For about over 3 years now, I have not experienced again this unnerving and scary thing in my life. It's what the doctor's named as sleep paralysis.

"Sleep paralysis is a feeling of being conscious but unable to move. It occurs when a person passes between stages of wakefulness and sleep. During these transitions, you may be unable to move or speak for a few seconds up to a few minutes. Some people may also feel pressure or a sense of choking." - as qouted from Google. It's like you think you're still awake but in reality you're already asleep. But mine is not just can't move or speak, it's way more than that. So I refuse to call it "sleep paralysis."

And it's not just me who's experiencing like what I had. There are other people out there who has gone through much worse than what I had experienced.

Mine is not as scary as others claim. I have read somewhere that his started out when he went to bed and in a few seconds after closing his eyes, his place became dead silent. Nothing can be heard as if he's gone deaf. And at the same time he can't move his entire body, only his eyes can move. And as his eyes set upon at the far end of where lay, there stands a figure of a woman he can't clearly see the face. She's just standing there, staring at him with her spooky red eyes. He wanted to scream and get up so he can ran outside the room....but he can't. Then the figure crouched and crawl to his side in a flash. Within a second she was right at his face and horror struck him which made him scream so loud that had his body move and with that he ran as fast as he could away from the scary figure in his bedroom. The scary face of that woman was embedded forever in his mind. And that was not the only time he experienced that so-called "sleep paralysis." It happened again to him months after the first. But this time it was in his mother's house. And a lot more scarier because his Mom also heard the scurrying noises and things being tossed across the house.

This is nothing that science can explain. How come the other person with the one experiencing "sleep paralysis" can hear and see the same things too?

In my case, mine started the instant I lay my head on my pillow. I can hear my family in the living room, just right outside of my bedroom door which I leave ajar. I can also the program they are watching so I know I am still fully awake. But then something strange started to happen. I can sense that I am not alone inside my room. Then I realized I can't move, except for my eyes. I can still hear my family talking about something. I tried to call out my Mom, even tried screaming for help but my voice abandoned me at that time.

I felt that all the hairs on my body stood up and I can sense a heavy force or aura enveloping my whole body. It seems to me like a black aura and I quickly associated it with an evil force. That's when I saw someone on the other end of my bed, it was a shadow in shape of a man. He was just standing there, staring at me but he's got no eyes, he was just a shadow or a blacksmoke-like human form, but somehow I know and I can feel that he was staring at me, motionless.

Frightened out of my wits, I started saying a prayer in my mind because I still can't speak. But as I pray, that shadow thing seemed to get angry. And I can feel the black aura getting thick and heavier and my head felt weird, like it feels like getting bigger but lighter. But scared as hell, I continue praying, I know I am screaming my prayers in my mind, I was fighting with that black shadow. And at the same time, I was also trying to make my body move. I tried shaking my head, moving my fingers and feet. Until I felt that I can move my right foot a little bit. So I focused on my right foot and gathering all the strength I have at that moment, I finally was able to lift my right foot and hit the wall beside my bed twice.

The banging sound I made caught my family's attention and rushed inside my room to see what was happening. By the time they came through the door, the shadow was gone and I can move again. I told them what had happened to me. They said that maybe I just had a nightmare but I told them that I wasn't asleep yet when that transcend. I don't know if they believed me but they said that I should always pray, which I always do.

I don't know if it could be considered as sleep paralysis. I guess science just have to have a scientific explanation to something really unexplainable. And people who has not experienced it yet will just agree with what the doctors has said about this unnatural situation.

All I can say now is that prayer is still the most powerful weapon against the unknown.

Editor's note:

Original content, story is mine and actually happened to me. Not only once but a few times already ang my eldest son has also experienced this.

Lead image from Unsplash