I’m in Love with my Sleep Paralysis Demon

I’m in love with my sleep paralysis demon. I’ve only ever seen him out of the corner of my eye.

He freaked the hell out of me the first time he came to me. Tall – at least seven or eight feet, but hard to know really when you’re lying down, your vision is blurry, and your visitor will not stay still. I tried to scream but try as I might, I couldn’t prise my mouth open. My arms were glued to my sides. He was there, he was here, he was close, he was far. He was slow motion, he was fast forward. He was sliding across the ceiling, he was crawling along the floor. I could not even move my head; only twitch my eyes like erratic metronomes.

He loomed over me, a black cloud. I tried to squeeze my eyes shut. They didn’t obey. Then he was gone. Then I sensed he was back – under the bed. Rationality told me I was dreaming. He told me – not via words, but by tethering himself to my mind – that this was very real and very much happening. I now knew how the mouse felt when being toyed with by the cat.

He roped the bedsheets around my ankles, flickering like a fog-enshrouded lamp, flitting from one side of the bedroom to another, as though checking the wallpapered barricades. He knocked knickknacks off my shelves. I hoped my housemate would bang on the door soon to check on me. And as my demon began dragging me out of bed by my own sheets I hoped she would stay away. I was curious to see where this was going.

Turns out: nowhere. Just as my coccyx slammed onto the floorboard, I awoke, with my phone clutched to my chest in the same position I’d drifted off in.

I saw him on and off that summer, the year I that I had moved to the new city. The first constant in my latest life. He came to me in naps in the precious downtime between lectures and the shifts I’d picked up in a bar. I knew he wanted to be threatening, so I played along. But I knew he couldn’t really hurt me. Or at least, hadn’t yet. He’d had plenty chance to. He inspired dread and fascination in me in equal amounts. So when I started understanding his triggers – caffeine, codeine – I’d indulge in more, while saying to myself “Sadie, really?” Shaking my head, swallowing my demon-bringers. Then I would lie flat on my back ASAP, to aid the indigestion. Other people in my age group were spending their twenties experimenting with drugs, internships, partners…I would rush home after a media studies seminar about the male gaze so I could slip into a lacy nightie for a man I wasn’t even sure had eyes.

One day/night, asleep/awake, it wasn’t him I saw. Not the familiar ceiling-grazing guy with the fiery orange outline I had grown to fancy were from the fires of the passion he was growing to feel for me. No, this was a diminutive tattered old grey thing. A tree stump over which someone had thrown a worn tablecloth, but maggots and moths had eaten the picnic and decided to squat there.

This would not do. I had to serve them their notice.

Get away, I thought but could not utter. This technique had worked fine with the shadow man. He was very intuitive. He knew when I wanted to be smothered and when I needed to be flung around. A mind reader, teasing out my darkest desires with his slender exploring fingers (he kept his nails trimmed close…such a well-trained companion).

Who are you, I demanded to know. I sensed female. Was it the demon’s mum, come to pick him up? At this inspired thought, a shriek of laughter escaped my pursed lips. In reality, a feeble squeak.

Perhaps it was a furious wife. Whatever it was, it had leapt onto my chest, ape-like. With her pounding fists, exuding a strength that belied her frame, I sensed she wanted me to wake up. After silently screaming at myself for ten neverending minutes while simultaneously trying to dodge the gnarly green fingernail she pointed accusingly at me, I finally obliged.

The room once again reverted back to its proper, static, dimensions. I sat up, dazed. Clocked the clothes I’d strewn on my armchair in the corner. A costume worn optimistically to an interview I knew I wasn’t going to get a callback from, having been so tired during it I barely managed to stifle my yawns. Charcoal grey dress, white shirt, sheer black tights. Easy enough to conjure a sleep paralysis hag out of that.

After dealing with that unexpected character, I was somehow certain I wouldn’t be seeing my demon again.

I look down at myself. I am she. I am he.

I/we tiptoed downstairs and put my laundry in the machine. Didn’t turn on the machine yet. Didn’t want to wake the dead, or indeed my housemate Monica – the latter of which would be the worse in terms of consequences. Forced leaden limbs back up the stairs, succumbed to a dreamless, demonless sleep.

I got up a few hours later and went to fix myself a coffee – decaf this time. There was a folded note that hadn’t been there last night on the table. Monica is an early riser. With our shift patterns, we barely see each other.

I opened the note. Something fell out and skittered under the table. The note read: “Got this caught between my toes this morning. It’s not Halloween yet, Sadie! :P x”

I bent down to hunt for the fallen article, and wasn’t that surprised to see it was a fingernail. A long green one. The same nail that pointed at me from the rag-hag who had telepathically demanded I make some lifestyle changes.

A few lonely months later, I finally got an office job and handed in my notice to the bar. I invited (via note) Monica to come clubbing with me to celebrate. On the face of it, we were celebrating my new role, inwardly I was cheering/commiserating that my summer of hypnopomp and circumstance was at an end.

Deep in the whirlpool of the dance floor, I caught something out of the corner of my eye/high. A man emerging from a dark corner, tall and shadowy. Life is but a walking shadow, I think, smiling to myself, which the shadow man sees as a sign of encouragement.

He steps into the spotlight, and I look him in the eyes.