Halloween All Year - A Visit with the Night Crusher
There are dreams we share. Across continents. Across cultures. They take the forms of Fear and rob us of peace when night is most still. Black formless men in the corner of the room. Nightmares covering the bedsheets, crawling with spiders or snakes. An old hag crushing the life from us as she presses down on our chest. The intense feeling of an evil presence lurking just out of sight. Powerless to move, powerless to speak, we can only scream for help that doesn't come.This is the real world of the Nightmare. Not a world of cute Piers Anthony horses, but demons, succubi, and incubi. The Night Demon. The Night Hag. The Night Crusher.
My lifelong struggle with the Night Crusher began one fateful night when I was fifteen. One could almost say that my world, my life, my identity began that night as well with one Halloween-like dream. There was the rickety old hut worn with weather. Eerie music played in the background, a synthesizer extravaganza filled with ominous low tones and minor chords. I approached the hut with a few faceless companions. We knocked, then entered a darkly lit room full of shadows and billowing shapes. The room was actually outside, which makes sense only in dreams, and there was a witch by a cauldron. We had come to ask her about the spirits that had been cast out of Heaven. We wanted to know where they were cast out to. The music began to swell as she stopped stirring. The dream camera zoomed into her face and she said, "Don't you realize? They are here. All around us." Suddenly, I became aware of three raps on my head - my real head. The dream faded and the raps were repeated. OneTwoThree. I opened my eyes but was surrounded in darkness and could not move and could not talk. There was an evil presence in my room and I was terrified. I sensed an ebbing, buzzing sound in my head and I called out in prayer but could not form any words. I tried again and slowly words began to form. As the words became more intelligible my vision returned, I regained control of my body, and I lied there panting in a cold sweat.
I do not remember falling back to sleep. In fact, sleep became my enemy that night. My self-identity came into clear focus because of that experience. Any memories before that night are like dreams themselves with the nightmares being the reality. That was the night I stopped being a child.
As a young Mormon boy I immediately drew parallels between that experience and the one Joseph Smith had moments before his First Vision. I must admit I was both terrified and proud. I had been chosen for some great and noble purpose that the forces of Hell were trying to thwart. That was the only way I could make any sense of it. Of course, nobody believed me. In fact, when I confided in my Seminary teacher she later told my parents that she thought I was crazy. That was something I learned later in life, but it made those years with her afterwards make a lot more sense. I didn't believe that Satan was trying to kill me, but I did believe that I was haunted by evil. I could sense it at night. I could sense it following me when I walked home in the dark on a cold Cape Cod winter's night..
Combined with my general moodiness and suicidal poetry, my parents were very concerned. They had me evaluated at Boston's Children's Hospital. The doctors determined I had Attention Deficit Disorder, but did not test for sleep disorders. I left with no answers concerning these visitations, but apparently the tests showed I was a bright kid. That did little to lift my spirits because the dreams didn't stop, and neither did the paralysis. I didn't dare tell anybody else. Who would believe me? As far as I was concerned at the time, even my parents thought I was crazy.
Not until I was 26 did I have a name for what was happening to me. My mother called me with the news she had just heard. Some people suffer from something called Sleep Paralysis where they wake up and can't move. I wasn't crazy and I wasn't alone. And the sense of evil had faded as I both grew older and grew more accustomed to the event. Maybe it all WAS just a dream.
Our forefathers knew of this terror and chose a word for it: Nightmare. "Mare" comes not from horse, but from the Anglo-Saxon merran which means "to crush". Nightmare. Night Crusher. Originally, "nightmare" was a term describing sleep paralysis - a field we have only recently begun to explore again - but soon it came to include nocturnal panic, night terrors, and, eventually, any old fear filled dream. Illuminated and lettered modern men dismissed tales of the Night Crusher as superstitious old wives tales and knowledge of sleep paralysis fell into the dark.
There is a haunting similarity between my dream and the dreams of others who suffer from Sleep Paralysis all over the world. They all sense an evil presence. They all feel bound and unable to move, and they all are terrified. It is called the Kanashibari phenomenon in Japan with the exact same symptoms. Demons in Cambodia, Hags in Europe. All being crushed and immobilized while sleeping. There is an excellent article on the subject over at Science News. To think that I had an archetypal nightmare followed by an episode with the Night Crusher without ever hearing about the experience before is hard to imagine. Can we dismiss the similarities as a coincidence? Had I tapped into a universal conscience? A wealth of world knowledge on a spiritual plane?
A therapist once coldly explained to me that Sleep Paralysis was nothing more than the mind awakening during deep sleep, usually during the REM dream cycle. The paralysis was simply caused by some parts of the brain being asleep while other parts were awakening. Did his educated description help? Perhaps. But did it address the terrors? Did it cover the shared experience by millions of a sense of evil? Did it give scope for the imagination? If the evil was all in my mind, if there was no boogeyman, would I be a better man? Would I be the same man? Or is there something out there that creeps into our minds during these weakened moments? The rational side of me says "no", but the panicked little child side of me finds the spiritual aspect of this phenomenon interesting to contemplate.
Even today I will sense from time to time something evil following me up the stairs as I retire - an invisible entity, malignant and mocking. Sagaciously, I remind myself I am an adult and that this is just the results of a very hyperactive imagination. There is nothing there. Do not look back. There is nothing there. Still, those words do not comfort me when memory of the Night Crusher is so intense. I may know that the experience is only Sleep Paralysis, but can you forgive me if every once in a while I sleep with the light on? After all, with me every night can be Halloween.
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Got a Sleep Paralysis or Halloween dream you'd like to share? Leave it in the comments section.
Related Links:
Rochelle's blog that first led me to the following links
The nightcrusher - an investigation into Sleep Paralysis
Night Terrors site with ooky stories
Wordorgins.org - Look for entry on "Nightmare"
Anna Schegoleva's Study on the Kanashibara experience in Japan (pdf)
Excellent analysis of Henry Fuseli's late-1700 depiction of the Night Crusher
Comments
I do sometimes wonder about the nature of what we are now quick to call "mental illness" -- the maladies that previous generations were, in their way, all too quick to label "demonic possession." Call me kooky, but I can't help but think there are at least a few connections between certain types of mental illness and the influence, subtle or not, of unseen but very real evil beings. Especially with that mental pandemic of our age, depression. Not to suggest that those of us who deal with depression are demonically possessed -- gads, I certainly hope not! -- but that the choke-hold of depression is often the most effective tool in a fallen angel's arsenal against humanity.
This is, as I suddenly consider it, one of the greatest blessings of having Chronic Motor Tic Disorder. That disorder is exhausting and causes me to need sleep whether I'm interested in it or not. I've recently been going through one of my Big Sleep periods where I cannot sleep less than seven hours if I try. (I actually don't usually like these periods because I am not as productive). With so much rest my sleep debt is going into the black.
As for evil spirits, if you had asked me 10 years ago I would have agreed with you. Being Christian, I am more likely than your average Joe to believe in the forces of evil. But nowadays I wonder how much is imagination. How much is interpretation. How much I simply don't understand as well as I thought I did. I am more likely to believe the forces of evil work more covertly than Hollywood would have us believe. However, if a third of the host of Heaven is hangin' about, bodiless and bored, they're more than likely able to reach the mentally disabled whose perceptions of reality are skewed than they would the mentally balanced.
There is more to the human experience than we understand. I believe that dreams open a window into that world where we share a common bond. Flying, falling, being chased, and being bound. All cultures, all peoples, experience this imagery in their subconscious when they sleep. And when we have no answers, and fear is involved, it is very easy to attribute the supernatural to that which we do not understand.
Great comments. Thanks for posting!
Well done post, Douglas, and some good points. I don'thave sleep paralysis,l thank god, but I do have terrifying dreams, and have since my memory begins.
There really is more unseen than seen...
Believing as I did (and still do) that invoking the name of Jesus was about as good a demon repellent as there was, when they kept happening despite all of my praying and "taking authority" I began to suspect that there might be something else going on here, and started research. Nightterrors.org was the first site I came across, and some of the stories there were identical to my experiences. That creeped me right the heck out at first, but I eventually found it comforting.
That web site was also where I first saw the suggestion to take St. John's Wort at bedtime. I started doing that a few years ago, and since then they occur pretty rarely (although they do still occur--I had one last night, as a matter of fact). I also learned to recognize and control what triggers them. For me, stress, overtiredness and sleeping flat on my back are all triggers. Wearing a sleep mask also helps to keep them at bay.
I also have a theory--untested--that I might have sleep apnea (we suspected my dad had it; I've suspected I might have it for a few years now, and the more my husband accuses me of snoring and sleep-talking the more I think I should go get checked out for it), and that the night terrors are my body's way of getting me to wake up and start breathing, that maybe the sensation of being "crushed" or held down and suffocated by an evil presence is just my brain's interpretation of what's happening when I have an apnea episode and stop breathing. I have absolutely no idea whether this theory has any merit, but it's helped me make peace with my night terrors, and makes it a lot easier to roll over and go back to sleep without having to turn the light on after they occur.
JeanJeanie ~ Although I feel a little silly now at how I interpreted the events I experienced (especially the exaggerated ideas about my calling in life - which has proved to be far less great and noble and more average over time ;)), when I was in my twenties a friend taught me how to cast demons out. I had never done anything like that before. I felt silly and comforted about the experience at the same time.
Spooks in the night is the fodder of the make believe. Rational adults don't believe in ghosts & ghoulies. And yet SOMETHING had to explain what I was experiencing. When I learned I was experiencing sleep paralysis it took some time before my rational mind could take over faster during an episode. It's still fairly terrifying. The dreams are so vividly real and not being able to move is the worst terror of all for me.
Nightterrors.com is a good site. For others who didn't follow the links above I provided, it is up above and I recommend it. I did a bit of research there before posting my article. I wanted to understand the differences between night terrors and sleep paralysis.
Great comments, JeanJeanie. I appreciate you taking time to post them. My Nose & Throat specialist prescribed an oximeter which I clipped onto my finger and slept with. It is a lot less expensive than a night in the sleep lab to find out if you have a problem with apnea or not. Good luck with that. Everybody deserves a good night's rest.
Hope that fits well enough into your comment collection.
"filled me room"!
I love my God in Heaven very much but there are a few things I would like to discuss with him one day. Viruses and allergies were top on my list since they affect my quality of life, mental illness was another, but sleep paralysis with ghoulies is a big one I'd like explained. ;)