright.
I wake up in the morning and I feel like shit. My brain feels like itโs been through a blender and all the traumatic dreams of the past week are pressing down hard. I canโt get out of bed. But then I can, because Iโm not asleep, Iโm not trapped, Iโm not paralysed and I refuse to be.
I take my time in the bathroom and acknowledge my stress while Iโm brushing my teeth. Itโs probably causing the nightmares and I wonโt let it. I stare into my eyes in the mirror and my resolve firms into steel.
–
He didnโt come back tonight. Nor the previous two nights. My head is silent and it looks like heโs gone. Somehow I almost miss him.
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