The Horror of Sleep Paralysis

Most paranormal enthusiasts have read about sleep paralysis, or, at least, they've read about "Old Hag Syndrome" or one of the many names it goes by outside of the medical community.  Colloquially, these stories span cultures and centuries but are all basically the same.  The sleeper awakes to find out they cannot move.  This is accompanied by an odd sense of danger and the frightening image of something staring at them in the darkness.  Some describe an old woman staring down at them, others a shadowy ghost, and others a demon.  All of the descriptions seem similar, though.

Medical science brought us closer to understanding this after discovering REM atonia.  This is the "override" switch in your brain that keeps your body still while you sleep.  After reading about this, I thought an episode of sleep paralysis would be a fun experiment and hoped it would happen to me.  I came to regret that.

I had long forgotten about REM atonia by the time it happened.  In the middle of the night, my eyes opened and I didn't know why.  Surely, I had heard some sound or some noise in the apartment, but I couldn't remember.  Something had startled me, however, because I was frightened.  Very frightened.  Had I heard someone break in through the window?  Or did I hear someone yelling?  No, I couldn't remember anything at all.  I just knew this overwhelming feeling of dread like I had not ever known.  I've lived in bad neighborhoods and been through some rough scrapes, but this feeling of fear was much worse than anything I had been through.  For the first time in my life, I was certain that something horrible was going to happen to me and that I was powerless to stop it from happening.

Then, I saw it.  Someone standing right in front of me.  Had they been there the entire time?  I couldn't see them well in the darkness, but a person was standing just a few feet away and staring at me while I laid on my side.  I am normally very calm under pressure, but I wanted to scream.  I stared in horror at the thing that stared back at me.  I couldn't see its eyes, but I could feel it looking at me in the dark.  What was it doing?  How had it gotten there?  And why did it awaken the darkest fears within me?

And why the devil couldn't I move?  I just laid there in my fear thinking that I was paralyzed out of horror.  I don't know how long it lasted, but I must have finally fallen asleep.  When I awoke I had vivid memories of the thing and I looked around the room for signs of an intruder.  I knew I wouldn't find anything, and I didn't.  I sat up in bed thinking about the horror for a long time.  Finally, from the recesses of my mind, I remembered sleep paralysis and REM atonia.  I breathed a sigh of relief.

It might sound silly, but these happenings are very frightening, and I now understand why someone might need therapy after such an experience.  As for the medical explanations that I turned to for comfort, why does every victim of sleep paralysis see the same ghastly shape before them?  What causes the inexplicable feelings of dread?  Is it impossible that this is the way certain metaphysical creatures terrorize us?  Could it be that demons walk among us and this is how they interact with us?  Or is it just the way chemicals in our brain react when our REM cycle is off its axis?  I don't know, and no one seems to have answered this mystery completely, yet.  But if this happens to someone I know, I'm going to be very understanding - it is a horrifying thing.

Ancient Astronauts in Pompeii?

While visiting the ruins in Pompeii I came across something I certainly wasn't looking for:

It's strange that I had never heard of this.  Many of us are familiar with different paintings and images of UFOs in old works of art.  Here are some of the more well known examples:

From Wikipedia - This is the painting titled The Madonna with Saint Giovannino a painting from around the 15th century most likely painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio. The painting depicts Mary mother of Jesus looking down while in the background you can see a clear picture of what appears to be a UFO flying above while a man on a ledge blocks the sun with his hand and stares at the strange flying object in the sky.

This is The Baptism of Christ by Aert de Gelder (1710).  The disk-shaped representation of God(?) is certainly odd.

Having read much of the ancient astronaut lore I was surprised to find this ancient UFO-like painting in Pompeii.  I Am I the first UFO enthusiast to visit the ruins?  Or am I just the only person who thinks it looks like a UFO at all?

It's drawn on a wall above buildings as if it's in the air.  Did the Greeks who lived in Pompeii see things like this in the sky?

Oh, and Boston saw it, too.

Have I Ever Seen a Ghost? There was that One Time...

I don't tell this story, very often, because it draws a lot of criticism, but I've seen a few strange things and here is one of my stories.

While in college (Dallas Baptist University, that is) I spent two months in a dorm room over the summer while my dorm room was being renovated. The weird things started happening at night. (go ahead, start laughing.)

I laid down to sleep and heard a rattling sound. I realized that it came from a jar of change (back then I kept all of my change in cups in my room; I had a few of these cups at the time). No big deal, sometimes change settles, but it was odd that the change was settling down into the cup so long after I had put the change there. Still, no big deal.

A bit later I heard a sliding sound and a thump. I shot up and realized that a poster had fallen from my wall. OK, that happens, sometimes the tape falls down, no big deal.

A few minutes later, a pencil rolled off of my desk.

And so on.

All night, every night, weird stuff like that happened. Each individual incident was nothing, it could have been explained by a stray air conditioner draft or something, but the frequency of these events was haunting. How could so many little anomalies be happening all at once and only at night?

One night the person in the bunk above was moving around, a lot, and I woke up wondering, Why can't he be still and stop shaking the bed so much?

Then I remembered, I don't have a roommate...

I got up and no one was up there, but something shook the bed. Weird.

I'm not saying that there was a ghost in there. I'm not saying that someone died in that room and now the ghost haunts the place. I'm not making any claims.

I'm just saying that it was unexplainable.

Tell me your stories.

Paranormal Investigation - River Legacy Park - Arlington, TX Part 2

(Read part 1)

River Legacy Park is rumored to be haunted...says who?

By visiting this park I found that there are not any parking spots that can be accessed at night. You would need to climb a fence to get inside at night and you certainly couldn't get a car out there. It's hard to believe that anyone has parked their car inside and seen a ghostly hobo arrive.

In fact, it's hard to understand who, exactly, is telling these ghost stories. Since you can't get in at night and the old 'screaming bridge' doesn't even exist, from where do the stories originate?

The answer is found at dfwparanormalresearch.com; home page for the 'Screaming Bridge Tour'. For $20.00 you can be taken on a tour of the 'haunted' grounds. A DVD of the tour can be purchased for $30.00.

And that seems to be the genesis of these ghost stories. No one, other than the tour promoters, report these strange goings on. I've read many internet threads about ghost hunting in this area and all of them end in disappointment; no one who visits this place is reporting anything unusual.

If there are ghosts in our world, they are going to have a hard time reaching us with all of the fake ghost hunting going on.

Paranormal Investigation - River Legacy Park - Arlington, TX

Any paranormalist in the DFW area will tell you that River Legacy Park is haunted. It's a great place for ghost hunting because it involves so many varied stories. There's the mystical hobo who comes to your car and taps on your window just before disappearing, the confederate soldier who died there and still runs around scaring people, and the ghosts that inhabit the old bridge where a car took a wrong turn and crashed, killing the occupants. River Legacy Park is everything a ghost hunter could want.

So, what happens when people check it out, and who is reporting this stuff? This has been a very interesting search, for me.

While trying to find this place, I realized that I had already been there many times to jog! I was pretty disappointed to find out that this terribly spooky place was really just a public park down the road. I hoped that it would get more scary at night.

The main scary story surrounding this place is the one about the car crash who's victims stalk the old bridge to this day. Sounds interesting, but there are a few problems. People who look around for this bridge are never able to find it. Why? It appears that the bridge no longer exists!

As far as the confederate soldier is concerned, another part of River Legacy Park once contained a place called "Hell's Gate" where Union soldiers were hanged by Confederate soldiers. Of course, none of the ghost story websites give any real information about this, and searching for information on the topic only brings up ghost websites.

Not to mention, the late night visitors to River Legacy Park find that they cannot enter the park after dark, so who is reporting this stuff and circulating these stories? Who is parking their cars in there and seeing hobos? And, isn't it convenient that all of these haunted places are in one park? Well, I found answers to these questions, and I will share them with you.

(To be continued.)

Paranormal Investigation - Flagpole Hill - Dallas, TX

While planning to visit a coffee house in the White Rock area, I realized that I would be driving past the infamous Flagpole Hill, a place well known amongst paranormal investigators.

For many years, there have been stories of drivers reporting odd happenings when they drive down this road. Rocks and sticks are said to hit cars from impossible angles. It's a small stretch of road that does not allow the driver to turn around; you must complete the circle to get out. Also, the reports almost always say not to drive down this road at night.

My wife and I couldn't resist a quick detour to investigate a well known phenomenon like this. We found the road with no trouble and began the drive.

Maybe it was the children. Maybe it was the middle aged people playing frisbee. Whatever it was, I just didn't feel like I was going to have a scary experience. After a non-eventful drive we decided to come back on our way home from the open mic...after dark...

...and, nothing happened, again. There were more people visiting the park and goofing off. The place is actually a well kept public park and it's about as threatening as Grandma's house. Maybe the next place I visit will have a real ghost.



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