Of old hags and Kurt Cobain
Yesterday afternoon after an intense morning of yoga, I had a little nap. I usually don't like dozing off during the day, but since I started yoga and it starts at an ungodly hour in the morning for a weekend, I had to, if I was to survive the night untired.
Anyway, during the nap I experienced sleep paralysis. You know when you're sleeping and you think you're awake and you want to move but you feel your entire body paralysed, you can't move until you snap awake.
Sometimes it's quite scary it's as if someone is sitting on your body and holding you down. Sometimes you even see the thing that's holding you down.
Yesterday however, it was a normal paralysis - I just see my bed from the angle where I'm lying down, but I can't frickin move. I kept telling myself wake up wake up and was basically fighting with myself and finally I woke up.
If you read that link (yes I know it's only Wikipedia duh) it explains the condition in a nutshell. One thing that is common, from a long time ago is the hallucination of seeing an old hag (a demonic visit) sitting on your chest. Read this: The original definition of sleep paralysis was codified by Dr Johnson in his A Dictionary of the English Language as "nightmare," a term that evolved into our modern definition. Such sleep paralysis was widely considered to be the work of demons and more specifically incubi, which were thought to sit on the chests of sleepers. In Old English the name for these beings was mare or mære (from a proto-Germanic *marōn, cf. Old Norse mara), hence comes the marenightmare. The word might be etymologically cognate to Hellenic Marōn (in the Odyssey) and Sanskrit Māra.
Hands up who has experienced sleep paralysis and NOT see an old hag sitting on their chest? If you raised your hands you're in idiot, I can't see you dummy! Anyway, jokes aside, I have experienced this old scary bitch sitting on my chest and refusing to let me go. Happened in my teens. It stopped once I got into my 20s, I only saw her standing in the corner of the room, but recently she has completely disappeared and is replaced by the sense that I'm awake - I can see everything in the room as it is when I fell asleep.
The weirdest paralysis that happened to me was seeing Kurt Cobain sitting next to my bed looking at me. That happened in my teens as well. See, I fell asleep listening to Nirvana songs and Cobain paid me a visit in my interrupted REM sleep. But I didn't feel excited like, OhmygodKurtCobainissittingnexttomybedhe'salive! I felt scared shitless. You know why, coz not only he was sitting there quietly looking at me, he looks dead as dead could ever be AND I couldn't move. Cobain struck me paralysed just looking at me - which probably would happen in real life if I ever met him (provided he didn't kill himself of course).
Anyway, if you read about it, the experience of sleep paralysis for a lot of people seems to be the same (except for the Kurt Cobain by bedside story, which I trust I alone have experienced) - the fact that they felt there's an evil thing sitting on them, or holding them down. Or they see at the corner of the room a scary figure shrouded in black. What does this mean? People have universally intertwined nightmares?
What's even scarier is some have even died in their sleep while this happens. And survivors tell of experiencing sleep paralysis.
One thing for sure, I don't want to be going to bed and having some old hag playing S&M games with me and me ending up scared to death. If only someone could find a relation between these internationally similar nightmares and what the hell they mean, medically and theologically.
Soundtrack while writing this: Kasabian's album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum. How apt.
Anyway, during the nap I experienced sleep paralysis. You know when you're sleeping and you think you're awake and you want to move but you feel your entire body paralysed, you can't move until you snap awake.
Sometimes it's quite scary it's as if someone is sitting on your body and holding you down. Sometimes you even see the thing that's holding you down.
Yesterday however, it was a normal paralysis - I just see my bed from the angle where I'm lying down, but I can't frickin move. I kept telling myself wake up wake up and was basically fighting with myself and finally I woke up.
If you read that link (yes I know it's only Wikipedia duh) it explains the condition in a nutshell. One thing that is common, from a long time ago is the hallucination of seeing an old hag (a demonic visit) sitting on your chest. Read this: The original definition of sleep paralysis was codified by Dr Johnson in his A Dictionary of the English Language as "nightmare," a term that evolved into our modern definition. Such sleep paralysis was widely considered to be the work of demons and more specifically incubi, which were thought to sit on the chests of sleepers. In Old English the name for these beings was mare or mære (from a proto-Germanic *marōn, cf. Old Norse mara), hence comes the marenightmare. The word might be etymologically cognate to Hellenic Marōn (in the Odyssey) and Sanskrit Māra.
Hands up who has experienced sleep paralysis and NOT see an old hag sitting on their chest? If you raised your hands you're in idiot, I can't see you dummy! Anyway, jokes aside, I have experienced this old scary bitch sitting on my chest and refusing to let me go. Happened in my teens. It stopped once I got into my 20s, I only saw her standing in the corner of the room, but recently she has completely disappeared and is replaced by the sense that I'm awake - I can see everything in the room as it is when I fell asleep.
The weirdest paralysis that happened to me was seeing Kurt Cobain sitting next to my bed looking at me. That happened in my teens as well. See, I fell asleep listening to Nirvana songs and Cobain paid me a visit in my interrupted REM sleep. But I didn't feel excited like, OhmygodKurtCobainissittingnexttomybedhe'salive! I felt scared shitless. You know why, coz not only he was sitting there quietly looking at me, he looks dead as dead could ever be AND I couldn't move. Cobain struck me paralysed just looking at me - which probably would happen in real life if I ever met him (provided he didn't kill himself of course).
Anyway, if you read about it, the experience of sleep paralysis for a lot of people seems to be the same (except for the Kurt Cobain by bedside story, which I trust I alone have experienced) - the fact that they felt there's an evil thing sitting on them, or holding them down. Or they see at the corner of the room a scary figure shrouded in black. What does this mean? People have universally intertwined nightmares?
What's even scarier is some have even died in their sleep while this happens. And survivors tell of experiencing sleep paralysis.
One thing for sure, I don't want to be going to bed and having some old hag playing S&M games with me and me ending up scared to death. If only someone could find a relation between these internationally similar nightmares and what the hell they mean, medically and theologically.
Soundtrack while writing this: Kasabian's album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum. How apt.
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