Log

I've never met the hat or shadow man but I'm sure they're very nice. Up until recently I've never had a clear, reoccuring character making itself known during my episodes but things have changed I guess.

Not every night, but enough nights to be noticeable I've seen it in the doorway to our bedroom. Maybe I've watched too many movies featuring cultists in the woods lately and my hat man has become this.

A near caricature of what you'd expect from someone who is probably selling their soul to some obscure folklore demon off the beaten trail. The only difference being its height. I have high ceilings and a doorway to match and this thing still needs to crouch. It braces itself against the top of the frame, a suspiciously charcoaled hand gripping the wood and its head ducking just inside where I can stare straight into its bottomless face. The rope holding its robes together cinching its waist as it leans forward and lingers.

Then it starts chanting. Two words over and over that sound like some antique language in a baritone layered voice and a pace for endurance rather than impact. Steady and sure in its notes until eventually a large black bird swoops under its arm to splash into my ceiling.

At this point I throw myself out of the paralysis and it takes its leave.

They came from the ceiling. Tasting like an attic unsettled and feeling dust particles drift down to land on me, pinned to the bed as usual. Next was the sound of small scratches on wood, a chorus of squeaking and the pitter patter of little feet until the weight of them brought them down onto my torso. I felt the impact and could only stare down my nose to just catch the bundles of fur that had swarmed my body.

They were musty, rapid. I could feel their tiny claws, the way the flesh of those little paw pads pulled away from my skin, catching for a moment on the sweat of it. Particles dancing off their backs from wherever they came from and falling off my sides onto the bed.

I could feel their naked tails pulling through the space between my fingers and toes, dragging over me as they panicked. It tickled a bit. I'm not very tickish but I guess the tiny hairs and discomfort of it all were enough. They eventually tumbled off of me, the bed, and into the night releasing me from the episode.

I weighed what felt like 1000lbs in my bed and heard the door creak open. It sounded wet and looked like an oversized amphibious humanoid crawling toward me. It was too big (I've always had a weird fear of giants) and too grey but that could have been because night mutes everything and my mind was playing tricks on me again.

When you can't move your head and neck it feels like a mountain of strain pushing your eyes to see whats just at the edge of your peripheral vision. Seems kind of cruel that everything but my eyes would be paralyzed, and I guess but just barely my lungs.

It was only a couple of crustacean style strides for something that size to get to the edge of my bed. It gingerly took my forearm into it's mouth and held eye contact. Unblinking and gentle. It's mouth became my sole focus because the teeth were so human. Shallow hills of molars pressed into my skin and it's mouth wept. I could feel the saliva warming and cooling against the pattern of it's breath

I felt those teeth all through gym class that morning

Sometimes I fall asleep with my thick linen blanket over my head. Capturing my own body heat into a warm comforting cocoon. I guess it only makes sense that this would happen eventually.

Sometimes I can tell when an episode is beginning (which also sometimes gives me a chance to stop it before it goes too far, but not always). I get hit with a sense of gravity like the drop of a roller coaster without any of the adrenaline or excitement and then the show begins.

My blanket took on a translucence and a large window spilling blinding daylight into my room was revealed despite it being the dead of night. Off to the side the silhouette of a man sat on a chair. Hands pulled up to his chin like a thoughtful mantis I could hear him talking. It was conversational. Familiar and almost friendly if I wasnt locked to my bed and barely able to breathe. I couldnt make out the words. It was like my blanket created a barrier, muffling the speech as if under water. He seemed unphased, maybe just happy to have a captive audience.

I don't know why but when I'm visited by one of the humanoid creatures they're always so gentle with me. I can't ever tell if it's out of genuine affection, my own mind trying to tell me that even though it's putting me through this it does in fact still care in it's own way. Or maybe it's the way you pick up a piece of fruit, careful not to bruise the skin as that would make it less appetizing.

Like the lady of the lake this thing rose up from a sea of black and brittle hair by my side. It's eyes sunken and sad it reached toward my exposed arm with long, too long, of course upsettingly long limbs. And what's worse than two creepy long arms? Four, the answer is four impossibly jointed arms. A quartet of palms wrapping around my skin. Cold, clammy and soft. It's fingers flexing like they were searching for the perfect leverage on my flesh.

I felt the dead weight of me drag toward the edge and then I came back to my body laying at an angle.

Sharing a bed with someone never really had an impact on what happens during my episodes beyond possibly disturbing their sleep, I even early on thought that the presence of someone else might help prevent it for whatever reason. I may have just been grasping for a life boat.

Usually the things in my episodes are fully pulled from my imagination (I ASSUME) but there was one time the monster was the person laying next to me.

It was for the most part not a great relationship and they say stress can contribute to sleep paralysis. At the height of turmoil there was a night when all of the pressure I usually feel across my body was isolated to my neck. My airway felt cut off and I could feel the tickle of arm hairs under my chin, the heat of another persons skin and their breath on the side of my face. I couldn't fight back and I didn't realize that this was an episode. I knew this face and this skin and with everything going on this act of sudden violence didn't feel so out of place.

I was choking but the hand wasn't around my neck, just the dead weight of an arm pressing down like they had reached over me for a sleeping embrace but instead dropped on my neck and kept bearing down. They didn't blink as they watched me struggle internally which should have been my first clue.

My only mercy was that the timer ran out and my body let go of it's paralysis and when I could finally turn my head towards my partner they had their back to me and were deeply asleep.