This first happened to me when I was about 18 or 19. When I was in middle school, my family moved into this two-story home. My grandparents raised me from birth, I've never lived with my mother. We had a pretty big family, so moving to he bigger house was a good thing..at first. The house hadn't been lived in for a while before we moved in, so of course, we had to put a lot of work into it before we moved in...painting, cleaning. My grandma had assigned each of us a room to clean, so we could get done quicker. She gave me a bucket of water and Murphy's Oil Soap, and told me to clean the baseboards, so we could paint them later. Okay, no big deal. So, I go to my assigned room, get on my knees, and I'm scrubbing the baseboards. Suddenly, I felt the presence of someone standing behind me. I thought maybe my grandma had walked into the room, so I didn't bother to turn around, at first. But the presence stayed there. Nobody ever said anything, but I could feel someone standing over my shoulder. I wondered if it was my grandma, why she never said anything. Finally, I decided to turn around, only nobody was there. I thought that was strange, but I shrugged it off and went on.
After we finally got moved in weeks later, we were all sitting around the living room, just talking and watching tv. My two uncles were joking about the house being haunted, and said if we started hearing strange noises, it was probably the ghost of the old man who used to own the home, and who had apparently died in there. That got my immediate attention, as I've always believed that ghosts are real. The first thing I thought of was the feeling I'd had that day weeks before that someone was standing over my shoulder while I was scrubbing those baseboards. As time went on, I would always hear really strange noises around that house, especially at nighttime; but I never said anything, because I knew nobody would believe me, anyway.
The day this 'sleep paralysis' happened, scared the hell out of me. My grandma and I have always butted heads. I was a teenager, who was in college, but still living at home, had started dating a guy that she hated, and I often thought she was trying to control every aspect of my life, which caused us to not get along that well. I was lying across the bed one day, and I fell asleep. Suddenly, my body jumped, and my eyes opened. I could hear my grandma calling me for something, so I went to get up to go see what she wanted, only I couldn't move. I kept trying to get up from that bed, but it was like I was being held down by invisible men. I couldn't even open my mouth to answer her, but I could still hear her calling me, almost as if she were getting agitated that I wasn't answering her. To say I was scared because I didn't know what was wrong, would be an understatement. I felt like my body was being taken over by something evil, and I was powerless to do anything about it. After a minute or so, my body jerked again, and whatever it was, suddenly released me. I was able to get right up after that, and I quickly ran out of my room. I got to the living room to see what my grandma wanted, and as expected, she was mad....because she thought I'd been intentionally ignoring her. "Didn't you hear me calling you, girl?" she'd asked me. I wanted to tell her that I'd been trying to get up to come see what she wanted, but no way would she had believed me.
The second time it happened, was a few years ago. I'm now 37, and my husband (soon to be ex husband) had fallen asleep on the living room couch, and I was in bed in our room. My body jerked again, which was what woke me. It was pitch black in the room. I glanced at the clock, and it was after midnight. Even though this had happened before, I was even more scared this time. Again, I couldn't move or speak. In my mind, I was calling for my husband to come help me, but I couldn't speak. Again, I felt as if I was in the presence of something evil, and the only thing I could do then, was pray. I said a mental prayer, asking God to please protect me from whatever this was that kept bothering me. I repeated Jesus' name over and over, until my body jerked again, and the evil spirit left me alone.
Having had this happen to me twice, I decided to research it, to see if I could find some explanation for this, although in my heart I felt this was the devil sending his demons to overpower me. I came across the scientific explanation for whatever it was. It's called a sleep paralysis. The definition of a sleep paralysis is- a temporary inability to move or speak that happens when you're waking up or, less commonly, falling asleep. Although you're awake, your body is briefly paralysed, after which you can move and speak as normal.
Even though this is supposedly a 'normal' thing that happens to many people, I still have a hard time believing this. If this was a normal thing, why does it only seem to go away when I call on Jesus' name to protect me. If this is typical, it wouldn't matter if I called on Jesus' name or not. I'm a firm believer that the devil is busy trying to destroy the world and everyone in it, and what better way to get into someone's mind than when they're sleeping. Several people I've talked to have had this happen to them, but we all pretty much feel the same- we're not buying the scientific explanation for it. This is something much more creepy, and just down right scary. To not have control over your own body, to not be able to move or speak, is terrifying. Have you ever had this happen to you? How did it make you feel? Do you believe the scientific explanation, or do you think it's something much more darker?
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