The spring of 1986 that I first began to experience a series of waking up, unable to move.
Being off for school for one full week because I was on spring/Easter break just like every student. It was on the morning of Palm Sunday before enjoying a week of playing video games at Joe’s Pizza at the Liberty Links Shopping Plaza and waiting for my old man this very morning to take out fishing to Orwoods located in the California Delta instead of attending Sunday services, just for once.
That morning, prior to awakening, I was in deep sleep. I couldn’t remember the exact details in the dream ,except the scene took place in a dark tunnel with a girl in it and along with her reptiles and insects swarmed within.
Onset of awakening this feeling of being numb as though my blood circulation was cut off. I felt weak and very groggy. At the right peripheral view of my right eye, a blurred figure was there standing at the foot of my bed. My vision was blurred; I thought I had seen a robed figure lurking at me from a short distance. My eyes was still fluttering in a part REM sleep-awake stage. Suddenly my sight became visible able to see clearly.
And here I was pinned down on the bed unable to move. I tried to move, and could not; semi-awake, nearly choking to death as though a unseen powerful force was there strangling me nearly to death, as I made a desperate attempt to yell out for help to anyone in the house to rescue me from the phantom. The more I struggled to fight this thing off me, the heavier the weight. I gasped for air.
Soon the paralysis stopped after a short while; the grasp of a heavy choke hold from the phantom diminished after. I was able to breathe at ease. The incident was virtually haunting as if I was attacked by a supernatural entity. Such mixed emotions, fear and anxiety crept inside of me. Too, I was mad a hell in searching for an elusive stranger that may off been lurking around my bed; dashing out, I searched for The Phantom who could of been hiding under my bed; then, I searched the nearby closet: nothing or nobody was anywhere to be found.
For the first time in my life, I felt soo lonely with knowledge I was under attack, there was nobody there to come to my rescue. In my early years as teen I was in my way a tough kid, growing up being picked on by school bullies; often, either way I or they asked for a fight. Maybe this particular Palm Sunday morning it was a entity who challenged me to a fight. Could it be God who I thought at that morning was hating me, playing a twisted sick prank on me. Whatever this unseen force derived from, this incident gave away a thought I was being subjected to mental illness the days following, barely living on the edge.
This was the first time I’ve ever experienced such dread, so different from a ordinary nightmare that I had ever had in the past. It seemed so real that the aspects speak for itself:
Unable to move/paralyzed and unable to speak
The feeling of presence/and pressure on the chest and various tactile feelings on parts of the body
The audio and visual hallucinations.
In the months and years following, a dark shadow pushing its weight on me. The sinking into the bed mattress and being suffocated with my pillow. And yes, the floating and drifting away. These are signs of HHE(Hypnagogic/Hypnopompic Hallucination Experiences) with with ISP(Isolated Sleep Paralysis) and or ASP(Awake Sleep Paralysis.
