The debate of the supernatural, versus the mostly atheists’ scientific explanations of true life occurrences of many, has always left me a little puzzled as to which side I was tilting towards. This was until I heard the account of Ting Xiu (Not her real name; but close).
Ting Xiu’s Story
“It was a weekday night. Might have already been a little late for me to be finally preparing myself to get to bed. I was working the next day. I had reached out to shut off the radio when my glasses slipped and fell to the floor. Annoyed, I glanced past the bed’s edge to look for my glasses but did not see it there.
I jumped off the bed guessing it had fallen to the underside. I reached out under my bed in the darkness and felt something odd shaped. Oh! It was my tiger balm oil that I always kept beside me. Further off, I felt my glasses. I picked both the items, placed them on the side table and lay down again on my bed face up.
That instant, I could not move. A dark shadow whizzed past me and landed right on top of my body. I could make out a figure from the little faint streetlight reflected into my bedroom. It was a human figure but nothing about it was human. It was covered in fur and was extremely hunched.
I wanted to scream my lungs out. I could not. The shadow further crept towards my face for me to be able to look right at it……
I won’t forget what I saw. It looked like something from the planet of the apes but much much more frightening. Its face was a bloody mess scared from end to end. Thankfully, I could move my eyes. to look around me. I desperately looked around hoping for help. None came. My paralysis became even more severe as I couldn’t even think what my next action should be with only one hope; to faint.
The creature suddenly disappeared. But I still felt its complete weight on me. It had crept into my blanket from my legs and had started creeping up towards me. My heart felt like it was going to explode and the last thing I wanted was direct contact with this thing but I felt all of it. Coarse hair brushing against my legs as it crept up higher.
Everything took a complete turn at that point when suddenly, I felt torn between fear and one other emotion. Pleasure.
It was caressing me all over. It started to feel like it was having sex with me. There was really nothing physical in me but I just felt like it was a sexual act. I had responded to this occurrence by actually having an actual orgasm. Even after I had woken up and was no long immobilised, I knew it was over but the physical orgasm went on for at least a minute after”
I know what you guys are thinking. Isn’t this supposed to be a ghost story? How the hell did it become erotica? Well, I will get to that. In essence, many of you think you know what my friend had experienced, Sleep Paralysis.
I myself have personally experienced the “Push Ghost”; What I call it. Of course, eventually Mr Google; wait Google is a girl. Fine, Miss Google told me its Sleep Paralysis.
REM Sleep & Sleep Paralysis
Sleep Scientists say that if you have been deprived of sleep for even a night, the next sleep cycle, you go into REM really quickly. In REM sleep, you are subdued by your brains. It’s at the deepest REM when our bodies recover, grow etc and therefore you have a quicker heart rate.
Learn About Sleep Cycles: https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/sleep-101
Because of this activeness, your brains are also the most active. Your physical movements are therefore stunted by your brains so that you don’t end up acting out your dreams in your sleep.
Because you had just fallen asleep and gone into REM, you are suddenly aware of your immobility; and the only way you make sense of this lack of muscular control is via the supernatural; AKA Ghosts.
What about the ghostly sex?
This is where Ting Xiu’s story made me dig further about the reality of Sleep Paralysis. Fine, the immobility and thus the ghostly hallucinations make sense. Then, why the sex?
The myth of the sleep demon stalker dates back from Arab folklore and is known as the Kaboose. This folklore is depicted in the painting above called The Nightmare. The figure that sits upon the woman’s chest is often described as an imp or an incubus, a type of spirit said to lie atop people in their sleep or even to have sexual intercourse with sleeping women. Though it is said that “The Nightmare” is a product of Fuseli’s imagination, he was also known to have a broad knowledge of cultural history and thereby possibly drew inspiration from real accounts of the folklore itself.
How familiar is the creature, demon, ape? It depicts exactly what Ting Xiu had described to us, doesn’t it? Has Ting Xiu heard of this painting before? Nop, she hadn’t. Could it be a subconscious memory of something she had seen before; Maybe.
Celebrity Accounts of the “Push Ghost”
Many celebrities themselves have had claimed to have experienced sexual gratification during ‘Sleep Paralysis”. Kesha wrote a song about “sexy encounters with the supernatural”. Singer Bobby Brown has claimed to have sex with Ghosts and vouched to have not been high at that point. Lucy Liu accounts of her episode with a loving spirit. Google and you would find so many more of such experiences.
Kesha’s Supernatural: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtIWOxXcWZo
The Verdict
What if. Just what if. Most of the time, when we go through sleep paralysis, we hallucinate of supernatural presence to make sense of it. But, every now and then, there is an incubus sitting by your side waiting for you to get into Sleep Paralysis, and then comes for you?
Either way, get some crazy gorgeous, comfortable Bedsheets that make you fall asleep instantly so that you never skip a restful night. Lest of course, you are curious to understand “Incubus” a little more.
