Demystifying the Occult

Just posted this in the video section.

Sleep Paralysis and Religious Pluralism

If one scans the internet, forums and message boards long enough, one will consistently come across several things in relation to sleep paralysis:

1. Those who claim to have ended sleep paralysis using the power and authority of Jesus Christ.
2. Those who try to explain sleep paralysis as part of a larger array of pluralistic truth claims.

It’s important to remember, that beyond all the rhetoric given from the pulpit, or the short sightedness of some who self-identify as Christians, Christianity is built on truth claims. (the central claim being that Jesus died and rose from the dead.). Christianity, with its exclusive claims to truth, falls under attack consistently from a pluralistic worldview. At this point, defining terms is in order. Pluralism is the view that every religion is true, and that there are many paths to God. Relativism claims that there are no mechanisms by which one can tell which religion is true. Inclusivism is the belief that while one religion is most (or explicitly) true, all other religions are more or less (or implicitly) true.

Typically, the truth claims of Christianity are attacked as leading to conduct no more generous and good then any other religions. Pluralists charge that something like the golden rule (do unto to others as they would do unto you) can be found in a multitude of different faiths. They charge that the concern for others and the basic idea of love is taught in the major world religions. While it is certainly debatable whether or not other religions have statements similar to the golden rule, its also debatable whether or not non-Christian religions display the same levels of the “fruit of the spirit”. While non-Christians certainly may be gentle, good, and kind, do they display agape style love? Even if one were to be able to show some sort of equality between the various moral systems, on close examination, does it follow that all display the same levels of goodness? Pluralists like to point to Gandhi. It should be noted however that Gandhi, was inspired by and acknowledged Jesus’ teachings as unique. He repeatedly singled out the Sermon on the Mount and affirmed his admiration for it. Even giving that Mohandas Gandhi was not informed by the teachings of Jesus in his compassionate walk, does his life of generosity compare with the teachings of someone like Mother Teresa? The comparison seems to fall flat on analysis. More importantly, this standard of measurement of world religions also begs the question in that it picks a semi-arbitrary standard of measurement by which to judge. Christianity is based upon its claims to truth and a universe that it both knowable as well as coherent in its truth claims. Christianity is the only religion that claims an evidentiary chain where in a sense, “A really equals A”.

Pluralists sometimes charge that if we define salvation as “Being forgiven and accepted by God because of Jesus death on the cross, “ then it is merely tautology that Christianity has the only way to salvation. They further charge that if we define salvation as “actual human change for the better, away from self centeredness and towards a radically new worldview centered in other centeredness, then we can affirm that all religions are doing this, at about the same rate.” This assumption does not follow because it assumes that all religious systems have a connection to the Ultimate. Religions are not merely a response by humans to the Ultimate, for they all make exclusive claims that contradict one another. Finally the denial of the exclusive nature of truth is in and of itself a kind of exclusiveness.<.p>

Pluralists sometimes assert that Christ never spoke of His uniqueness as the only way, and that any statements to the contrary in the gospels were in fact invented by the authors. This shows a lack of serious thinking and investigation, in that the reliability of the New Testament documents are beyond any serious dispute, with even liberal scholars taking a position formerly viewed as conservative. There are more records, earlier, and more accurately transcribed then any other document from the ancient world. Most scholars now affirm that most New Testament documents were written between 20-70 a.d. by baptized Jews, during the life of contemporary eyewitnesses to the events described.
Some pluralists reply that Orthodox Christianity’s claim that Jesus was both fully human and fully God lacks coherence. This is based on a confusion of what Christ’s nature truly was. He was not infinite knowledge housed in a finite brain. He had infinite knowledge only in His infinite nature. Jesus could still learn and grow in knowledge in His finite nature.
Finally pluralists often assert that dialogue is the only way to get at the truth. This fails in that if one assumes the worldview is true before entering into dialogue, then no truth will result. While pluralists and relativists often assert that Christians are narrow minded to all options outside of their orthodox position, this can be applied equally at least to pluralists and any other person who claims to have truth, to the exclusion of all other truth. Further, this assumes that there are Christians who have not tried other faiths, or who have not objectively weighed the evidence and found all other forms of religion lacking in truth.

Ultimately, while pluralists would like to assert that they are the truly religious neutral, the truth is really that they come to the table with their own preconceived notions and ideas of what is and is not correct, and refuse even the tenets of logic in their affirmation of pluralism and its related viewpoints.

Sleep Paralysis Stories – Part 2

I decided to go though some of my old emails and get a few stories of people that have had success over sleep paralysis. I think I am going to try publish a lot more of these, because the testimonies are the real test of the validity of our claims.

I will also publish these in the stories section.

If you have a story you would like to share, please tell us about it in the comments section below or in the main stories section.

I am writing you to thank you from the bottom of my heart for opening my eyes and helping me to understand what has been happening to me my whole life. A few month’s ago I came across one of your videos on the internet called “The Truth About Sleep Paralysis”.  I have had several “out-of-body experiences” in my life, starting at the age of 13 (I am now 47), which led me to explore the occult world.  As a seeker of “the truth”, I have read hundreds of books on the subject, which lead me down many wrong paths.  The out-of-body experiences eventually became sinister, and, because I didn’t have God in my life, I really didn’t know what was happening to me.  On one of the occasions, I called out the name of Jesus because I could not get back into my body and was being “pulled” by something I could sense was pure evil. This worked at the time, and I was able to get back into my body.  But, because I did not have God in my life or go to church at the time, I did not give God credit for helping me, and I continued to look for the answers in all of the wrong places using my own efforts.  Over the years, I had developed a small library of “new-age” books, alien abduction books, and book written by such people as Tsarion, Maxwell, Sitchin, Icke, etc., all in the effort to learn “the Truth”.  However, all they ever seemed to do was terrify me and make me feel over-powered and hopeless about the events taking place in the world.  Then one day a few months ago, I came across your video on sleep paralysis.  Shortly afterwards, I had the beginnings of another out-of-body experience, where I felt I was being “pulled” by several “demons”. This time I called out the name of Jesus and I was released by the demons.  After listening to your videos, I now know what has been plaquing me my whole life.  Thanks to you (and Jesus), I am finally going in the right direction and trying to establish a true relationship with Jesus.  I threw away all of my books on the occult (which costs hundreds of dollars) because I didn’t want to even give them away to anyone lest they become lost as well. I prayed to God to help me and my family to find a church that is representative of His Word, and now my family and I have started going to a good church where we can learn more about the Bible and its teachings. I am even considering writing a book about my experiences in the hope that I can help others realize what “sleep paralysis” and out-of-body and alien abduction expereriences really are so that they can seek out the power of Jesus in stopping these satanic experiences for good. Again, I can’t help but thank you enough.  You have helped me more than you could ever know. I now see the world in a different light and I just thank God that He has kept me alive this long to realize Him.  God bless you and please don’t stop doing what you are doing. You are truly one’s of God’s instruments.

- Diana

Apparently even after my Mother’s experience with me she still embraced many occultic practices as did some of my siblings. My first memory of spiritual warfare when I was about 8 in bed with the lights off. I knew I was not alone and could make out a demon in the upper left corner of the ceiling watching me – as I sat there I thought “I am just 8 years old, that is just my imagination, I am just a kid” but then I thought even if it was just my imagination it was not of the Lord God and was not what He intended for me. So I said get out of here in the name of Jesus and instantly it was gone, I do not remember it returning. The appearance was intensely grotesque, similar to a gargoyle. The reason for this letter is the other night, 36 years later, I was sleeping on a couch next to a window. During the night I found myself enveloped in what felt like an intense static charge, I could not move. I struggled with all my might and could not even move my head, arms – nothing. This is an experience that I cannot ever remember having – ever. I have had dreams where I called on the Lord in situations and was victorious but this is the first ever “sleep paralysis” experience that I remember. As I tried to struggle I realized that I was enveloped in a field of some type and then either in my mind or a bit out of my body I could see my body with a reddish electric type charge around it, I was rigid about a foot above the couch and looking at my body I followed a red laser like beam of light to about two feet outside the window where a creature was pointing something from which the light and charge had captured me. It was then I realized I was actually being held by a demon even though his appearance at that moment was quite like the typical alien so widely described. I just knew he was attempting to bring me through the window and I knew he was a demon not the alien he was portraying. Before I saw him I had struggled against the paralysis saying, screaming, in my mind, something like please help me God, please help me Lord God it was after this intense struggle and me saying that when I was shown what was happening. Then I called out help me Jesus and immediately the field was broken, the demon gone and I was free to move.  I have always thought these little liars were demons rather than “aliens”, I have always known who the enemy is – and I firmly expect a great reveal soon, maybe even this summer – a great deception that would lead many “Christians” astray.

The reason I am writing is I came across some of your video links on sleep paralysis and I remembered listening to you last fall. Be encouraged, all power is indeed in the name of Jesus the living Christ for those who place their trust in Him. I think we are in for an incredible unfolding of great and terrible things over the next few months and years – but I know without a doubt that the Lord God will provide for and protect His children. Faith in the Lord God and His Son Jesus the living Christ is never misplaced.

- Bob

Ok so I was listening to ziggys podcast a few months back and he mentioned orgone generators and he had bought one and how they make you feel better.

So I got one off of http://www.thebluesun.co.uk/ thinking if it improves my somewhat frail health It would be great!

The first night I had it in my room I had sleep paralysis and a demonic attack. I am not joking, I could hear this demon screaming at me in my room and I shouted “In Jesus name go back to hell” and It got realy angry and faded away.

The next week was really horrid I just couldnt get a wink of sleep and had sleep paralysis and demons in my room.

It took me a while to make (I asume) the connection – I checked the orgone generator and its was “blessed by a reichi priest”

So I put it in the other room and I can sleep fine.

- Luke

Okay, so I have suffered from sleep paralysis a few times before and after I got saved.  The times I experienced demonic entities around me happened after I got saved which is strange to me.  This kept happening frequently for years and at first it was just an inability to move and I would struggle to move any part of my body (eyes, legs etc.)   After a few minutes I would finally wake up.  I told my mom and a couple of friends about this and asked if it has happened to them and they all said yes.  We didn’t think anything more about it and never discussed it again.

Then, Spring/Early Summer 1995 I was taking a nap during the late afternoon and I could not move my body at all.  I was completely awake and struggling to move my eyes, legs, anything but nothing worked.  I then felt something extremely heavy on my chest.  It felt like someone sitting on me and I felt a horrible evil presense and could feel the hot breath of this evil presense sitting on my chest.  I felt like I was going to sufficate.  I being screaming (in my head) HELP….and then finally I started saying the Lord’s Prayer.  As I began to say this prayer I was slowly able to move my lips, then my eyes and my whole body and the evil presense dissappeared.  I was majorly freaked out and didn’t tell anyone for years lest they think I’m nuts.  I was planning on moving across country and thought maybe my fear of moving or something else was the root cause?

Since then I have had a few more experiences.  A couple of years ago I fell asleep on the couch and I woke up in the middle of the night unable to move and I felt the hot breath of something breathing in my ear.  The presense felt evil too.  I immediately called for Jesus to help me and kept saying “The blood of Jesus, The blood of the Lamb” and it immediately went away.

I’m convinced that these experiences are caused by demonic beings.  I have since asked other people including family members if they’ve ever had this experience with the heavy pressure on the chest and the sense that evil was around them and they’ve all said YES!!!!  Wow…..I think this is happening to more people than we can imagine.  Alot of people, like myself, are probably afraid to talk about it because they don’t want to seem nuts or like a religious freak (if they are a Christian).

Okay, I hope in sharing this story it will help someone who is being approached by these demons.  Call on the name of Jesus…..plead the blood of Jesus when it happens and it totally works.  The demons RUN!!!!

- Kathleen

Hello,
I have told people of similiar experiences to the ones in your sleep paralysis video, after all this time I am relieved to see there is someone who knows the truth about this.. I was tortured in my sleep many times as a child, and even woke up to what appeared to be a gnome in my room, his face glowed like the moon , I was paralyzed, tried to scream,. I WAS NOT ASLEEP. I was raised in a church but never put the two together, later someone told me it was just projection and I learned to banish these beings, and to fly like superman, I thought it was really neat at the time. Years later after pulling away from church and God I found myself dreaming one night, then realized it was lucid and I could fly, things were fine until a little being, very similar to one drawn by Aliester Crowley, was standing there looking at me, its face was rotting off, for no reason at all, it began to say some filthy nasty things about Christ, this shocked me, even though I wasn’t doing right by the LORD I respected his name, I felt so much fear, but began saying I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ Satan be gone, and it left.
That was the last lucid, astral, demonic dream I have ever had, about 8 years ago.

- Marcus

watched your videos on sleep paralysis, I can tell you I did not know what it was called till today. I had what you and others have called Sleep paralysis from the age of 12 to 21 I am age 41 now. I started playing with the occult at the age of 12 first with the Ouija board and then latter with reading occult books, but I know that it started when I used Ouija board. For years I would wake with the dark shadow like figures in my room and it was scary but became normal to me. At the age of 21 I accepted Jesus and became born again, I did not notice right away that the figures where gone since it was not a every night thing to see the demonic realm. But After 3 months of being saved I knew they where gone. It was not till I was watching a Christian T.V. show in the 90′s that a Christian guy had the same thing that I seen and it went away when he got saved they did not call it sleep paralysis on the show.

- Zoom

Thank you very much
I have sleep paralysis, and since for a long time I had thought they were daemons, but well no one believe me, and every time this daemons attack me in my dreams I just pray and I ask Jesus to help me and the daemons go away and cant touch me
And well, I had never been in any kind of cult, but sadly my mother and my brother are, they believe in Wicca and in karma and esoteric witchcraft, and it is really scary, my mother doesn’t live with me, but my worst sleep paralysis where when I was staying with her, but my brother use to live with me and ooh…he also believes in all this stuff, but its way more darker, first of all he thinks he is a re incarnated Mayan priest…yea I know…but when I went to his room, My God! I was so scared, he had this altar, but with a skeleton and this images of daemons =S I started to pray and the feeling in that room was empty cold…horrible

-w8s

I sent you an Email about Five months ago ( Dec/Jan).  You
sent me a great, personal audio message that explained my issues with sleep
paralysis well.  Since then I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and
Savior! Thank you for helping me find God; I also have been sleep paralysis
free.

- Zach

.I was the guy that was being pinned by demons???( probably the 100th )Anyways I was going through the sleep paralysis and the last one I had was scary but it is finally over. I was pinned and I remembered you saying to rebuke the demons in Jesus name…the crazy thing is they would not let me say his name…I was not only pinned but it this time it was like bugs all over my head/face…I could hear them and as weird as it sounds I could sense their enjoyment by torturing me…no matter how scary/creepy it was I just kept trying to say the lords name and they still wouldn’t let me…when it finally came out I immediately woke up and could hear the echo in the room (I must have screamed loud)and I knew I had the power to stop it.

- atb1

I have never heard of sleep paralysis untill today nor did I know thats what I had.

I am A starting apologist and Had suffered from this for a while (It got worse as I started studying the occult). They all were the same way, I would hear demonic voices and weird loud rumbling in my head and I could feel the presence of them and I Knew what they were. Everything was spinning and shaking from what I could see and I couldn’t Move. I stated shouting “In the name of Jesus christ I rebuke you demon” and after the third shout the demons left me alone and I awoke.

- onetruth

Thank you so much for your time! your videos are great, when i saw the sleep paralysis video yesterday i was really stunned. It’s another piece of the puzzle falling into place for me. I have experienced it myself maybe 10-12 times or more, and you are absolutely right, It is caused by demonic presence, and through extensive occult research and or occult practices you are inviting them in. I have gotten rid of it now as I have found the Jesus who helped me through that difficult time in my life. Even though I’m still committing sins it’s not of the same nature..

- Zimple

I really love your channel and it changed my life…..especially sleep paralysis thing!
I was being chased by those deamons and even seeked help but nothing ever helped me except Jesus him self.
I used to be on occult forums and UFO searching so that was probably my problem….and I thought it was just a nightmare but than they were getting more and more intense and almost everyday activity.

- Slavko

during my quest for truth, after a good late night research session, sleep paralysis really became an issue for me, almost visible to an extent(i know, sounds crazy), Definitely demonic(Calling out his holy name really helped). I came to the conclusion that even researching the enemy( the occult) can open one up to so many things. with that said, Jordan Maxwell’s practically been bathing in the occult. Angels? I Don’t think so!

- Ryan

Sleep paralysis, Psychology, and the New Age.

Down through the millennia, people have been experiencing a phenomenon called “sleep paralysis” It consists of several characteristics, such as:

1. Hearing a “buzzing” or “dual-tone” sound
2. Being almost completely paralyzed on waking from sleep
3. Seeing entities of some type
4. Being psychically attacked, sometimes sexually, by these entities

There are three basic worldviews that try to explain sleep paralysis in terms of their belief systems. There are three fundamental laws of rational thought. The 1st is the law of non-contradiction. The 2nd is the law of identity. The 3rd is the law of the excluded middle. This has important implications, in that, if logic is the basis of all thought, then it is the basis of all thought about New Age belief systems, Psychology and Christianity. As we’ll briefly see the first two tend to violate one of the first three axioms of logic, and in most cases are self refuting, or have an incorrect definition of truth.
The first of those basic worldviews is what can be labeled “New Age”
The New Age consistently is constantly trying to tell us that it has sleep paralysis figured out, and that it is a persons “energy body waking up. This is problematic, because you consistently see people having extremely negative experiences, and they are told that it is really “good”. They are not told why, other than you should “trust” the experience or that it’s a “gift”. Without evidence for why, the sleep paralysis sufferer is asked to trust an experience that every fiber of your being says is wrong.
Consider the similar experiences of new age/conspiracy writer, Whitley Strieber:

“I became entirely given over to extreme dread. The fear was so powerful that it seemed to make my personality completely evaporate… ‘Whitley’ ceased to exist. What was left was a body and a state of raw fear so great that it swept about me like a thick, suffocating curtain, turning paralysis into a condition that seemed close to death…I died and a wild animal appeared in my place.”
- Whitley Strieber, Communion, p. 25-26

“Increasingly I felt as if I were entering a struggle that might even be more than life and death. It might be a struggle for my soul, my essence, or whatever part of me might have reference to the eternal. There are worse things than death, I suspected… so far the word demon had never been spoken among the scientists and doctors who were working with me…Alone at night I worried about the legendary cunning of demons …At the very least I was going stark, raving mad.”
- Whitley Strieber, Transformation, p. 44-45

“I wondered if I might not be in the grip of demons, if they were not making me suffer for their own purposes, or simply for their enjoyment.”
- Whitley Strieber, Transformation, p. 172

“I felt an absolutely indescribable sense of menace. It was hell on earth to be there [in the presence of the entities], and yet I couldn’t move, couldn’t cry out, couldn’t get away. I’d lay as still as death, suffering inner agonies. Whatever was there seemed so monstrously ugly, so filthy and dark and sinister. Of course they were demons. They had to be. And they were here and I couldn’t get away.”
- Whitley Strieber, Transformation, p. 181

By calling something “good” that is clearly evil without explaining why it is really good, the new age belief system is either violating logical thought by violating the law of non-contradiction, or violating the law of identity.
The next worldview, psychology, affirms the truth of the experience but has an incorrect definition of truth.
William James, one of the architects of psychopathology, delineates a very telling idea that tends to permeate both the culture at large and the field of psychology in general. It’s that “truth is the expedient in the way of knowing. A statement is known to be true if it brings the right results. It is the expedient as confirmed by future experience.

In other words, James would argue, we can safely dispense with what is actually happening and go with whatever works, despite whatever the reality might be. This violates the law of identities, because it confuses cause and effect.
The final worldview, the biblical Christianity, however can be said to hangs on facts. While pop culture tries it’s best to sweep this under the rug, nevertheless it is true. The central tenet of Christianity is Jesus’ claim to be God in human flesh. We can see that by what Jesus said and did.
Jesus claimed to be God in a variety of ways. Jesus claimed to be Yahweh when He called himself the “good shepherd” in the book of John. Yet, Psalm 23 says that, “Yahweh is my shepherd.” Jesus said things like “And now O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” In saying this, Jesus was declaring himself to be of the same essence as Yahweh, for Isaiah wrote “my glory will I not give to another”. Jesus called Himself “the light of the world”, yet psalm 27:1 declares, “Yahweh is my light.” Jesus even goes so far as to say “Before Abraham was, I am.” This echoes the statement of God speaking from the burning bush who called Himself “I am the I am.” Jesus claimed to be equal with God with God in other ways. For instance, He claimed for Himself the ability to forgive sins. He also claimed to be able to raise people from the dead. These were attributes that God reserved for himself as the forgiver of sins (Lev, Deut, etc.) and as the only giver of life, (1 Sam 2:6). He also claimed the power to judge the dead, an attribute claimed by God. (Deut 32:35) Jesus claimed to be Messiah-God. He did so when, for instance he identified Himself as the “Ancient of Days”. When in front of the high priests during his trial by night before Caiphas, Jesus said “…And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” The high priest and the people understood this to be a claim of Godhood, for its recorded “At this the high priest tore his robe and said ‘Why do we need any more witnesses?…you have the blasphemy!’” Jesus claimed to be God by accepting worship. Though we see angels and people repeatedly refuse to be worshipped as God, Jesus accepts worship from a healed leper, from his disciples, a group of Canaanite women, the mother of James and John, and the formerly demonized person of the Geraderenes. His disciple Thomas, when seeing Jesus’ hands and side cried out “my Lord and my God!” Jesus accepted worship from all of these people without refusing it. He even went so far as to commend those who acknowledged His deity. Jesus claimed an equal authority with God. He put his teaching as equal with God, and taught with authority. For instance, He said, “You have heard that it was said…but I tell you…” Jesus says this several times. At the very end of the book of Matthew, Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…” Jesus even reinterpreted the Ten Commandments given to Moses, saying “A new commandment I give to you: Love one another”.
I believe, the key to stopping all of this is tied up in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If this was a real historical event, then His claims about divinity are true, as He has conclusively shown that He holds the reigns over even life and death, and that He really is the son of God. All of the above is demonstrably true. The reason it sounds weird is because the evil in the world (The illuminati, large powerful banks, the catholic church, etc.) are trying very very hard to show that its not true. You can see it pretty much everywhere you look. The sustained attack is on anything that would remotely be construed as “true christianity”. Including and especially spiritual warfare.
If you don’t believe me, I recommend praying to Jesus Christ for the truth, and that He would show you what is true. This has two possibilities:

1. I’m right and everything I said is true, which makes this very important
2. I’m wrong and everything I said is false, so you havent hurt anything by praying sincerely.

Getting on to the actual experience of sleep paralysis…
Now, when an actual event occurs, use this phrase: “By the power and authority of Jesus Christ, you must leave, you have no right to be here.” Practice it, because sometimes its hard to say when you’re in the middle of an experience!
Also, notice a couple of things:

1. I am invoking the name and authority of Jesus Christ. In the hundred or so cases of people I’ve helped, nothing else has worked.
2. I am not using any “i” statements. For instance dont ever say “I command you to leave” not a good idea, as you don’t have any authority in the spiritual realm.
3. I am telling the entity exactly what its supposed to do. Many people call out to God for help and they are either calling out to a god that isnt really a god, or calling out in the wrong way.

As further evidence, finally here is a testimony of a muslim man who called out in the name of Jesus and stopped an attack almost the same as a sleep paralysis attack in broad daylight.
Afshin Javid
http://vimeo.com/8320221

In short if you want this to end for good, it’s the power and authority of Jesus Christ. That is the only thing that provides protection.
I don’t know what your spiritual beliefs are, but I would council you to pray right now to Jesus Christ and ask Him, sincerely, if He really is real, to make Himself known to you

Finally, go here and watch this video. It will explain the basics of knowing Jesus:
http://dvdtract.com

Video From Our Friend Joe Jordan

Some Comments On A Purely Medical Diagnosis For Sleep Paralysis.

One of the things that people often do when they have repeated cases of sleep paralysis is to go to their doctor. Though many don’t want to go, because they feel like they’re going to just get referred to a psychatrist, some do go and accept their advice.  One of the great tragedies that medicine appears to be moving away from, is the phenomenon called “science is God”.  Physicians used to be trained to always find the right answer and when they don’t know something-make it up.  This is changing, but one of the many societal fallouts of this is an absolute abiding in what medical experts say, even when they speculate about something.

So lets say someone goes to his doctor and complains about…
“Waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to move, feeling the worst fear he’s ever felt in his life,seeing a dark figure or figures and sometimes sensing something grabbing him or something attacking him.”

The doctor would take all of this in and unless he had dealt with this before in some capacity, he would probably take all the information and ask a number of questions to build a case history. Typically these questions would be something like this:

•Employment history: some occupations are associated with certain health risks. To name a few, animal workers are at risk from brucellosis, health workers from hepatitis B and miners from pneumoconiosis.

•Drug history: it’s clearly important to know what medication, whether prescription or over the counter, the patient is taking since medicinal drugs can be responsible for a wide range of symptoms. The adverse health effects of recreational drugs, alcohol and tobacco are well known so it’s essential to know if these might be contributing to or causing the patient’s condition. Incidentally doctors always assume that patients understate their alcohol consumption.

•Family history: some diseases have a well-proven genetic link, haemophilia for example. Others are known to run in families but the direct genetic link is less clear. The list of these conditions is large and includes: diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, depression and some cancers. If your mother and father have diabetes, it doesn’t mean that you will get it but it does mean you are at increased risk, something that the doctor will need to take into account when trying to determine your condition.
They would then set up what’s called a “screen” or systems review, which is really just a process to make sure that the doctor didn’t miss anything. They would include questions about:

how you were breathing (to see if perhaps you were suffering from sleep apnea,) religious history (to see if you were having some type of waking nightmare or just had gone “over the edge” with some type of pagan/new age/or other type of belief system.) and perhaps some informal questions about family and stuff to test their earlier conclusions in the earlier categories.They may go on and on to make sure that they were getting all the information that they could about what’s wrong with you.From there they would go and make a diagnosis, and either recommend drugs, changes in your sleep patterns or habits, or going to see a psychiatrist.

No surprisingly, there are some problems with a strictly medical diagnosis.

Scientists will readily admit that there has yet to be a practical way to study anything but the most physiological aspects of this phenomena.  That it has been a experienced throughout the history of man, with various people groups experiencing similar and in many cases, the exact same phenomenon only speaks to the fact that the phenomenon is emanating from a common source, and must either be something intrinsic to man, or in the case of a hallucinatory sleep paralysis experience that immediately stops when an experiencer calls on the name of Jesus, is coming from something outside the experiencer.
When coupled with testimonies of other people who emphatically describe seeing something hovering over a person afflicted with sleep paralysis, the idea of a source from inside man becomes difficult to embrace.
If you do research into peer reviewed papers on sleep paralysis you find that there is a lot of speculation out there, but very little that’s concrete. The main reason for the speculation is that – it’s psychosomatic – it has to do with neurons and the medical community doesn’t know that much beyond dissecting and naming when it comes to neurons  In fact the more they learn about the human brain and the nervous system, the more they realize its unclear at this time what’s going on.  For instance heres a quote pertaining to sleep from the medical textbook “Neuroscience.”
“The reason for the high levels of brain activity during REM sleep, the significance of dreaming, and the basis of the restorative effect of sleep are topics that remain poorly understood”

That is why Neurology is such an expanding field right now.  Neurology and Radiology are exploding in the number of subspecialities available.  As doctors gain technology they are making huge strides in understanding and realizing more and more that what we thought we knew – we really don’t have a clear understanding of.  And you can use either of the definitions for psychosomatic here – 1)  of or pertaining to a physical disorder that is caused by or notably influenced by emotional factors or 2) pertaining to or involving both the mind and the body – since both apply.  Anyone who tells you we understand nerves, the brain, neurology, etc. and this includes New agers/Occult books like the “secret” etc. – walk away – because we don’t know. There are numerous cases that show that people have had sleep paralysis experiences with only being asleep for a few minutes, and have not entered REM sleep.  One of the things that medicine speculates on is that the part of your brain that is responsible for dreaming gets turned on, and that this coupled with the impairment of REM sleep makes it possible for the body to be dreaming, while actually awake.  Now the problem with this, of course is that there are cases of sleep paralysis where someone has not completely fallen asleep, or awoken, used the bathroom, and laid back down again, and just as their drifting off to sleep, they get hit with a full on case of sleep paralysis.

Another place for concern, regarding a purely medical diagnosis for sleep paralysis is that some types of psychology, especially analytical, or Jungian psychology readily admit the reality of a “spirit world”. For instance;

-Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of Analytical Psychology (also known as Jungian psychology) believed that out of body experiences, lucid dreams, and other states of consciousness were in fact a “real” thing.  He describes an almost textbook case of near death experience in his book “Memories Dreams, Reflections” and goes on to clearly intimate that he believes that there really was a real spirit world out there.  This aligns with testimonies, tests, and even government programs wherein, people who are experiencing things like lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis, and out of body experiences exchange previously unknown code phrases and words in their dreams and compare them to find them accurately transmitted in the dream the next day, look at secret documents of enemy nations while in a dream state or out of body experience, etc.

-William James, one of the architects of psychopathology, delineates a very telling idea that tends to permeate both the culture at large and the field of psychology in general.  It’s that “truth is the expedient in the way of knowing. A statement is known to be true if it brings the right results. It is the expedient as confirmed by future experience.”
In other words, we can safely dispense with what is actually happening and go with whatever works.  This is in conflict with the idea of truth.
Finally, the whole idea of using drugs to treat sleep paralysis is flimsy, not because it doesn’t work, but because we don’t have a good understanding of why it works, and whats actually going on. some examples include things like:
-We have no ideas how neurons work, and therefore have no idea what drugs do to them.
-If you want to know if someone is really Bipolar, feed them Lithium and see if that helps.  Really.  And the medical community doesn’t know why Lithium works – they have no clue – the amount of money and time and articles out there trying to figure out why Lithium works in the treatment of Bipolar Disorder is really quite large. Yet, we only know one thing – it works.  If I gave you the same amount of Lithium to a non-bipolar person thats given to a person who was truly Bipolar, they would die.  Lithium toxicity is very, very serious and in order to stabilize a Bipolar person you make them sick first.  Kind of like cancer – Kill to Cure.

The medical community, though extremely adept at curing many things, appears to be still grasping a bit for what, exactly can help sleep paralysis.

Sleep Paralysis talk at Roswell NM 7/2/2010

Here’s a talk I did recently in Roswell New Mexico, at the Ancient of Days.  I try to be objective, and approach the topic as an informational talk.

Sleep Paralysis: A Modern Connection to an Ancient Evil by Michael A. Tatar, Jr. on Vimeo.