The Nightmare Page #5

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And that was the first time

I ever...

I saw somebody represent

what it feels like...

or I guess,

not what it feels like...

what it feels like

it looks like to be in it,

like when I'm coming out,

like, sometimes

my jaw will, like,

just f***ing go back

and forth real quick,

or, like, my head will shoot

from side to side.

And It's what I imagine

it looks like.

Even my girlfriend,

she was like,

you know,

"those weird head movements,"

like, that's kind of what It's

like for me to watch,

"you know,

except not magically blurry."

That's the sleep paralysis.

Hey, It's got to be.

Yeah, I had my own

sleep paralysis episode,

and, well, in that one,

it was sort of like a classic

three-dimensional,

black shadow man,

who came up in the woods

behind my house,

leaned over my bed.

And I think

maybe a year or two later,

I saw "natural born killers."

And there's a scene,

and it goes by just in a flash,

where that guy is, like,

in the opening credits,

coming through, like,

this strange red tunnel,

cloudy vortex thing.

I think It's over the credit

of "producer arnon milchan."

But it went by in a flash,

and it must have been

kind of complicated

to call into existence.

So I was like,

"why was that there?"

And I still didn't know

what sleep paralysis was.

I didn't know

that anyone else had had it.

So I saw that and almost

kind of took it as a message,

like, "the people

who made this film"

had the same experience

that I did."

And It's kind of

like a signal to me

in some...

some strange, scary way.

No, It's true.

It was kind of the same

as a child.

It was very validating.

I never thought it was

my mind playing tricks on me.

I just knew something bad

was always happening to me.

And I didn't... I didn't

know what to do about it.

I've prayed my whole life.

I still pray.

I'm a very spiritual person.

However,

praying never made it go away,

even when

I was within the attack.

I would pray within the attack,

and still, no help.

I started exercising,

started eating better,

cut back on caffeine and doing

all that kind of stuff,

and just no matter

what I did, though, it was...

it had absolutely no effect

on the sleep paralysis,

and it just kept happening

night after night after night.

I finally decided

to go to one of these ladies

that read cards, and she Says,

"I can't look into your house."

I'm trying to look

into your house,

"but I see

this black shadow over it."

I thought

I was abducted by aliens

for a long time, years,

years and years and years.

Before I went to bed

every night,

I would lay in my bed

and close my eyes

and just pray,

"not tonight, not tonight,

not tonight, not tonight,

not tonight, not tonight."

And I would just repeat it over

and over and over in my head,

as If I had some

kind of psychic bond

with my alien abductors

and that I could communicate

with them telepathically,

and just plead with them,

to make tonight not the night

that they would come back

and do that to me.

Over the years, I would find

different mechanisms

to avoid sleep paralysis.

I noticed that it wouldn't

happen every night

If certain requirements

were met,

like, If I would...

like, there would be, like,

a TV in my room.

And If I left it on,

for some reason

it was easier for me not

to get hit by the paralysis.

And, you know,

younger me thought it was

maybe that little

high-pitched noise,

tv's make

when you leave them on,

so I would leave it on

overnight on mute

for that little

high-pitched noise.

Eventually, that stopped

working after about a year.

So I decided,

like, "you know what?"

If one TV worked,

what about two?"

And I used to collect junk,

so tv's, like, were plentiful.

And two worked

for a little while.

And I just escalated

with that for a while,

'cause I'm pretty smart,

apparently.

No, it made me look like

a crazy person until one day,

I realized that

even If this was a problem,

this was not a functional way

of, like, dealing with it.

So I just removed all the tv's

at that point from my room,

and, you know, all it did

was leave me

with a much stronger and more

elaborate sleep paralysis.

And that's kind of the thing

that I've realized

is If you have it every day

and you have multiple episodes

a day,

it will kind of learn

how to adapt to you.

Like, If you try to, like,

avoid it, it will find you,

and it will make it happen

somehow.

And another time,

I actually felt it

go on the bed.

You know, it was as If

It's climbing up.

I was laying there,

and it came here.

I just closed my eyes.

And it was on top of me,

and it was...

It's like I was

having sex with this thing.

And I said, "Oh, my God,

this can't be real."

This can't be real."

This demonic thing,

and I don't know,

why am I feeling this?

What else is gonna happen next?

But it happened.

Did you see anything?

I didn't see anything.

It was just the feeling.

And then it was gone again.

A lot of firsts

all happened in one night.

When the pain started happening,

the hallucinations

got more vivid,

and I started to be able

to be interacted with.

And I go directly into this

very, you know, lucid dream.

I remember the architecture

of this world,

of this dream,

it was just very angular,

and I'm just

kind of walking on it.

There were, like, stairs

that went down to places

that they should have thought

out a little bit better.

As I was walking around,

I remember a kid

that I was friends with

growing up in elementary school,

my only friend

from elementary school

comes up to me,

and his name was Danny.

And behind him

is this gigantic dude

with really crazy orange hair.

And Danny Says, "this is him.

Can I go now?"

And he just leaves

the guy with me.

And he repeats,

"you know who I am."

I start thinking of like,

I don't know you, I don't.

I start listing places.

"Do I know you from school?

"Do I know you

from McDonald's?"

'Cause I used to work

at McDonald's.

"Do I remember you from

the comic book depot?"

Which was my comic book store.

And he just keeps on going,

"no. But you know who I am."

One last time.

And then the entire world

just disappears,

and I'm in the strongest

sleep-paralysis episode

I've ever had in my life.

Like, I cannot move.

Like, I can't even

try to force myself out of it.

Like, that little wiggle room

I get sometimes

just wasn't there.

And it felt like

I was completely constrained,

you know, fully,

to the point where

I'm just trying to breathe,

because I don't know

what else to do.

Immediately after that

dream drops,

and everything's gone,

he kind of fizzles away.

And this was the first

experience with pain.

If I had to describe it,

picture like

a claw-machine game.

You know, three...

three little things.

And that's

when the pain starts coming.

The worst one is when

It's around, like,

you know, my f***ing dick.

And I still felt the pain

after I woke up.

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