Sleep Paralysis Stories

You can submit your sleep paralysis stories here.

I have had sleep paralysis as a teenager and young adult. It was an every night occurrence most of my teen years, but I never told anyone. I became so stressed out that I began to lose weight. I became depressed, because my body could not get the necessary sleep it needed, and I began to fear sleeping. In my sleep paralysis state I encountered many entities, but I will call them demons, because I was actually told by one entity that it was a demon. I was not raised in church, and my family was not religious, but I knew it was some sort of spiritual conflict.

Growing up, I mainly only dealt with one demon. It was not violent but very sexual in nature. It groped me while I was paralyzed. I can remember small details like when it got on the bed, the bed would sink down, I could feel it moving close, and it normally moved up from the back (I sleep on my side), and touched me inappropriately.

Fast forward: I joined the military, moved to Virginia, and had not experienced SP for many years. This is where things get weird. I call my mom one day and she puts me on hold. When she gets back on the phone, she doesn’t sound like herself. I ask her what’s wrong and she says she hasn’t been feeling good. I ask her why. She hesitates to tell me at first, so I have to keep asking her questions. She goes: “I’ve been having these nightmares.” I freeze, because I automatically sense her fear, and I have a strange feeling inside.

She goes on: “I wake up and it’s like I’m still in the bed but I can’t move or scream. Then this thing starts getting on the bed and it’s like touching me and feeling on me. I don’t know if I’m going crazy or what.” I immediately tell her I know what it is and I tell her about my experience with it. For some reason, her phone keeps hanging up on me and she has to keep calling me back (so I’m obviously freaking out).

My mom has SP for a few months and then it stops, but I begin having it in VA. It was really scary to have it in Virginia because I’m thinking, “I thought this could only bother me in PA.” It was the same one from PA. I can always tell. Things started getting strange in VA next, because two of my friends that slept over my house experienced it. They were afraid to sleep over my house. One was afraid to sleep alone even at her own house, because she said she had never experienced such a realistic nightmare.

I also experienced something else strange in VA. Sleeping over a friend’s house, I experienced something terrifying. I was sleeping in the bed of a male friend (I’m a female). He’s just a friend, but he has told me in the past that he has had feelings for me. Anyhow, I go into SP at his house and I experienced a demon I have never encountered. It was so strong it literally was pulling me off the bed. It had its claws in my body and it was dragging me toward the edge of the bed. I screamed out for Jesus to help me, and I immediately awoke. I was so afraid that I got up and opened all his blinds in his room to let the outside light in. I then began praying out of fear. Immediately after praying, I felt a calm, and my friend woke up screaming. Apparently, his leg had fallen between the bed and the wall as I was praying. So, yeah, that was freaky.

Anyhow, this experience was one of the first that I began to experience demons that were not (I guess) mine. I moved to Hopewell, VA, with my roommate, and I experienced many different demons in that place. I have experienced three demons having a conversation right in front of me as if they don’t see me there. I can even tell the differences in their voices. I began to go to church and was even saved (crazy experience and long story). After I began reading the Bible and believing in Jesus, I learned two things that were very interesting about my SP experience.

1. When I showed no fear, and instead showed anger, I was able to free myself from being paralyzed.

2. After freeing myself, if I grabbed the demon and said, “I bind you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,” I would immediately and abruptly wake up.

I’ve run into a few demons that didn’t let me out of SP right after saying it, so I would recite more. I would say, “I bind you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I bind you, burn you, destroy you, and send you straight to the pits of hell for all eternity.” I promise you guys, you can sense their fear. Their fear either comes from Jesus’ name or your unwillingness to be fearful of them. Either way, you will awake abruptly.

I don’t know if me being saved or believing in Jesus has anything to do with them being afraid of me, but my instincts tell me it does. I don’t know if these demons have given up on me or what, but I have not experienced SP for some years now. I truly hope this helps someone.

***

Hello!  My name is Dayl and I can say with certainty that Jesus helped with my SP!  In short, I’ve been a believing Christian since childhood, but I didn’t always practice what I believed.

Starting my junior year of college, I first experienced SP.  I was twenty-one at the time.  It would crop up from time to time until I was about twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old, when I moved back home to PA/DE from living in California.  At this time, I started to get right with God again and that helped so much!

Also, when I first mentioned Jesus’ name to the demons (what I believe SP to really be), I did it weakly and lacking in faith and the demons laughed at me and just did more harm.  When I really believed, calling out Jesus’ name worked, because it was his power, not mine.  I also think that getting rid of a lot of stuff I owned (not always good stuff) when I moved from California also helped; maybe because it didn’t give the demons a foothold anymore.  I haven’t had SP for four years now and I continue to grow in my faith in Jesus.  Hope this helps others dealing with SP.

***

I started playing with the occult at the age of twelve, first with the Ouija board, and then later with reading occult books; but I know that it started when I used the 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 twenty-one, I accepted Jesus and became born again. I did not notice right away that the figures were gone, since it was not an every night thing to see the demonic realm. But after three months of being saved, I knew they were gone.

It was not until I was watching a Christian TV show in the ‘90s that I saw a Christian guy who 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.

***

My story begins in my early twenties.

I was not saved at that time, and I used to go to the clubs a lot, hunting for women to have sex and have a “good time.”

And suddenly, I started having sleep paralysis. (I didn’t even know that it was sleep paralysis at that time.) I’m sleeping and, suddenly, I feel that something is trying to choke me. I want to shout, but I can’t shout. I want to wake up, but the same thing: I can’t wake up. After it left me, I used to be terrified and not go back to sleep.

This was going on for years, and I never told anybody, because I thought my friends would think that I was about to lose it (go crazy).

Anyways, when I was twenty-six I relocated to live with my big brother who was a strong, mature believer in The Lord. He started teaching me about The Lord, and I saw the way he lived his life. We started going to church together and, slowly, I began to really think about the Lord Jesus, but I still had my questions.

To make my story short, I had the opportunity to take a lady to the church that I was going to for prayer, because she tried to commit suicide three times, and her family was trying Jesus, if He can help her. The pastor prayed for her, and she was delivered from three different kind of suicide demon spirits.

That night I came home and I cried for hours to the Lord to come to my life and save me. After I gave my life to the Lord Jesus, almost every night around 3:00 a.m., the demon used to come and choke me. So, I went to my brother and told him. He said, “The devil is mad that you belong to The Lord, and he is trying to intimidate you.”

So, I asked what shall I do?  And he said to study the Word of God to build my faith, so that when the demon comes I will rebuke him in the name of the Lord Jesus, and the demon will flee from me.

So, I studied the Bible (the New Testament). The more I study, the more I realize that the Lord Jesus is superior to any demon or the devil, and I can use his name as a weapon against the enemy.

So, the day came. The enemy tried, but this time I was not afraid anymore. Even if I wouldn’t be able to say, “in the name of Jesus,” loud, because of the choking, I said it inside of me. And the demon left me. I was so happy. I thanked the Lord and went to sleep.

The enemy tried the second time on a different day, and this time I shouted, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I rebuke you and ask you to leave.” And guess what? The enemy left me. I was so happy; I started laughing like crazy at 3:00 in the morning.

Since then, I have been free from any demon influence and the Lord Jesus is really the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. If you trust in Him, He will never let you down. He has authority over all things seen and unseen!!!

Amen, Lord Jesus, who I love.

I’m literally crying right now…

It is tears of joy and love for my King

***

Other than an interest in UFOs and in the possibility of ESP as a teenager, I never took an interest in the occult and never had an encounter with the supernatural before my rededication. However, about 2004-5, I and my best friend became involved in ministering to someone who was deeply into the occult. A few weeks into helping this person, I had my first encounter with sleep paralysis.

I woke at about three in the morning to a feeling of stark terror and the sense of a malevolent darkness filling the room. I could not move or speak, and I could barely breathe. I felt as if an unseen python were squeezing the life from me. While I could not speak, I could pray in my mind, and did so, asking God to rescue me from whatever had come into my room and repeatedly rebuking the presence in the name of Yeshua. Finally—and I don’t know how long it took; time itself seemed to slow—the presence left. I was exhausted and fell back to sleep.

A few weeks later, I awoke again to the same presence and the same paralysis. This time, I reacted more quickly and was able to force the words, “In the name of Yeshua, I rebuke you! Get out!” from my lips, but only barely. This time the encounter lasted only a few minutes.

This happened twice more over the next couple of months. The last two times, I woke up instantly, felt the presence, sat up in bed, and rebuked the presence in the name of Yeshua. The encounter stopped before it could start. These encounters all happened at about 3:00 a.m.

Some years later, I had another encounter, again connected to ministering to someone deep into the occult. God had finally given me a breakthrough—where this person previously would get incredibly angry at the mere mention of God, now we were able to have conversations and I was able to share the love of Messiah to him. In the process, he told me how when he was young he was terrified by demonic spirits. This happened until another, which he described as looking like the negative of a silhouette, appeared to him and offered to be his “assassin.” After that, the other demons left him alone.

That night, I dreamt of an old mentor of mine that I hadn’t seen in a while. In my dream, I saw him surrounded by an aura of light. Thinking, “That must be the Holy Spirit,” I went forward to greet him.

I woke up to the same sense of fear, the same paralysis, and the same feeling of a powerful presence in the room that I had experienced years before, but with a difference: I could actually see something, flickering in-and-out of my vision like the strobe effect you might see in some horror movies, that looked like the negative image of the silhouette of a man. This time I got angry instead of fearful, and somehow managed to bolt upright in bed, rebuking it and commanding it to cease its attack in the name of Yeshua as I reached out with my hand. I felt as if my hand closed around something, and squeezed as hard as I could. I couldn’t bring my fingers any closer together.

Mindful of what Yeshua had said about a spirit which returns to a person bringing along its friends, I prayed to God for direction. I felt him telling me to send it to him, and commanded it to go to the throne of God for judgment, again in the name of Yeshua. It left, and I could hear a subaudible cursing as it went.

I would later find articles on sleep paralysis that indicated that it was simply a medical condition caused by the body not waking up correctly. I am a lifelong insomniac and a very light sleeper. I sometimes wake up several times a night due to some noise or movement stirring me. You would think that if this were simply a product of normal brain activity, I would have experienced it my whole life.

And yet, the two periods in my life in which I experienced sleep paralysis happen to be the two periods in which I was ministering to someone deep into the occult. That, and the fact that I was able to stop the attacks through the name of Yeshua, or Jesus, convinces me that what I went through came from a spiritual source, not just a physical one.

As a final note, I don’t believe that the fact that I reflexively call the Messiah “Yeshua” instead of “Jesus” made any more difference than a Mexican calling on “Hey-sus.” It is the Person who saved me, not the syllables. Joel 2:32 tells us that “All who call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved,” a theme that the New Testament picks up and builds upon.

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart” (Deut. 30:14); that is, the word of faith, which we proclaim: that if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus (Gr. Iesous) is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed” (Isa. 28:16).

***

I have had sleep paralysis for years now. I am a really deep sleeper, and when it would happen, I would typically talk myself into thinking I was just dreaming. In 1997, when I was seventeen years old, I prayed to become a Christian, but I was never truly born again until 2007. I thought I was a Christian up until 2007, but my lifestyle didn’t align with that of a true Christian. In college I lived a sinful lifestyle, contrary to God’s word. After I got married in 2003, I cleaned up my life and began going back to church – thinking I was a Christian. I had anger issues and I wasn’t a good wife. This is when I remember the sleep paralysis beginning for me.

I told my husband about it when it started happening, but he didn’t know what was happening. I would wake him up once I could move and talk again and frantically tell him what happened. I was frightened, because I felt like something was pressing down on my chest and I had trouble breathing. I couldn’t talk or move a muscle. I also felt an evil presence in the room when it happened, but after this went on for a while, I would talk myself into thinking that I was dreaming it all up – because I didn’t really know what was causing this or why this was happening.

In 2007, I was in a Christian women’s conference when I was genuinely saved. The Holy Spirit convicted me of my sin and I became broken over my sin before the Lord. I cried out for His help, and I left there a new person – I’ve never been the same! I had peace and joy for the first time in my life, and I knew that Jesus forgave me of my sins and that He was my Lord! He is faithful and knowing Him is what changed my sleep paralysis situations. He is my protector, even in my sleep.

The last time I remember it happening was in 2010. I woke up paralyzed and couldn’t speak. I felt a horribly evil presence in the room, like whatever it was wanted to kill me. I believe it to be a demon. I began to think about how I couldn’t be possessed, because I’m now a Christian and the Holy Spirit dwells in me, so I remember thinking that Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And that thought kept racing through my mind. Then it’s like all of a sudden I was able to speak it and I did. I kept repeating “Jesus is Lord of Lords” over and over, but when I was able to speak, the attack was over and the demon was gone.

I want to clarify that it’s by Jesus’ power and might that I have had victory in these areas. I now know this is spiritual warfare and only Christ can help those who believe in Him overcome these attacks. There is no magic formula to say or repeat; that’s not how you can stop what’s happening. All authority on heaven and earth has been given to Christ, and it’s only by His power and might that anyone can be saved and overcome their problems.

I praise Jesus that it hasn’t happened in a long time. The only thing that happens to me now, very randomly, is that when I’m sleeping I will hear screeching in my ears and feel something moving my head. I just pray and ask the Lord to help me. It doesn’t happen often, but I’m not afraid anymore because of Jesus. He is sovereign over ALL, including Satan and the demons.

The experiences have led me even closer to Christ, trusting Him even when I am asleep and most vulnerable. I pray and worship Christ throughout my days now, and I have extreme joy and peace because of Christ in my life. Anytime I feel afraid or upset, I always try to begin praising God and sing songs of worship to Him, and the Holy Spirit’s presence gives me peace again. Satan attacks in many ways and I’ve found that through prayer—praying for and loving your enemies—and obeying Christ and His word, Christians can be victorious over Satan’s attacks. But, this is only possible if you are truly saved/born again by the work of the Holy Spirit and, therefore, you belong to Christ. You must repent of your sins and believe in Christ alone. Once I was truly saved, I began having victory over these attacks in my life. It is because of Christ and His death on the cross that we can be set free from sin and bondage!

***

I marveled at this simple truth that I had discovered.  I knew that Jesus existed in history, but I really hadn’t understood much of anything about him before.  As a child, I just thought of him as being some distant historical figure that didn’t have much to do with me or my everyday life. Now, I understood that he came to ransom my soul and redeem my life.  He not only came to save people, but also came to set us on the right course in life.  I was overjoyed by this discovery.   I knelt and prayed that day of September 3, 1980.   I accepted his free gift and told him that I would give the rest of my life to him to follow him all of my days. Your website is truly inspirational. I have read many topics from the net-burst.net site and enjoyed them all. Thank you!

***

I used to suffer from a sleep condition called sleep paralysis and sleep paralysis with hallucinations. Jesus healed me of this several years ago and I am so thankful to him.

I was about fifteen the first time I experienced it. I had taken a nap on the couch on a lazy afternoon, and when I awoke I found myself unable to move a muscle. I thought it strange but was not particularly alarmed. Eventually, I was able to move my index finger a little and, shortly after, the paralysis completely left. The whole experience lasted about fifteen seconds.

Over the next four years, such experiences would occur off and on, never lasting more than thirty seconds. It would usually occur just as I was about to wake up, or wake up and roll over – only I could not roll over. Sometimes I could open my eyes; sometimes I couldn’t. Having no explanation for it, I simply learned to live with it.

One Saturday morning, it occurred as I was waking up. I tried to move my finger, as I had learned this helps me to “fully wake up”. This time, however, a strange thing happened. I seemed to “roll out of my body.” I got out of bed and walked down the hall and into the bathroom. I flipped on the light switch but the lights did not come on. Then, suddenly, I was back in my bedroom, awake but unable to move. Eventually, I fully awoke and got up, feeling very strange. For the first time in my life I felt very uneasy about these experiences. I could hardly believe what had happened. I kept asking myself, “Did I just have an out-of-body experience? Did I just walk around the house with my body still in the bed?” It was so surreal and I could find no explanation.

Thereafter, such experiences would occasionally happen, always in the morning when the sun was up. Eventually, I learned to live with it, too. I even reached the point that, when I tried to turn on the light and it did not come on, I would realize I was “out” while my body was still in bed.

One time, I tried an experiment in the midst of the experience: I decided to go outside, but after opening the front door and stepping out, I was back in my parent’s neighborhood, not my own. At that point, I was more in a dream state than in an out-of-body state. There was a woman across the street. She noticed me, so I went to talk to her. Who she was or what we talked about, I do not remember, only that she seemed familiar. Then I fell back into a deep sleep. “So much for my experiment,” I thought.

At the age of nineteen, my nightmares began. “Nightmare” seems like such an understatement, but it is the only word I have. I’m not trying to be melodramatic, but there is no way to convey how truly frightening these experiences were. The first time was the worst. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up unable to move. I then became acutely aware of a presence in my room. It was hovering above me at the foot of my bed. I sensed that it was full of fury and hatred that was directed fully at me. Somehow I knew it was an extremely malevolent spirit. The evil it radiated was beyond description. Being a Christian, the only thing I could think of doing was to invoke the Lord’s name. So in my mind I shouted, “In the name of Jesus Christ, demon be gone!”

Well, it did not go away and I could feel it was laughing at me. Then it started to move closer to me and it ripped the covers off my bed. I could feel its anger and hatred and it was overpowering. I honestly thought it was going to pick me up and drag me to hell. Somehow, I was able to jump out of bed. I ran down the hall into my parent’s room, screaming. I must have been experiencing an “out-of-body” again, because I was then back in my own bed. The being was still there, even angrier than before. Again, it ripped the covers off of me and came at me. Again, I jumped out of bed and ran down the hall into my parent’s room. Again, I was back in my own bed. Again, it was still there, full of anger. This happened a third time before I was finally able to wake up. It was over. I was covered with sweat and my fists were clenched tightly around my bed sheets, grasping them at my neck.

The entire experience had only lasted about thirty seconds, but it was the longest thirty seconds of my life. The next morning my parents never mentioned anything about it. Why would they? I had not woken them and had not been physically in their room that night. It would be several years before I ever talked about this to anyone. I did not like thinking about it. I tried to forget about it and push it out of my mind.

Soon after, I was able to move out of my parents’ house and into my own apartment. I was hoping that my parents’ house was haunted or something and that after I moved I would be free. Well, my new place was just as “haunted,” and I continued to have such experiences and even more frequently. Sometimes, there would be one presence; sometimes, there would be many. Sometimes, I would feel an intense pressure on my chest. It almost felt like something was trying to get in. Once, I saw blood all over my arm. Sometimes, I would have these experiences twice a week. Sometimes, I would go months without one. It seemed random. The only constant was that the presence or presences were extremely evil and violent and that they hated me intensely.

It was several years before I ever mustered the courage to talk about this to anyone, but I had finally had enough. I talked about it with a Christian leader and we prayed together. He even kept in touch with me for quite some time. After that, my attacks subsided substantially, but did not disappear completely.

Finally, after nine long years, at age twenty-eight I got relief. God revealed to me what was triggering these episodes. For reasons I don’t need to expound here, I was often extremely depressed in my youth and I would contemplate suicide. My fantasies of suicide sometimes even “comforted” me. I don’t think I would have ever gone through with suicide because of my faith, but it did feel good to fantasize about it. I would sometimes think how upset people would feel after I was dead for not having been a better friend to me. I am now very remorseful about these fantasies, but at the time they felt good. Sometimes, I would lie in bed for a long time before going to sleep having murderous thoughts towards myself with feelings of self-hatred and self-pity. As I recalled these times, it was as if a light bulb suddenly went off in my head. On the very nights that I had wallowed in self-hatred, I would have these episodes. Wow!

Why it took me nine years to finally make this connection, I don’t know. What I do know, however, is that it was God who showed this to me. Through my sin of wallowing in self-hatred and contemplating suicide, I was opening doors for demonic attack, inviting demons to torture me, even though I did not realize it at the time.

As soon as I understood this, I completely stopped fantasizing about suicide. It was a no-brainer: if all I had to do to be free was to stop those fantasies, then of course I would. What a simple solution for a very complicated condition! Since that day, I have never again seen demons in my sleep, and it is a wonderful feeling to get ready for bed knowing I will sleep peacefully.

After that, I would occasionally get depressed and thoughts of suicide might enter my mind, but as soon as they did, I would immediately push them out. I know what lies down that road, and I will never travel it again.

One other thing I need to mention is why on the first night I was not able to effectively rebuke the demon. This is how I now understand it as God revealed it to me: during my times of great self-hatred, instead of walking with Jesus I was running away from him. I was actively and knowingly sinning. So, obviously, I could not use his gifts. Even though I still loved Jesus, I had moved outside of his protection and unknowingly invited the demonic.

No wonder that demon laughed at me that first night. I probably seemed very humorous and pathetic to it. Nevertheless, even though I could not defeat the demon, Jesus still protected me. No physical harm ever came to me during these nightmares and, thank the Lord, once I stopped wanting to die, the nightmares stopped. I finally got relief just before my breaking point. God always knows what we can handle and never gives us more than that.

It was not until a few years later that I stumbled upon a website about sleep paralysis, and I suddenly discovered that it is common. Sleep paralysis with hallucinations is not nearly as common, but still fairly frequent. Learning that many people have been through very similar experiences was very therapeutic. And with that, my healing was almost complete. All that is needed now is for me to help others heal.

I’m not claiming that everyone who has thoughts about suicide or who has sleep disorders will start experiencing sleep paralysis or sleep paralysis with hallucinations. I’m simply sharing my own experiences, in humble obedience to God, so that one day my story may help someone else.

***

Praise the Lord. I no longer suffer from sleep paralysis. At the age of fifteen, I started some New Age stuff. I didn’t know what I was doing. I wanted to be a genius and the products said they could do that. Very deceptive. They said it was science, but it was meditation and New Age stuff. I suffered from sleep paralysis from ages 15-21 until around the age of twenty-two, when God set me free. I am now twenty-three and have had not one episode since!

***

Sleep Paralysis is classified clinically as a “parasomnia.” It consists primarily of an inability to perform voluntary movements—either at sleep onset or upon awakening. It is usually accompanied by other bodily sensations—none of which are pleasant. This can be a very frightening experience.

I used to have this problem myself.

I experienced this problem over twenty years ago. For me, it happened only when I was about fall asleep. It happened repeatedly—though not every time I went to bed.

As I was about to fall asleep, I would suddenly become paralyzed. Additionally, there was this awful feeling that was always the same: My head felt like a moving drill bit. And there was nothing I could do about it. It was scary—but I doubt it ever lasted more than a minute.

I experienced this problem both before and after I got saved. Getting saved made no difference whatsoever.

After I got saved, however, I tried using the Bible. When the paralysis came on, I said out loud “Satan, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ.” The paralysis and associated symptoms immediately disappeared. Talk about a faith builder for a new Christian!

This happened a number of times—each time, the same thing happened.

Then it happened again. I tried to rebuke Satan, as before, but I could not talk. So I prayed: “Dear Lord, I pray for you to rebuke the Devil in Jesus’ name.” Instantly, the problem disappeared.

I don’t remember if this happened only once—or twice. But the problem has been gone for over twenty years.

In researching this problem on the internet, I have been amazed at how many people suffer from sleep paralysis, how much they have suffered, and how big of a problem this has been for people. Some people are even prescribed psychotropic medication.

It is possible that some people may not have the instant results I experienced. I know, from clinical experience, that other types of “hallucinations” do not always disappear just because the Devil is rebuked in the name of Jesus. They don’t disappear because the Devil has a spiritual foothold, usually as a result of anger.

However, from what I have been able to gather over the internet, I believe my experience is typical. I have never had a client with Sleep Paralysis.

If you are saved, just pray and/or rebuke the Devil in the name of Jesus. In my experience, rebuking the Devil does the trick. You don’t have to also say “demons.”

You can do the same for other “hallucinations.”

Never try to rebuke the Devil until you first get saved. That is potentially dangerous (Acts 19:13-17).

So that’s it. As far as I know, you now have everything you need to solve this problem—permanently.

***

It’s true. I had SP and OBE with a vision of Hell. I was not Christian, but I instinctively called out to Christ to save me and was instantly released.

I was studying the occult at the time, books of Carlos Castaneda as well as the Dalai Lama, to be exact.

Same here. The Lord Jesus Christ really does protect you from these demonic entities.

***

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 months 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 thirteen (I am now forty-seven), 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 books 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 overpowered 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 plaguing 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 experiences 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.

***

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 Aleister 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 eight years ago.

***

I suffered from this thirty years ago in my teens and early twenties. It was unheard of then. I had no idea what was happening. I would wrestle with an unseen entity night after night. There was no internet then, of course, no way of researching. I could talk to no one.

It was only when I met Christ when I was twenty-four that it stopped. I got the familiar tap on my shoulder from the entity, which I rebuked in the name of Christ. I saw it for first time as it flew away— forever!

***

My mother attended a Christian church during much of my childhood. But when we were away from church, she was involved in occult activities and had such of a strange sort of fascination with it that it seemed to take over her life; so much so, that most memories of my mother involve the occult. We had a lot of demonic events take place in our home throughout my childhood. Back then, I was told they were spirits of dead people and not demons, and I believed that until I was an adult. The events took place so often that they became almost a routine part of life.

Although I grew up going to church, my beliefs were like my mother’s, which means they did not align with the Bible. I believed whatever she taught me, so I believed in the existence of Jesus and that there is sin, but that’s about the only way my belief lined up with the Bible. As a result, I did not take it very seriously, and I remained that way for many years.

My mother left our family when I was ten years old, but the demonic activity stayed with us. When I was twelve, I began experiencing what is commonly called sleep paralysis, although I didn’t know there was such a thing at the time.

My first experience took place in my childhood home. It was the middle of the night and I was the only one sleeping on the second floor. I woke to the feeling of an evil presence in the room, but I couldn’t see anything there. Invisible hands grabbed my ankles and began slowly pulling me from my bed. I realized then that I couldn’t move to fight back, so I closed my eyes and prayed for Jesus to help me. Immediately it stopped, and the presence was gone.

I didn’t have another experience until four years later, when I was sixteen and living with my mother again. This time I woke up because my bed was vibrating, and upon opening my eyes, I saw a strange shaggy-haired woman, short of stature, standing in my doorway and staring at me. When she moved forward, I realized I couldn’t move, so I closed my eyes and prayed in the name of Jesus, and it all stopped. That was my last experience for more than a decade.

Years passed, and I grew up and got married, and my husband and I really took an interest in the Bible and began to believe all of it. It was at this time that the sleep paralysis experiences started up again, but they became so common that I began to dread sleep. I experienced several within one month, and it seemed to progressively get stranger and worse.

The first time it happened in my adult years, I woke to an evil presence which climbed onto my body, causing such a strong pressure on my chest that I could barely breathe. I tried to scream and couldn’t, and then I tried to wake my husband. It was then that I realized I was paralyzed. I thought to pray in the name of Jesus, and once I did, everything stopped.

I hadn’t experienced anything like this in several years, so I was very disturbed that this happened. It didn’t seem like a dream to me, so I began researching online, and I read about something called sleep paralysis. The definition I read was all about hallucinations and the brain and did not involve anything spiritual. I read that the hallucinations are caused by the person panicking when they realize they cannot move, but my experiences were the opposite; each time, I saw the so-called hallucination, and when I tried to react, it was then that I realized I could not move — not the other way around. None of it seemed right to me, but I didn’t know what to think, so I tried to ignore it.

Then something happened again a few days later. I woke up to a very strange feeling, like something was not right, and I could hear my husband in our living room speaking to our dog. I kept trying to call out to him, but my voice would only croak. I began to feel like something was trying to pull me, though not physically, out of my bedroom. Before I could even grasp what I was feeling, I popped up off of the bed and was standing unsteadily in the doorway, yet, behind me, I was still lying in the bed.

Before I could even think about how I was two places at once, I felt the pull again, and I began making my way to the living room where my husband was. Walking felt like light bouncing, and I was so unsteady that I had to hold onto the walls. I felt like I only had partial control over my body. Whatever the pull was that wanted me to go to my husband, I could not control it. Finally, I rounded the corner and saw my husband sitting at his desk. I tried to speak to him, but he stared ahead at his computer monitor as if he couldn’t hear me. I progressively got louder, but he never noticed.

Finally, I lost my balance and fell forward onto the floor, and I remember hearing the smack of my hands hitting the tile. As I hit, my husband looked over at me, but he stared through me, ignoring my cries, and turned back to face his monitor. Each time I tried to stand, one of my legs would slide out from under me. I looked behind to see what was going on with my legs, and although I could see nothing but the room behind me, I knew there was something there holding onto my legs, and it began pulling me back the way I came. I tried to dig my fingers into the floor, but I kept sliding.

Then I remembered to pray.

Suddenly, I was back in bed where it all began and the strange feeling was gone. I yelled for my husband and he came to me.

At first he thought it was a nightmare, and I hesitantly agreed with him, only because I didn’t know how else to explain it; but when I explained it in more detail, including naming the things he had sitting in front of him on his desk that he didn’t have earlier in the day— before I had gone to bed— his eyes grew wide, and he confirmed to me that he indeed had been doing all of those things, and those objects were indeed on his desk.

When I told him about falling and my hands slapping the ground, he seemed very uneasy. He told me that he had heard a sound like something hitting the floor, but when he turned to look, he saw nothing, so he ignored it. He felt unsettled, and so did I, so he told me to come into the living room with him until we decided to go back to bed.

When I walked in there, I noticed a piece of straw on the floor that the dog had tracked in from outside when I was asleep, according to my husband, and I felt frightened, because I had seen that very same piece of straw when I had been sliding backward during my experience, trying to cling onto the floor tiles. I could not explain what happened to me that night, but I knew deep inside of me that it was not a nightmare.

A few nights later, I woke to an evil presence again, but I immediately prayed, and it was gone.

A week after that, I woke to find my husband lying on top of me, behaving in a sexually aggressive manner that was not normal for him. I was shocked at his incredibly aggressive behavior, so I did not respond at first, except to stare at him in disbelief, trying to get a grasp on what had gotten into him. Then he leaned down and buried his face in my neck, and I remember feeling his breath on my skin. I tried to move my head away from him in protest, but I could only fully move my eyes, and it was then that I saw my husband lying beside me in the bed, still sleeping. I knew immediately that the sleeping husband was my true husband, so I suddenly became filled with a terrible horror and tried to get away from the thing that was on top of me, but I could not move. I knew I must pray, and I did so, and immediately it was gone, and I woke my husband for comfort.

A few nights later, I woke to a presence at the end of my bed. I was so frightened that I didn’t think to pray, but instead closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see what was there. Suddenly, I felt myself lift straight up from the bed, and I slowly began turning in circles, faster and faster, unable to control what was happening. Finally I was spinning so fast that I became dizzy and nauseated. When I didn’t think I could take it anymore, I remembered to pray, and immediately I was back on the bed. Nothing was in the room with me any longer, and I could move, but the dizziness persisted throughout the day.

I began researching about the attacks again. I found a website of a sleep paralysis researcher who believed that these occurrences are actually demonic experiences. I decided to contact her for advice. She wrote me back in a short amount of time and informed me that I may have a generational curse, because of my mother’s involvement in the occult, and gave me a lot of information to help me realize what is happening to me and what I can do about it.

I experienced more and more attacks, and eventually I stopped fearing it, but grew to trust Jesus instead. When an attack began, I immediately prayed in Jesus’ name, and it went away, and in return, my faith would grow even stronger.

With the last attack, I woke to another presence beside my bed. As soon as I noticed it, it came forward and ran its hand up my thigh in a sexual manner. I could not move, and I was so angry because I knew what was coming, so I tried to speak, and although I could only get my voice out in a harsh whisper, I said to it, “Because of Jesus, you have no power over me.” Immediately, it was gone and I could move again.

After my two childhood experiences, these attacks started up again while I was a weak Christian just beginning my walk. These attacks were strong enough to take control over me, but there is someone much stronger out there, and I put my faith in Him to stop it, and He was faithful. Because my prayers in Jesus’ name always stopped the attacks, I became more faithful, and because I became more faithful, I no longer panicked during an attack, but instead knew to pray immediately. Because I prayed immediately in faith, nothing could happen to me any longer without being stopped immediately. I know it is the prayers that stopped the attacks while ongoing, but I also believe that the attacks stopped for good because they could no longer really even begin, because of my immediate prayers of faith. I learned to trust God during these attacks, rather than trying to fight them off myself first, and He never once failed me when I prayed. He stopped every single attack faithfully, and now it has been two years with no demonic experience, including this phenomena called sleep paralysis.

***

When I was sixteen years old, I had a very strange experience which, even as an unsaved person, I understood to be evil. One night as I slept, I was awoken and forced to sit up and look at the doorway of my room. I could not move. I could not look in any other direction. When I saw the dark figure at my doorway, I did not realize it was responsible for my paralyzing condition, but when I woke up I did. The figure was very tall, had no discernible facial features, and could best be described as “pitch black.” The experience felt like it lasted only for a short time. Without caring if the being left my room, I was suddenly made to lie back down. I believe I fell asleep immediately after laying back down.

It was a scary experience and I tried to suppress it from my mind in the years to come. However, it lingered in my mind as something horrible I went through. When I was an unbeliever, I feared it would happen again. However, by God’s grace, He saved me the next year by sending someone in my life to share the gospel with me. After I repented and trusted on Christ and the gospel and got saved, I never experienced it again. For that I am very grateful to God.

***

As early as age twelve, I really thought I knew everything the Bible had to teach me. I was born and raised in a traditional Baptist family. We went to church every Sunday, prayed before every meal, and frequently discussed how good God was to us. When I had a question about God or the Bible, my family would do their best to answer me. If they didn’t have an answer, I would be told the same thing every time: “You just have to take it on faith.”

After twelve years of that, I came to the conclusion that I had reached the limit of answers the Bible could provide for my questions. When it came to things such as the possible existence of aliens, the true identity of ghosts, or if magic was real, I knew I just had to take it on faith, whatever that meant. There was one question, however, that kept nagging at my twelve-year-old mind. Why were my nightmares becoming real at night?

Since before I can remember, I would have the same experience about once a week. I would go to bed for the night, fall asleep, then wake up some time later completely unable to move. After a few seconds of confusion, the attacks would begin. This was when every experience was unique. Sometimes, the attacks would only come in the form of taunting voices. Other times, I would see shadow people in my room. Other times, more physical beings would appear and become violent. It was a waking nightmare that did not seem to have a solid answer. Beyond recognizing it as some sort of demonic activity, I was at a total loss.

I remember the first time that an entity actually manipulated the physical environment of my room. I was about fourteen years old and, at that time, I would always sleep with my door closed. I had gone to bed for the night and, a few hours later, I woke up paralyzed. It was late so everyone else in the house was already in bed and asleep for the night. I was situated in a position where I was facing the closed door of my bedroom. It was not long before I began hearing sounds from the other side of the door. Thud. Shuffle. Thud. It sounded as if someone or something was making its way down the hallway toward my room. The noises stopped right at my door and, for a brief moment, there was a silent pause. Suddenly, the silence was broken by the creak of the doorknob turning. The door was pushed open and a dark figure slowly entered the room.

The figure stood about five to six feet tall and was wearing some type of hooded cloak. Because of the hood, I did not get a good look at its face, but I was able to make out the silhouette. The outline of the face was all wrong. It wasn’t human. It was the wrong shape. It appeared to be far longer than a normal human face, more reminiscent of a horse or goat. Needless to say, I was horrified.

The being shuffled over toward the bed and turned to face me. I was suddenly hit with a wave of what I can only describe as anger, hatred, and evil, yet it felt more physical. The being slowly reached into its cloak and pulled out something that looked like a knife or a dagger. It placed its hand on the bed and leaned over me, shifting all its weight onto the edge of the bed. I remember I could actually feel the bed dip down where it was leaning. That was when I realized this was not purely spiritual. This being had physicality. This being could manipulate the physical environment around it. This being could actually hurt me.

It was at that moment I began frantically screaming in my head out to Jesus. I was unable to physically speak, but my mind was going a mile a minute. I begged for God’s protection and asked Him to make this thing go away. As I was praying, the being drove the dagger into my side and dragged it through to the other, right over my stomach. I mentally braced myself as I waited for the pain to come.

To my surprise, the pain never came. I only felt a slight tingle. Clearly, the being was surprised by this as well. It pulled the dagger out of me, looked at the area over my stomach where the wound should have been, looked at the dagger, then looked back at me. I was suddenly hit with another wave of anger, hatred, and evil; far stronger than the first. After that, the being turned around and shuffled out of the room. Once it was gone, I was able to move again. I check the area where the dagger went in and there were no marks whatsoever.

I must have been so frightened and exhausted by the experienced that I passed out, because the next thing I remember was waking up to the morning sun shining through my window. I listened for a moment and heard nothing but silence throughout the house, telling me that I was the first to wake up for the day. I looked over to my bedroom door and was horrified to discover it was still open. That was the first time that I could no longer justify my experiences as nothing more than very intense and realistic nightmares. The being that has entered my room the night before left physical evidence of its presence.

The experience of the cloaked being was my first of a physical manifestation, but it certainly was not my last. Sometimes, they appeared as strange and disfigured creatures. Sometimes, they were just balls of light or shadow. Sometimes, they would even appear as my friends or family members. This was well before I was ever aware of the term “familiar spirit.” These manifestations and subsequent attacks mixed in with the lack of answers from my church led me into alternative routes for a solution. My most notable and desperate attempt at a solution led to New Age theology and the practice of astral projection. Needless to say, this only made the problem worse and almost ruined my life.

It wasn’t until I was a young adult that I learned the true power of Jesus’ name. It wasn’t until I rededicated my life to Christ and began operating in His authority that I could finally get a handle on the problem. It wasn’t until I began reading the Bible for myself, outside the scope of tradition I was brought up with, that I was finally able to understand what was happening to me. I began using the name of Jesus to command these entities to leave my home and life. The truth that I was missing all those years, due to the fact I thought I knew everything the Bible had to teach me, was that the enemy has no real authority over us. The only power they have is the power we allow them. It is only by the authoritative power of Jesus Christ, not our own will or efforts, that we can remove these things from our lives.

 

You can submit your sleep paralysis stories here.