Night terrors, nightmares, night time attacks, sudden death while sleeping...

[Cara]

I came across a reference to some Cambodian refugees experiencing such terrifying nightmares that they died...


[Wes] Craven apparently got the idea for Nightmare [on Elm Street] after reading a series of articles describing a group of Cambodian men that were terrified of sleeping after fleeing from Pol Pot's regime. These men suffered severe nightmares to the point that several died shortly after falling asleep. from https://visupview.blogspot.ae/2010/10/american-nightmare-on-bloody-elm.html

Here (http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1987-01-11/news/0100120048_1_kirschner-nightmare-death-night-terror) is a press article from the Orlando Sentinal about this:

Nightmare Death: When Dreams Kill
January 11, 1987|By Larry Doyle , United Press International

CHICAGO — Since April 1983 at least 130 Southeast Asian refugees have died in essentially the same way: They cried out in their sleep and then died.

Medical authorities call this Asian death syndrome. The refugees have various names for it, one of them being night terror.

As a deputy Cook County medical examiner, Dr. Robert Kirschner has investigated five night terror deaths, which also is called nightmare death.

Kirschner, an associate professor of pathology at the University of Chicago, undertook a systematic study of the problem. His results, based on data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and autopsies of 18 night terror victims, were recently reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The victims had much in common, Kirschner found, first and foremost that nothing seemed to be wrong with them before they died suddenly. The average age of the victims was 33, and the deaths occurred only in men and only during sleep.

Standard autopsies revealed little about the deaths, other than they were caused by a sudden heart stoppage. ...

But detailed examinations of the victims' hearts turned up something strange: All of the 18 hearts were slightly enlarged, and 17 showed defects in their conduction systems, the array of fibers that carries electronic impulses from the brain to the heart. The fibers were frayed and curled as if, Kirschner said, ''their hearts just shorted out.''

Kirschner theorizes that something at night, perhaps a random electronic discharge, and yes, perhaps a nightmare, overloaded these defective hearts, causing the sudden deaths.
...



So - I looked for further information on this strange phenomenon...

From Wikipedia, where it's called Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_arrhythmic_death_syndrome):


Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS), also known as sudden adult death syndrome or sudden unexpected death syndrome (SUDS), is sudden unexpected death of adolescents and adults, mainly during sleep.[1][2] Sudden unexpected death syndrome is rare in most areas around the world. ... Sudden unexplained death syndrome was first noted in 1977 among Hmong refugees in the US.[3][4] The disease was again noted in Singapore, when a retrospective survey of records showed that 230 otherwise healthy Thai men died suddenly of unexplained causes between 1982 and 1990:[5] ...

A Tokyo Medical Examiner reported that every year several hundred evidently healthy men are found dead in their beds in the Tokyo District alone. These observations indicate that the recent sudden deaths of Southeast Asian refugees are not a new occurrence, but rather an ongoing pattern of sudden deaths that appears in mainland Southeast Asia. Sudden unexpected death syndrome once caused more deaths among males than car accidents in Southeast Asia.[6] Most of those affected are young males.[7] ...

There is some detail given about it in the context of society, which seems to indicate that some cultures view it as a SPIRITUAL phenomenon:


Some say that the Hmong who died were killed by their own beliefs in the spiritual world, otherwise known as, “Nocturnal Pressing Spirit Attacks”. In Indonesia it is called digeuton, which translates to “pressed on” in English.[9] In China it is called bei gui ya which translates to “crushed by a ghost” in English.[9] The Dutch call the presence a nachtmerrie, the night-mare.[9] The “merrie” comes from the Middle Dutch mare, an incubus who “lies on people`s chests, suffocating them”. This phenomenon is well known among the Hmong people of Laos,[19] who ascribe these deaths to a malign spirit, dab tsuam (pronounced "da cho"), said to take the form of a jealous woman. Hmong men may even go to sleep dressed as women so as to avoid the attentions of this spirit.

During the 1970`s and 1980`s when an outbreak of this syndrome began, many of the Southeast Asian`s were not able to worship properly due to the guerrilla war against the government of Laos with the United States. When the Hmong people do not worship properly, do not perform religious ritual properly or forget to sacrifice, the ancestor spirits or the village spirits do not protect them, thus allowing the evil spirit to reach them. These attacks induce a nightmare that leads to sleep paralysis when the victim is conscious and experiencing pressure on the chest.[9] It is also common to have a REM state that is out of sequence where there is a mix of brain states that are normally held separate.[9] ...Once these nightmare visitations began, a shaman was recommended for psychic protection from the spirits of their sleep.[9] ...

Hmong people believed that rejecting the role of becoming a shaman, they are taken into the spirit world.

Bangungot is depicted in the Philippines as a mythological creature called batibat or bangungot. This hag-like creature sits on the victim's face or chest so as to immobilize and suffocate him. When this occurs, the victim usually experiences paralysis. It's said that one should bite their tongue and wiggle their toes to try to get out of this paralysis or they may die from suffocation.

The Wikipedia article includes a helpful list of the names referring to it in different languages:

bangungot or urom - Filipino - The term originated from the Tagalog word meaning "to rise and moan in sleep". It is also the Tagalog word for nightmare.
dab tsog - Hmong
lai tai - Thai (Thai: ใหลตาย; meaning "sleep and die")
dolyeonsa - Korean
pokkuri disease - Japanese
ya thoom - Arabic
albarsty (Kyrgyz: албарсты) - Kyrgyz


I have very vivid dreams and sometimes terrifying presences visit me at night. (Things have gotten better since I started putting up protection around myself and my husband before I go to sleep at night - I mostly use pyramids of white light). So, naturally, I am interested and curious to find out more about this.

Have any Avalon members come across this "nightmare death" phenomenon?

Perhaps someone from South East Asia has some more cultural context and information about it that they could share?

I have seen the phenomena of night time "hag attacks" mentioned in a couple of different places (and in fact it is mentioned in the Wikipedia article above) but I have never looked into or investigated this.

Is this the same thing?

What do you think of this phenomenon? The spiritual aspect of it seems very real to me as an experiencer of vivid dreams and night terrors.

[greybeard]

Yes I think this is valid
As a four year old I experienced horrific dream over and over--chariots of fire dark angels fighting white angels in the sky.
I was scared to go to sleep--then eyes open or shut the vision was there the moment I turned of the light to sleep.
I had to sleep with the light on and even then they occurred.

My parents were going to get a child psychiatrist--then suddenly they stopped.

The dreams were so vivid--cant see why--I knew nothing of angels, good or evil,--I was not in a religious family.

Chris

[Unicorn]

I used to have some of these night experiences. One of them specially frightening. I put a SCAP symbol on the bedhead, and from then on I've felt only a dark presence once, but not as active. Maybe suggestion power? I don't not. But good enough if it works...

https://inforadiestesia.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/scap13.jpg

[DNA]

Oh man, this is my bread and butter.


I've never heard these instances of individuals within Pol Pot's regime being attacked and killed in their sleep, but I will bite.


For those who do not know, Pol Pot was one of the most ruthless mother@ckers who ever walked the earth. This dude was molded of the same ilk as Stalin and Hitler. Pol Pot was a vegetarian and an environmentalist, who thought his country would be much better off without a few million of his citizens, so he began committing genocide. But, he did not have the facilities of the Germans, nor the Russians so he used what he did have, labor and machetes.
Pol Pot would have people go into the field, where they would be worked to the bone, no food or water, and after the days work was over with, he would have the foremen unsheathe their machete's and begin butchering the poor folks.
This would be a horrible death, made all the more gruesome because it was as if you had to stand in line and wait your turn while you watched your family members, friends and comrads being butchered before you.
An excellent way to aquaint yourself with this is through the first hand account of Arn Chorn-Pond. Skip to 5:58
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uHeCzSM_PI
9uHeCzSM_PI



Now back to the issue at hand.
The night terror that is associated with pressure on the chest is indeed caused by a ghost or ghosts.
The maneuver is this.
While you are dreaming you leave your body and go into the astral plane, the ghost who wishes to disturb you inflicts a maneuver on you so as to steal some of your vital essence and or Chi, the maneuver is amplified when your soul returns to your body but finds it is in a state of immobility, an extreme state of terror insues and this terror is then amplified, because your soul for some reason is able to somewhat see the assailaints, and this in turn causes panic.
So how is this accomplished?
It goes like this.
Think of Benjamin Franklin discovering electricity with his kite, key and kite string.
The soul leaves the body in order to seek out the essense of God and rejuvenate itself, and while it leaves the body it is still connected by a silver strand or cord.
The soul is like a kite, flying in the sky of God and conducting God energy and transmitting that God energy back to the body via the silver strand or cord that is attached between the two.
Ghosts cannot delve into the area where God's energy provides rejuvenating energy, house rules, so some of them perform this maneuver where they act as the metal key on Benjamin Franklin's kit string, preventing the bolt of electricity from passing all the way through the string and stifling the flow of energy. Thus stealing the rejuvenating energy for themselves.
These guys are bastards, right?
Anyway now here is where it gets really interesting.
The soul goes to reintegrate itself back into the body, but the disturbing energy stealing ghost performs a maneuver that prevents the soul from completely reintegrating back into the body.
The result is paralysis, you feel as if you are in your body but you can't move.
And further more you still have your etheric vision because youf consciousness is still within your astral body versus being rooted in the physical body.
This is an important aspect to understand because under these circumstances you can now SEE the individual or individuals now doing this.
And the result is usually not very pretty.
As such you are paralyzed, you see a dark scary figure standing beside you pressing on your chest. Terror is the result. And now what you have is a person who has just been recharged via his astral visit to God energy now bleeding off that energy while being terrified and the troubling parasitic ghost just laps it up like a cat with a bowl of cream.


Now on to the details of this specific scenario.


These individuals who have committed these horrible crimes via mass murder and such may have been besieged by hundreds if not thousands of gruesomely murdered individuals who are hell bent on revenge.
It would be easy to understand how these folks may not have passed over, and it would be easy to understand these folks following their murderers and seeking revenge.


Here is the rub.
If this is the case there should be other such cases one can find throughout history.
Are there any stories of mass murderers dying in their sleep? There have been plenty through history, if this is a possible thing then it would have happened before and as such it would be mentioned somewhere in historic literature.

[shaberon]

Ah yes. I had a friend who was involved with shutting down Pol Pot, perhaps one of the few justifiable U. S. military operations.

The nightmare, incubus/succubus, by any other name seems to be known world wide. As a vampiric sort of activity, it would not seem to be in their interest to really kill anyone, but after witnessing a litter of kittens wiped out by flea anemia, I would have to say not all parasites know their limits or how to keep their hosts going.

For good sleep, you're supposed to enter a phase of paralysis. Studies on dogs and rats have been done to find that there is a "partial sleep"--more or less, if the dog's foot moves while he sleeps, he's not getting the full paralysis. His dream involves that foot, not his whole body. Same thing happens to people, this kind of sleep leaves you drained and irritable. More common, but a different problem. I've had a lot of "partial sleeps", but never a full on succubus nightmare.

So you are supposed to get fully paralyzed, but not wake up during that phase. It's not a real nightmare unless you do. Nightmare is neither merely a bad dream, nor a bad dream that wakes you up and you can think or react to it. However, a creature could probably leech on to you for quite some time before you experience it in that terrifying clarity.

[joeecho]

I see the spiritual element but also the mind-body connection. People can experience spontaneous transient arrhythmia's translating in the mind and thus the dream. Now what came first, the dream or the physical event seems like a chicken and the egg story.

I am not privy to the mechanism of dream attacks not connected to mind-body but it seems plausible.

[Cara]

Thank you everyone for all the responses - fascinating.


I used to have some of these night experiences. One of them specially frightening. I put a SCAP symbol on the bedhead, and from then on I've felt only a dark presence once, but not as active. Maybe suggestion power? I don't not. But good enough if it works...

https://inforadiestesia.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/scap13.jpg

@unicorn - do you have any more information about the SCAP symbol? I looked it up on the web but could only find one or two articles in Spanish and French which Google Translate didn't make much sense of. Do you have a link to more information on this? Thank you.

[Cara]

Thank you @DNA for your detailed post.


Oh man, this is my bread and butter.

I've never heard these instances of individuals within Pol Pot's regime being attacked and killed in their sleep, but I will bite.

For those who do not know, Pol Pot was one of the most ruthless mother@ckers who ever walked the earth.
...


I was somewhat aware of the horror of the Cambodian Pol Pot regime but had not looked into the details - simply evil.

When you say night terrors, etc. is your "bread and butter", are you saying that you deal with these as your main occupation - i.e. you have a spiritual service / help that you provide others in this field? Or are you speaking more metaphorically, in that this topic is one you're really interested in and therefore know a lot about? Or both perhaps? This is just for context - perhaps some might like to consult with you for their night terrors.




Now back to the issue at hand.
The night terror that is associated with pressure on the chest is indeed caused by a ghost or ghosts.
The maneuver is this.
While you are dreaming you leave your body and go into the astral plane, the ghost who wishes to disturb you inflicts a maneuver on you so as to steal some of your vital essence and or Chi, the maneuver is amplified when your soul returns to your body but finds it is in a state of immobility, an extreme state of terror insues and this terror is then amplified, because your soul for some reason is able to somewhat see the assailaints, and this in turn causes panic.
So how is this accomplished?
It goes like this.
Think of Benjamin Franklin discovering electricity with his kite, key and kite string.
The soul leaves the body in order to seek out the essense of God and rejuvenate itself, and while it leaves the body it is still connected by a silver strand or cord.
The soul is like a kite, flying in the sky of God and conducting God energy and transmitting that God energy back to the body via the silver strand or cord that is attached between the two.
Ghosts cannot delve into the area where God's energy provides rejuvenating energy, house rules, so some of them perform this maneuver where they act as the metal key on Benjamin Franklin's kit string, preventing the bolt of electricity from passing all the way through the string and stifling the flow of energy. Thus stealing the rejuvenating energy for themselves.
These guys are bastards, right?
Anyway now here is where it gets really interesting.
The soul goes to reintegrate itself back into the body, but the disturbing energy stealing ghost performs a maneuver that prevents the soul from completely reintegrating back into the body.
The result is paralysis, you feel as if you are in your body but you can't move.
And further more you still have your etheric vision because youf consciousness is still within your astral body versus being rooted in the physical body.
This is an important aspect to understand because under these circumstances you can now SEE the individual or individuals now doing this.
And the result is usually not very pretty.
As such you are paralyzed, you see a dark scary figure standing beside you pressing on your chest. Terror is the result. And now what you have is a person who has just been recharged via his astral visit to God energy now bleeding off that energy while being terrified and the troubling parasitic ghost just laps it up like a cat with a bowl of cream.

Thank you for the detailed outline of the mechanism of this phenomena.

I find it interesting that one can see one's "attacker" at a point in the attack.

If one knows what or who this entity is, does that allow one to address the attack / react in a life-preserving / soul-preserving way?




Now on to the details of this specific scenario.

These individuals who have committed these horrible crimes via mass murder and such may have been besieged by hundreds if not thousands of gruesomely murdered individuals who are hell bent on revenge.
It would be easy to understand how these folks may not have passed over, and it would be easy to understand these folks following their murderers and seeking revenge.

Okay - this makes a kind of sense to me in an "eye for an eye" way.

Does this logic also extend to people who are NOT mass murderers and despots, who also experience attacks of this type? If reincarnation is correct, then perhaps they are experiencing attacks from souls they harmed in another life?



Here is the rub.
If this is the case there should be other such cases one can find throughout history.
Are there any stories of mass murderers dying in their sleep? There have been plenty through history, if this is a possible thing then it would have happened before and as such it would be mentioned somewhere in historic literature.

Good question! More grist for the mill.

[Cara]

Thank you @shaberon



...

The nightmare, incubus/succubus, by any other name seems to be known world wide. As a vampiric sort of activity, it would not seem to be in their interest to really kill anyone, but after witnessing a litter of kittens wiped out by flea anemia, I would have to say not all parasites know their limits or how to keep their hosts going.

So, once again - as seems so pervasive across all aspects of our world - we have a parasite mechanism operating. This time it is energy parasitism but its all the same in the end: some entities choose to / can only live off the life forces of other entities. I wonder if this parasitic aspect is "baked into" our world or something added afterwards?



For good sleep, you're supposed to enter a phase of paralysis. Studies on dogs and rats have been done to find that there is a "partial sleep"--more or less, if the dog's foot moves while he sleeps, he's not getting the full paralysis. His dream involves that foot, not his whole body. Same thing happens to people, this kind of sleep leaves you drained and irritable. More common, but a different problem. I've had a lot of "partial sleeps", but never a full on succubus nightmare.

So you are supposed to get fully paralyzed, but not wake up during that phase. It's not a real nightmare unless you do. Nightmare is neither merely a bad dream, nor a bad dream that wakes you up and you can think or react to it. However, a creature could probably leech on to you for quite some time before you experience it in that terrifying clarity.

Interesting about the need for full paralysis to ensure a proper rest. I wonder if that is why people are so grouchy after sleeping in airplanes and such - no proper sleep paralysis is possible under that scenario.

[Cara]

In doing some more research on this topic I found an article interviewing Dr Patrick McNamara of the Boston Medical School. He studies sleep, dreams and religion from a cognitive neurological perspective and seems a little more open-minded about things than many mainstream academics.

From Bostonia, Spring 2009 issue: http://www.bu.edu/bostonia/spring09/nightmares/

//
Unholy Spirits (http://www.bu.edu/bostonia/spring09/nightmares/)
The author of a new book on nightmares talks about monsters, demons, and the fragility of the self
| From Perspectives | By Art Jahnke

http://www.bu.edu/bostonia/spring09/nightmares/nightmares.jpg
Illustration by Yuko Shimizu

Patrick McNamara knows nightmares. The neurocognitive scientist and School of Medicine associate professor of neurology and psychiatry spent ten years researching and writing about them. The result of his efforts, Nightmares: The Science and Solution of Those Frightening Visions During Sleep (https://www.amazon.com/Nightmares-Solution-Frightening-Behavior-Evolution/dp/0313345120), was published last year by Praeger. McNamara’s book covers a lot of ground, from cultural interpretations to biology to horror films inspired by our most disturbing dreams.

Bostonia editors, nervous types themselves, had a few questions for the author, who is also director of the Evolutionary Neurobehavior Laboratory at MED and the Veterans Affairs New England Healthcare System.

Bostonia: What makes a nightmare a nightmare?
McNamara: The official criteria define a nightmare as a frightening dream that occurs in REM sleep, causes the dreamer to awaken, and creates emotional distress. Many scientists who study nightmares (me among them) argue that that official criteria need revision. Many nightmares do not cause you to awaken. Another distinguishing mark of the nightmare — besides the level of terror involved — is its content. Nightmares very often involve supernatural characters that attack or target the dreamer in some way. I mean monsters, creatures, demons, spirits, unusual animals, and the like. From a cognitive point of view, one interesting aspect of the presence of the supernatural being in a nightmare is that the dreamer cannot read the mind of the supernatural being. All we can do is understand that the monster’s intentions are malevolent.

Nightmares also often involve the dreamer, or self. Interestingly, the self responds to the monster with a wide range of feeling, from terror to awe and fascination. The self escapes unscathed only if it refuses to look at or speak to or in any way engage the monster. When the self engages the monster, all kinds of ill effects ensue, including, in ancestral cultures, demonic or spirit possession.

You write about the possession theme of nightmares. Why is that particularly disturbing?
There is a danger involved in the encounter with spirit beings; you may not psychically survive the encounter. Instead, the malevolent spirit will take up residence in your consciousness and control your actions. You become possessed. It is an interesting clinical fact that, even today, most cases of involuntary spirit possession across the world occur overnight. The person wakes up possessed. Traditional cultures have developed ways to identify the demon-possessed people. They are usually self-destructive, they have chronic physical pains and physical distress, they are irreverent toward the culture’s religious rituals, they are restless, and they have recurrent nightmares.

We in modern university settings do not realize how widespread spirit possession phenomena are throughout the world and throughout history. It is a universal human experience. For people who encounter a possessed person, it is an uncanny experience. It is a terrifying experience if the possessing spirit is demonic.

http://www.bu.edu/bostonia/spring09/nightmares/nightmares2.jpg
Patrick McNamara. Photo by Vernon Doucette

What time of life are we most likely to have nightmares?
Nightmare frequency is high in childhood and in adolescence and young adulthood. Young girls tend to experience nightmares more frequently than boys.

Is there a certain type of person who is more likely than others to have nightmares?
In adults, recurrent nightmares occur in people with so-called thin boundaries. These are people who are especially sensitive to sensory impressions. Creative people, like artists, writers, musicians, and so forth, also report more nightmares than others. A different form of nightmare, heavily influenced by memory, occurs frequently in people who have experienced trauma of one kind or another.

What about recurrent nightmares? Are they really recurrent, or do we just think they are?
In about 2 percent of the adult population, nightmares occur frequently. They do not recur in the sense that the same scene is replayed night after night, but they do recur insofar as the individual experiences frequent nightmares. Post-traumatic nightmares, on the other hand, do recur with the same scene, with minor variations, being replayed over and over again.

If a person feels plagued by nightmares, is there something to do to inhibit their recurrence?
Yes. Scientists have found that various forms of cognitive restructuring of the imagery associated with a nightmare can reduce the distress associated with nightmares. In cognitive restructuring, you take a central image from the nightmare and literally redraw it, on paper or in imagination, so that it is less threatening or frightening. You can also do this with the use of stories. Take the nightmare story and retell it, with less frightening themes and a less frightening outcome.

What can we learn about ourselves from the details of our nightmares?
The traditional answer to your question is something along the following lines: our dreams and nightmares reflect unconscious conflicts and fears. So, examining images and themes of dreams and nightmares can tell us something important about our unconscious fears and conflicts. I doubt that this is true.

Instead, nightmares appear to be about the strength of the ego, or the “I,” the self. It is always the self that is under attack in a nightmare. On the surface it appears that people who suffer frequent nightmares have more fragile egos than the rest of us, but when you look deeper, these people very likely have the strongest egos, or sense of self, on the planet. Nightmare images stay with us for hours or days, haunting our awareness for days. But frequent nightmare sufferers cope with this stuff on a regular basis. They handle the frightening images on a daily basis. They are very strong individuals.

How have nightmares influenced culture: visual arts, literature, movies?
The horror story/novel/movie. The most reliably best-selling novels tend to be horror stories, like those of Stephen King. The visual artists, like painters, tend to display a profound understanding of nightmares, perhaps because they experience nightmares themselves. You might say that a whole industry has been built on the nightmare.
//

Article at: http://www.bu.edu/bostonia/spring09/nightmares/

[shaberon]

I would have to split a lot of hairs with this McNamara guy. I mean, obviously dreams only occur in REM, isn't that fairly redundant? And, he's only talking about bad dreams. Did he autopsy 17 short-circuited hearts? And what he calls possession, I might call obsession...two totally different levels. I don't dispute his findings so much as I'm saying...he only skimmed the surface.

I bet after this thread is up for a while, there will be an Avalonian who *has* experienced the full blown thing.

If one has perfected their "sleep skills", you could be done with it in a matter of minutes. Lie down, and boom! Instant full paralysis and REM state and then you're recharged. But this is beyond most of us.

Concerning the beings that may pounce on the body and siphon its energy, maybe that's just like them smoking crack. They could live without it, but it's so tempting and powerful...once they do it, they're hooked, and, having a relatively immortal lifespan and utter freedom of movement, it's no problem to feed the habit. The incubus-succubus is actually the same thing, it takes something from a man and then goes to a woman, and, like the fey folk, its appearance is mostly our own mental projection onto it. They are a natural and normal part of the world, and, as a fire may be somewhat inconvenient to us if it is in our house or on our clothes, so are they--but the fire is neither itself inherently evil, nor is it something that we cannot learn to control. Fear is certainly a state that prevents this, and I won't say it's either easy, or a laughing matter to overcome a deep seated fear, but it is possible.

Humans can only digest plants and animals, so it certainly isn't a case where we're innocent of consuming someone else's life force. We often do it on a mental/emotional basis as well. If you merely pick blueberries in a cold, selfish manner, that plant will suffer emotionally...but if you ask it nicely and respectfully, it will be glad to make an offering. The incubus-succubus lacks an equivalent of your free will to make such a choice, and all it can do is take--therefor they have to be commanded. The nature of this command is by will, by which is meant a power as deep as the motor force, which again, the average person has no real control of, so the heart is more likely to fail, than it is to repel the incubus-succubus.

[Unicorn]

Thank you everyone for all the responses - fascinating.


I used to have some of these night experiences. One of them specially frightening. I put a SCAP symbol on the bedhead, and from then on I've felt only a dark presence once, but not as active. Maybe suggestion power? I don't not. But good enough if it works...

https://inforadiestesia.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/scap13.jpg

@unicorn - do you have any more information about the SCAP symbol? I looked it up on the web but could only find one or two articles in Spanish and French which Google Translate didn't make much sense of. Do you have a link to more information on this? Thank you.


Pleased to help, Searcher :-)

This symbol was created by André Philippe, an engineer and radionics expert.

This is a symbol to neutralize harmful energies of any kind. It extends its influence in a relatively small area (room, inside of a car, etc.). In this case, size matters, and the bigger the symbol, the stronger the effect. This one I included is just right for many purposes (but even smaller is also useful). In case of a very malignant influence it could be necessary to use two symbols to cover the whole area (usually, in opposing walls).

Its effect goes through any material, so you can put it under a picture, mirror, etc. (if you prefer to hide it for any esthetic reason).

You can measure its operational range with a pendulum or with rods (if you feel curious).

Over a geopathogenic line crossing (Hartmann grid), it cancels the damaging effect.

Its emissions are simultaneously at a physical, vital and spiritual level. Automatically regulates the quantity of energy as it is necessary for the perfect equilibrium of an area, food, plant, animal or person.

You can put your photo over the graphic, at the central point. It balances acid/alkaline values in your body, as it is a colour compensator. In this case, assuming you are using the symbol over a horizontal surface, the yod letter must be facing North.

You can put also a glass of water over the graphic, and drink the water some 10 minutes later.

Over /under a TV or computer, neutralizes its negative emissions (I have one under my computer right now).

Under your bed or on the bedhead, provides for a comforting and quiet sleeping time.

Use always facing the printed side up, and with the yod letter pointing up (just as shown).

[DNA]

When you say night terrors, etc. is your "bread and butter", are you saying that you deal with these as your main occupation - i.e. you have a spiritual service / help that you provide others in this field? Or are you speaking more metaphorically, in that this topic is one you're really interested in and therefore know a lot about? Or both perhaps? This is just for context - perhaps some might like to consult with you for their night terrors.


Searcher you are the man, being a thread shepherd is a lost art.
90% of folks who post a thread here treat it like once made their job is done. Bam. Their thread was a one night stand.
This is not how it should be in my opinion.
Why open a thread if you are not interested in engaging folks and entering a dialogue on a given subject?
Anyway Searcher let me just say I appreciate your response and as such I will almost assuredly enter a thread you have started to now see what is going on.
I get you Searcher.


Okay to answer your question, I'm just a fan of all things paranormal, ufo and cryptid.
If I can answer any questions to help folks dealing with something I'm more than happy to do so, even if it is just so as they feel like someone has heard their story out.





Thank you for the detailed outline of the mechanism of this phenomena.

I find it interesting that one can see one's "attacker" at a point in the attack.

If one knows what or who this entity is, does that allow one to address the attack / react in a life-preserving / soul-preserving way?



Let me just state this. I can talk about this phenomenon from a general sense, compiling the experience of others, and I can talk about in a personal sense, having experienced this situation many many times.
Seeing the attacker doesn't always help, it probably does more harm than good.
It gives you the feeling that you are at someone's mercy, furthermore you do not always get the full view of them, and even if you did the being is often otherworldly.





Okay - this makes a kind of sense to me in an "eye for an eye" way.

Does this logic also extend to people who are NOT mass murderers and despots, who also experience attacks of this type? If reincarnation is correct, then perhaps they are experiencing attacks from souls they harmed in another life?


From what I've experienced you cannot be truly hurt by a ghost. No way no how. And certainly not killed.
That being said I'm not a mass murderer who has thousands of angry ghosts willing to do anything to me in order to end me.
Ghosts can affect you by standing next to you while you sleep, but ghosts can also follow you into the astral plane and become a conscious part of your dream that you do not control. A ghost can appear to you as a lover, a close friend and confident, as a monster or an axe wielding maniac. What would happen if one were in the astral plane and hundreds of ghosts had followed you there and manifested in the most malign way they knew was possible?
Normally I would tell you that a ghost could not harm you, not really, and that there was absolutely nothing to fear.
But,,,,
The idea of a large group of ghosts, who acted in concert with one another and coordinated some kind of astral attack leaves me scratching my head. I've got to be honest I have no idea what those effects would be.


So to answer your question about regular folks having to worry about this the answer would be no, absolutely not they would have nothing to worry about.
And to answer your second question, I don't think so.
I'm with you on reincarnation, but it is my opinion that inbetween every death and rebirth there is a cleansing and healing that takes place in the heaven worlds. One lives in heaven just as one incarnates on earth, and there is time taken out between lives for your soul to do it's own thing.
It is very unlikely to me you have anything to worry about from past wrongs except the karma incurred, and we all have that.

[frodo13]

I had a similar experience with what I think is called the old hag. I was sleeping beside my wife and was attacked by this old hag that was on top of me choking me with her bare hands. My wife woke up as this was happening and had to physically shake me because she said I sounded like I was choking.At other times i have felt and seen dark shadows/ people and became instantly terrified with sleep paralysis. Not a fun thing to have happen to you, luckily it has not for a long time

[amor]

One of the sleep hag occurrences happened to me. A sleep potion had been put into the water at my bedside unknown to me. I believe it almost gave me a heart attack because I experienced the sensation of some creature sitting on my chest. Simultaneously, I had a vision. I was on a stretcher type bed in a strange place and a pleasant looking woman, wearing glasses was leaning over me as though to help me out of some sort of distress. Somehow, I recognized her as being a close relative; but I do not know who she was. She looked somewhat like me. The experience ended and I was alive in this life still.

I wondered whether I was in fact having a dream, this life, while existing in another location to the one I think I am in now. The idea occurred to me that we could all be on a life long, boring space journey; and the only way to endure it and keep our brains alive was to experience alternate realities in the form of realistic dreams.

[shaberon]

I do not think the incubus-succubus is a ghost. A ghost is more like a fading ember that can start to glow again if the wind blows right. As DNA said they are mostly harmless, give or take you possibly being afraid of them.

The folks reporting hag experiences certainly give me the impression that there is weight and a fairly solid force involved.

If you have a "true" enough sensation in the astral plane, regardless of the source, it can definitely injure you physically, causing cuts, slashes, bruises, etc., leading up to actually choking or a heart problem. But if the source is a hag, an incubus-succubus, you aren't in any kind of position to say hey, maybe this isn't real, ghosts are harmless, there's no such thing as a ghost, or anything like that, because it never was human.

Also, one can encounter ghosts while awake, but I am not aware of the night hag doing anything other than waking one from sleep (assumption is they have been visiting a few times before striking hard). I'd guess after they attack, they simply move to the next time zone to the next victim, and just keep travelling the world mostly on the night side repeating the procedure, as such a thing does not, itself, sleep, or die. Ghosts are mortal (if relatively long-lived), and if they think they need to sleep, they will; a hag probably cannot think as we understand the term, but it must have some form of consciousness, maybe like a tick.

Ticks respond primarily to sweat. One study kept a tick on a stick for seventeen years until it was so dried out and flat it just looked like a chip of the stick, and as soon as it was exposed to a drop of sweat, it jumped.

[AutumnW]

Oh man, this is my bread and butter.


I've never heard these instances of individuals within Pol Pot's regime being attacked and killed in their sleep, but I will bite.


For those who do not know, Pol Pot was one of the most ruthless mother@ckers who ever walked the earth. This dude was molded of the same ilk as Stalin and Hitler. Pol Pot was a vegetarian and an environmentalist, who thought his country would be much better off without a few million of his citizens, so he began committing genocide. But, he did not have the facilities of the Germans, nor the Russians so he used what he did have, labor and machetes.
Pol Pot would have people go into the field, where they would be worked to the bone, no food or water, and after the days work was over with, he would have the foremen unsheathe their machete's and begin butchering the poor folks.
This would be a horrible death, made all the more gruesome because it was as if you had to stand in line and wait your turn while you watched your family members, friends and comrads being butchered before you.
An excellent way to aquaint yourself with this is through the first hand account of Arn Chorn-Pond. Skip to 5:58
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uHeCzSM_PI
9uHeCzSM_PI



Now back to the issue at hand.
The night terror that is associated with pressure on the chest is indeed caused by a ghost or ghosts.
The maneuver is this.
While you are dreaming you leave your body and go into the astral plane, the ghost who wishes to disturb you inflicts a maneuver on you so as to steal some of your vital essence and or Chi, the maneuver is amplified when your soul returns to your body but finds it is in a state of immobility, an extreme state of terror insues and this terror is then amplified, because your soul for some reason is able to somewhat see the assailaints, and this in turn causes panic.
So how is this accomplished?
It goes like this.
Think of Benjamin Franklin discovering electricity with his kite, key and kite string.
The soul leaves the body in order to seek out the essense of God and rejuvenate itself, and while it leaves the body it is still connected by a silver strand or cord.
The soul is like a kite, flying in the sky of God and conducting God energy and transmitting that God energy back to the body via the silver strand or cord that is attached between the two.
Ghosts cannot delve into the area where God's energy provides rejuvenating energy, house rules, so some of them perform this maneuver where they act as the metal key on Benjamin Franklin's kit string, preventing the bolt of electricity from passing all the way through the string and stifling the flow of energy. Thus stealing the rejuvenating energy for themselves.
These guys are bastards, right?
Anyway now here is where it gets really interesting.
The soul goes to reintegrate itself back into the body, but the disturbing energy stealing ghost performs a maneuver that prevents the soul from completely reintegrating back into the body.
The result is paralysis, you feel as if you are in your body but you can't move.
And further more you still have your etheric vision because youf consciousness is still within your astral body versus being rooted in the physical body.
This is an important aspect to understand because under these circumstances you can now SEE the individual or individuals now doing this.
And the result is usually not very pretty.
As such you are paralyzed, you see a dark scary figure standing beside you pressing on your chest. Terror is the result. And now what you have is a person who has just been recharged via his astral visit to God energy now bleeding off that energy while being terrified and the troubling parasitic ghost just laps it up like a cat with a bowl of cream.


Now on to the details of this specific scenario.


These individuals who have committed these horrible crimes via mass murder and such may have been besieged by hundreds if not thousands of gruesomely murdered individuals who are hell bent on revenge.
It would be easy to understand how these folks may not have passed over, and it would be easy to understand these folks following their murderers and seeking revenge.


Here is the rub.
If this is the case there should be other such cases one can find throughout history.
Are there any stories of mass murderers dying in their sleep? There have been plenty through history, if this is a possible thing then it would have happened before and as such it would be mentioned somewhere in historic literature.

Interesting. I read about this many years ago, was aware of the deaths. I would be careful about assigning culpability to those who died from apparent night terrors though. There is no way of knowing whether thousands of ghosts of those they killed, came back from the grave for revenge. It seems unlikely.

Ruthless killers, with little remorse and hardened boundaries and reality filters are probably less prone to being scared to death.

[Cara]

Thank you @unicorn for this information. I am most intrigued and am going to try using this symbol around my home... thank you for the gift of this knowledge.


Pleased to help, Searcher :-)

This symbol was created by André Philippe, an engineer and radionics expert.

This is a symbol to neutralize harmful energies of any kind. It extends its influence in a relatively small area (room, inside of a car, etc.). In this case, size matters, and the bigger the symbol, the stronger the effect. This one I included is just right for many purposes (but even smaller is also useful). In case of a very malignant influence it could be necessary to use two symbols to cover the whole area (usually, in opposing walls).

Its effect goes through any material, so you can put it under a picture, mirror, etc. (if you prefer to hide it for any esthetic reason).

You can measure its operational range with a pendulum or with rods (if you feel curious).

Over a geopathogenic line crossing (Hartmann grid), it cancels the damaging effect.

Its emissions are simultaneously at a physical, vital and spiritual level. Automatically regulates the quantity of energy as it is necessary for the perfect equilibrium of an area, food, plant, animal or person.

You can put your photo over the graphic, at the central point. It balances acid/alkaline values in your body, as it is a colour compensator. In this case, assuming you are using the symbol over a horizontal surface, the yod letter must be facing North.

You can put also a glass of water over the graphic, and drink the water some 10 minutes later.

Over /under a TV or computer, neutralizes its negative emissions (I have one under my computer right now).

Under your bed or on the bedhead, provides for a comforting and quiet sleeping time.

Use always facing the printed side up, and with the yod letter pointing up (just as shown).

[Cara]

Searcher you are the man, being a thread shepherd is a lost art.
90% of folks who post a thread here treat it like once made their job is done. Bam. Their thread was a one night stand.
This is not how it should be in my opinion.
Why open a thread if you are not interested in engaging folks and entering a dialogue on a given subject?
Anyway Searcher let me just say I appreciate your response and as such I will almost assuredly enter a thread you have started to now see what is going on.
I get you Searcher.


Well, thank you @DNA, I appreciate being appreciated. Thank you for the acknowledgement!



Okay to answer your question, I'm just a fan of all things paranormal, ufo and cryptid.
If I can answer any questions to help folks dealing with something I'm more than happy to do so, even if it is just so as they feel like someone has heard their story out.


Great - I have had some terrifying nightmares and would value some help in softening their effects. Here is one:

In Johannesburg, there is a jumping cricket, grasshopper, locust type creature called a Parktown Prawn. Really ugly... from Wikipedia:

"Parktown prawn" is a common name for Libanasidus vittatus, a species of king cricket endemic to Southern Africa.
https://sixlegsphoto.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/libanasidus1.jpg?w=564&h=376

They are the subject of many urban legends and stories about their abilty to survive just about most forms of death - insect sprays, being flushed down the toilet, etc. A true Lazarus of the insect world. In fact, the film District 9 (http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/district9/), made by a South African director, probably got its inspiration for the alien invaders from these bugs.

Anyway, every now and then, I have these terrifying nightmares where these parktown prawns are in my personal space. They always seem close to my neck and shoulders, just behind me and in my peripheral sight.... there is a malevolent incomprehensibility to them, they are busy, twitching and moving - horrible! I am paralysed and terrified. I often wake my husband up while having this extremely terrifying experience.

I have had this off and on ever since my childhood and even now where I live in Dubai. It's like I am haunted by it. Any ideas?




I find it interesting that one can see one's "attacker" at a point in the attack.

If one knows what or who this entity is, does that allow one to address the attack / react in a life-preserving / soul-preserving way?


...
Seeing the attacker doesn't always help, it probably does more harm than good.
It gives you the feeling that you are at someone's mercy, furthermore you do not always get the full view of them, and even if you did the being is often otherworldly.



I most definitely can relate to this feeling. In all of my night terrors, I can see or peripherally see the attacker and it makes it worse: I always feel like a "deer caught in the headlights", pinned by the gaze and intent of the attacker. Looking at them I always get a sense of relentless intent.





Does this logic also extend to people who are NOT mass murderers and despots, who also experience attacks of this type? If reincarnation is correct, then perhaps they are experiencing attacks from souls they harmed in another life?

From what I've experienced you cannot be truly hurt by a ghost. No way no how. And certainly not killed.


I've seen ghosts, or "people without bodies" as I call them, a few times and I would agree they do not seem threatening in general. To me there has always been a surprise and a little shock involved but the last time I saw a ghost, I just woke up, said to my husband "there's someone in the room" and went back to sleep. Poor guy - he then was awake and had to spend the next little while, all alone in the middle of the night, thinking about it!



Ghosts can affect you by standing next to you while you sleep, but ghosts can also follow you into the astral plane and become a conscious part of your dream that you do not control. A ghost can appear to you as a lover, a close friend and confident, as a monster or an axe wielding maniac.

That is interesting - I have recently had a couple of half awake, half asleep kind of dreams / visions where I am interacting with Neptune (yes - the sea god). His presence seems kind of caring but mildly amused in a way.


What would happen if one were in the astral plane and hundreds of ghosts had followed you there and manifested in the most malign way they knew was possible?
Normally I would tell you that a ghost could not harm you, not really, and that there was absolutely nothing to fear.
But,,,,
The idea of a large group of ghosts, who acted in concert with one another and coordinated some kind of astral attack leaves me scratching my head. I've got to be honest I have no idea what those effects would be.


I see @shaberon has posted some commentary on this. I'll comment there.


I'm with you on reincarnation, but it is my opinion that in between every death and rebirth there is a cleansing and healing that takes place in the heaven worlds. One lives in heaven just as one incarnates on earth, and there is time taken out between lives for your soul to do it's own thing.
It is very unlikely to me you have anything to worry about from past wrongs except the karma incurred, and we all have that.

Okay, so I think you're saying that the karma you carry from life to life does not necessarily manifest in night terrors and attacks from wronged beings / souls. Is that correct?

I have not looked into the details of different models of reincarnation but my current view is that I see no real limit to the time frame or mechanism through which a being or soul might specifically target one in some way... However, this is just speculation on my part.

[Cara]

I had a similar experience with what I think is called the old hag. I was sleeping beside my wife and was attacked by this old hag that was on top of me choking me with her bare hands. My wife woke up as this was happening and had to physically shake me because she said I sounded like I was choking.At other times i have felt and seen dark shadows/ people and became instantly terrified with sleep paralysis. Not a fun thing to have happen to you, luckily it has not for a long time

Thank you @frodo13 for sharing your experience - it sounds terrible and must have been awful for your wife as well. As far as I have read, this sounds like the "classic" hag attack.

Here is a disturbing artist's visualisation of one. Was your experience anything like this?
http://www.aswangproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/10599339_732501793483345_7830058803597964800_n.jpg



I am interested that you have not experienced these dark shadows/people for a while. Do you know what you did or what changed in your life that might have caused them to stop?

[Cara]

One of the sleep hag occurrences happened to me. A sleep potion had been put into the water at my bedside unknown to me. I believe it almost gave me a heart attack because I experienced the sensation of some creature sitting on my chest. Simultaneously, I had a vision. I was on a stretcher type bed in a strange place and a pleasant looking woman, wearing glasses was leaning over me as though to help me out of some sort of distress. Somehow, I recognized her as being a close relative; but I do not know who she was. She looked somewhat like me. The experience ended and I was alive in this life still.

Thank you for sharing this @amor.

It's interesting that you had this alternate vision even while you were being attacked. It sounds like this woman who was looking over you was helping you in some way during the attack - is this your interpretation as well?


I wondered whether I was in fact having a dream, this life, while existing in another location to the one I think I am in now. The idea occurred to me that we could all be on a life long, boring space journey; and the only way to endure it and keep our brains alive was to experience alternate realities in the form of realistic dreams.

Wow! Layers and layers of reality and experience all nested together. This speculation would certainly sync with some of the "we are in a virtual reality simulation" ideas that are floating around right now (proposed by Elon Musk and others).

When you had this idea did you feel an immediate "rightness" to this, i.e. in some sense it was true? Or was it more idle speculation on your part?

Sometimes I'll get an idea or thought that I sense is true - usually a kind of flash of realisation explaining something - even though I have no real "scientific or logical" way of saying it is true.

[Cara]

Yes I think this is valid
As a four year old I experienced horrific dream over and over--chariots of fire dark angels fighting white angels in the sky.
I was scared to go to sleep--then eyes open or shut the vision was there the moment I turned of the light to sleep.
I had to sleep with the light on and even then they occurred.

My parents were going to get a child psychiatrist--then suddenly they stopped.

The dreams were so vivid--cant see why--I knew nothing of angels, good or evil,--I was not in a religious family.

Chris

Thank you @Chris for sharing this. I also had times in my childhood (and even sometimes now as an adult) where I need the light on to chase away the shadows at night.

Do you think it was the "threat" of a psychiatrist that stopped the dreams? Or do you see the potential psychiatrist visit more as a "promise"?

In general, I am mostly ambivalent to sceptical about psychiatrists due to my disagreement with the drugging of society and some members of the profession being complicit in the nefarious programmes of the intelligence services. But most psychiatrists are probably well intentioned and wanting to help people.

[Cara]

I would have to split a lot of hairs with this McNamara guy. I mean, obviously dreams only occur in REM, isn't that fairly redundant? And, he's only talking about bad dreams. Did he autopsy 17 short-circuited hearts? And what he calls possession, I might call obsession...two totally different levels. I don't dispute his findings so much as I'm saying...he only skimmed the surface.


Yes, I think he is definitely mainstream and I have not read the book or his scientific paper so I don't know if his research goes any deeper that indicated in the article (for reference, both @shaberon and I are referring to the Dr McNamara in the article posted here (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?95039-Night-terrors-nightmares-night-time-attacks-sudden-death-while-sleeping...&p=1121701&viewfull=1#post1121701)).


I bet after this thread is up for a while, there will be an Avalonian who *has* experienced the full blown thing.
Do you think we are creating a "field of attraction" or "intentional well" by our focus on it here?



Concerning the beings that may pounce on the body and siphon its energy, maybe that's just like them smoking crack. They could live without it, but it's so tempting and powerful...once they do it, they're hooked, and, having a relatively immortal lifespan and utter freedom of movement, it's no problem to feed the habit. The incubus-succubus is actually the same thing, it takes something from a man and then goes to a woman, and, like the fey folk, its appearance is mostly our own mental projection onto it. They are a natural and normal part of the world, and, as a fire may be somewhat inconvenient to us if it is in our house or on our clothes, so are they--but the fire is neither itself inherently evil, nor is it something that we cannot learn to control. Fear is certainly a state that prevents this, and I won't say it's either easy, or a laughing matter to overcome a deep seated fear, but it is possible.


Okay - I did not realise that the incubus-succubus was a single entity that merely shaped itself according to whether it was interacting with a man or a woman.

Yes, I do think that these beings exist in and of themselves and that they are neither good or bad. Probably most people have a tendency to judge anything that does not further their immediate survival or pleasure as bad or evil but it may just be another link in a complex web of interacting elements, beings and lifeforms. For me, it seems a difficult balance to strike being "for humanity" but also being wise about "the greater system".


Humans can only digest plants and animals, so it certainly isn't a case where we're innocent of consuming someone else's life force. We often do it on a mental/emotional basis as well. If you merely pick blueberries in a cold, selfish manner, that plant will suffer emotionally...but if you ask it nicely and respectfully, it will be glad to make an offering. The incubus-succubus lacks an equivalent of your free will to make such a choice, and all it can do is take--therefore they have to be commanded. The nature of this command is by will, by which is meant a power as deep as the motor force, which again, the average person has no real control of, so the heart is more likely to fail, than it is to repel the incubus-succubus.

Gift versus demand from others.

This seems at the core of the difference between many traditional "hunter gather" type societies (Khoi-San, Australian Aborigines, Amazonian jungle tribes, etc.) and a more modern Western civilization. And it seems to depend on whether the culture and people grant "beingness" and acknowledge value widely or narrowly.

So if we take the "gift" orientation... then the night terror figures are more than just tormentors but are rather beings in their own right, with a value that we do not yet (and may never) understand.

[Cara]

Interesting. I read about this many years ago, was aware of the deaths. I would be careful about assigning culpability to those who died from apparent night terrors though. There is no way of knowing whether thousands of ghosts of those they killed, came back from the grave for revenge. It seems unlikely.


Good point @AutumnW - we cannot know what these people did or did not do and making assumptions may lead to a wrong judgement or conclusion.


Ruthless killers, with little remorse and hardened boundaries and reality filters are probably less prone to being scared to death.

Yes, perhaps you are right. Their context and choices led them to what seems to be a different set of morals and ethics that might mean that they do not feel remorse or any sense of fear from those they have affected in life.

They may have a totally different experience and interpretation of what they have done, with it's own internal consistency, even if we disagree and view it as bad/evil in some way.

[Cara]

To everyone who has posted on the thread - thank you. I hope I have answered most posts to date.

Please forgive me if I have skipped yours - it's not intentional neglect... sometimes I don't have anything to say :)

[Bruno]

Hi Searcher, I have been following this thread with interest. If I may share my own confusing experience.

I have had "sleep paralysis" on and off my whole life. My Father and my paternal Grandmother suffered from it as well. I have gone back and forth on its cause, from supernatural to alien to chemical. I still can't say with any certainty what the hell is happening because although each episode involves paralysis and the intense weight and pressure, each episode is also different in what if any of my "senses" appear to be activated.

As a child they happened most often when I was falling asleep. As an adult most often upon waking, after a "regular" night's sleep.

Most common was the paralyzing fear of being awake inside my unmovable body, feeling pressure on my entire body, most intense being on my chest. This was accompanied by the feeling of an evil or unwanted presence. I want to add that this didn't always happen when sleeping on my back as so many people claim is the case.

Next most common for me was the addition of auditory sounds, which included scratching, scampering sounds around the room, like an animal might make. Also the sound of clicking, voices and humming that seemed like it was coming through a long echoing hall or chamber. In my mind I always thought it sounded like being inside a submarine. I have never been in a submarine, so I have no idea why I thought that.

Sometimes the sound is accompanied by smell, fairly unpleasant smell, like wet dog and sweaty teenager. ha

Rarely, only a handful of times I could see. These were like out of body experiences. I could see my body from above and my bedroom. I could see shadowy things moving about. When I could "see" I also felt the shadowy creatures were talking to me, but it was telepathic. They would use my name and were familiar with me. They would say things like "Don't you want be "Jane Smith" ?" (not my name) They would infer that I had agreed to what was happening and chastise me about choices I was making in my waking life. This was done in a way that made me feel chosen or destined to do something of importance. As a child I believed this wholeheartedly. As an adult, not so much.

I will end by saying that I do not have this happen as frequently in my 40's and when it happens I usually can't hear, smell or see anything, I just feel paralyzed with the creepy pressure. I have speculated that this is because I take antidepressants, but maybe it is simply my age?

I am always wanting to hear hear others experiences of this nature and any insights people may have.

[DNA]

Great - I have had some terrifying nightmares and would value some help in softening their effects. Here is one:

In Johannesburg, there is a jumping cricket, grasshopper, locust type creature called a Parktown Prawn. Really ugly... from Wikipedia:

"Parktown prawn" is a common name for Libanasidus vittatus, a species of king cricket endemic to Southern Africa.https://sixlegsphoto.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/libanasidus1.jpg?w=564&h=376

They are the subject of many urban legends and stories about their abilty to survive just about most forms of death - insect sprays, being flushed down the toilet, etc. A true Lazarus of the insect world. In fact, the film District 9 (http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/district9/), made by a South African director, probably got its inspiration for the alien invaders from these bugs.

Anyway, every now and then, I have these terrifying nightmares where these parktown prawns are in my personal space. They always seem close to my neck and shoulders, just behind me and in my peripheral sight.... there is a malevolent incomprehensibility to them, they are busy, twitching and moving - horrible! I am paralysed and terrified. I often wake my husband up while having this extremely terrifying experience.

I have had this off and on ever since my childhood and even now where I live in Dubai. It's like I am haunted by it. Any ideas?


I'm convinced there are nature spirits, these spirits take many forms, and I've had them enter my dreams as well.
Contrary to what one might think, nature spirits as a rule do not like us very much.
Their go to move is to treat us with hostility, and often times if you experience an uncomfortable sensation while in a nature setting, it is due to these creatures wishing you ill intent and voicing this intent and on some level our hearing this.


About seven years ago I got a job at a facility that was recently built in the virgin desert. This facility literally broke ground in an area filled with giant Toads, javaline, coyotes, mountain lions, badgers, bobcats and rattlesnakes.
It was the apocalypse for most of these creatures.
Anyway, I was working two jobs at the time, and this place had a very temperate underground parking garage where I would take naps in my car before going to my second job.
Almost every single time I napped here I would have night terrors.
And these terrors always seemed to be insticated by nature spirits from the area, nature spirits that seemed to be dying a slow and hungry death due to the destruction of their habitat.
The night terror seemed to be providing the dual function of torturing a efn human, and feeding on their life force.


Also, I should mention that there are non-organic parasites in the fourth dimension which can make attachments to our human energy fields. Your situation reminds me of an Alex Grey painting.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/c3/c2/5d/c3c25d6ea55e1033f3c6bddfee1c6e00.jpg

[AutumnW]

DNA,

Thanks for your contributions to this thread. I have found your thoughts intriguing!

[AutumnW]

The 'prawn' in the movie, 'District Nine,' played havoc with my diet for months. Could not look a jumbo shrimp in the 'face' or whatever you call that part of them. I'm over it now. I wonder how many other people went on a crustacean fast after that movie?

DNA, I saw a documentary on elves and fairies, or nature spirits a while back, and learned that yes, indeed, as you say, they don't like people much. Elves and fairies were always regarded with a mix of curiosity and dread, until the Victorian age when they somehow became innocent and cute, according to this documentary. And yes, I believe they are quite real. I had some in my bedroom once. There was a great flurry of activity. I could see the air was in motion. There were bumps and clangs and it seemed there was an only semi visible etheric tumbling team beside my bed. It was very weird. A lot of strange things happened to me after reading Whitley Streiber's Communion!

[shaberon]

I bet after this thread is up for a while, there will be an Avalonian who *has* experienced the full blown thing.
Do you think we are creating a "field of attraction" or "intentional well" by our focus on it here?


No.

You could probably summon a hag, although I've never heard of it being done on purpose.

Agree that nature spirits don't quite "like" us either, although it's kind of in the same way your skin doesn't "like" sulfuric acid. First thing I did when I moved here was to make an offering to the little people (and they took it). It's kind of a matter of treatment--but also a miles-wide difference between spoiling and discipline.

When we spoil something, we give it a quick and dependent form of happiness, which in the long run isn't very good for it. With discipline, it's more of a rocky start, but things fall in line eventually. Only a person of purified will is qualified to discipline the elementals. Anybody can toss them a cake for Halloween, New Year's, etc; same for the ghosts.

The ghosts are almost all dead (have no soul) barring rare exceptions. Relatively young victims of sudden death (suicide, accident, violence); the few who have such a strong and pure love for a particular person; or magic (Nirmanakayas). The first group lives in their ghost for relatively equal to the remainder of their potential earth life, the second a bit longer, and the last for a long time.

If the ghost does not disintegrate, its strongest attraction will be to: the next life of its original owner.

There is probably a form of sorcery that could bind a thousand ghosts and sic them on a target, but I would think it unlikely that, on their own, these would make a plot against their murderers. Sometimes there are angry or vengeful ghosts, but for the most part, it's just due to the fact that memory is part of the package of an astral corpse.

The hag or incubus-succubus, as a nightmare, is given candy or drugs by its victim. Their actual role or real purpose is hard to fathom, but if they acted right, they would eventually become a physical elemental/nature spirit. So it's a lose-lose situation; nobody enjoys their visits, and it feeds a habit that makes them flunk school (so to speak). So far, I can't tell what makes them select any particular person. And the best inference is that either they are few in number (since few people experience the real thing), or that maybe there are a gazillion of them on "their right path" and humans experience the few who strayed.

[vanEyck]

Hello everyone!

I'm new to this lovely community, I joined last week and this is the first thread I open :bigsmile:

I'm not sure where this topic should be placed, so I opened in the most "general" section I could find. Sorry if I did it wrong.

I would like to comment on something that has happened to me several times in the last years. I think it has a simple and mundane explanation because it fits well in the clinical definition of night terrors, but I thought it would be interesting to post it here and see if there is anyone else who also had a similar experience and/or has an alternative theory to explain it.

I've had nights when I would suddenly wake up (my subjective perception is that I hadn't been sleeping for too long, maybe...one or two hours) in a strong feeling of paralyzing panic. Unlike most episodes of night terror, when I experience this I'm completely awake and conscious, and perfectly remember it the morning after.
Also unlike most of these episodes, I don't feel "pure" terror devoid of all meaning; I actually have a perfectly clear idea of what is causing such panic. When I have these experiences I feel like I'm out of place, somewhere I shouldn't be, and as a result of that, "something" is terribly wrong and horrible things can happen.

To have a better idea of how it is, imagine you go for a walk in the forest, venture into it too much and after several hours you realize you have no idea how to go back home and you got too far from it as well. Now take that feeling and amplify it thousands of times, like instead of getting lost somewhere 40 kilometers (sorry I'm European :bigsmile:) away from home, you were stranded in another planet. That's exactly how I feel!

[sheme]

Any history of sleep apnea?

[vanEyck]

Hi sheme!

No, no history of sleep apnea. Anyway I think that condition would not cause these symptoms.

[Daughter of Time]

Hello vanEyck and welcome to Avalon.

I have had night terrors on and off throughout my life, but my history is very complex, which i won't get into here.

From the way you describe your experiences, I would venture to say that these are astral travel occurrences. We all astral travel in our sleep but most do not remember where they go nor what happens.

Before going to sleep, let your conscious mind communicate with your consciousness and express, in your own words, that you wish to travel only to places that will be pleasing to you. This may or may not work. It is worth a try. It will help.

Sometimes consciousness feels the need to explore strange and far away places which the incarnated being is not prepared to do.

Also, try to remember if these journeys teach you anything at all, other than fear. There may be something there for you to learn.

Protect yourself by stating that you are a sovereign being and nothing evil can touch you. Some meditations help with this.

Hope it gets better for you and you find some understanding on the whole issue.

Best wishes,

Daughter of Time

[DNA]

I just ran into this on youtube, it's pretty good and fits this thread. I'm listening to it now, I'll edit the thread with more information once I've completed the video but it absolutely is within the confines of the OP's subject.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyaHgawWgNM
cyaHgawWgNM

[DNA]

There is a thread that is currently quite active and is relatively new covering this topic here. Night terrors, nightmares, night time attacks, sudden death while sleeping... (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?95039-Night-terrors-nightmares-night-time-attacks-sudden-death-while-sleeping...)






Mod note from Bill: Thanks, yes — two threads merged. :thumbsup:

[Libico]

Searcher, thank you for starting this very interesting thread. The synchronicity of this is not lost on me, as I actually meditated on this precise question as it related to me personally not 3 days ago. I don't believe my stumbling upon this thread is by chance, so I will share my own personal experiences.

I've shared this in bits and pieces on other threads but I have been plagued by a specific kind of night terror since my early childhood. My father took me to see Ghostbusters the movie when I was 4-5 and seeing the monster dogs scared the bejesus out of me. From what I can remember there was a period of 2 months or so following that where every night I'd have a nightmare involving Zuul chasing me, trying to either bite or impale by back with horns.

I've had recurring night terrors all my life involving this "Zuul" entity, in a few different manifestations:




By far, the most common is becoming aware of the presence while I am in between a waking or sleeping state, where my dream location is a near mirror image of the location of my physical body. I would consider this the closest thing I've experienced to sleep-paralysis. In these circumstances I don't see a physical manifestation of the entity but I feel sharp pains in my back that makes my body spasm as the intensity grows. I've tried many different methods of trying to stop the experience. Most times I get angry/annoyed, a few times I've tried to open a dialog, others tried to project love and kindness, never to any real avail. The only way these attacks stop is by me waking myself up. I do recall one incident a few years ago where I was thoroughly annoyed and directly challenged it to do its worst, with the pain (after what seemed a long while) eventually became so intense I had to wake myself up.
While dreaming throughout the years I would say 95% of the times when I would gain some kind of lucidity, before I could even marvel at the amazement of being in control on my dream the first though I'd have would be "what about Zuul"?. The script would follow with me doing a double take behind me and on the second look I would see the physical form charging at me from far away. This would scare me naturally, and I would jump up high in the air while it passed below me and I'd wake myself up. In these moments, most times even as an adult I would be just as scared as when I was 5. On rare occasions I would overcome the fear and either dismiss or sometimes befriend it.

I can vouch that seeing the physical form was much scarier than feeling/sensing the non-physical presence - I can still recall specific dreams where I escaped and the physical form roared with such anger and pain that I literally woke up with my heart pounding in my chest with fear.

I do have spontaneous out of body experiences on average of once a month, but a few years ago I purchased an orgonite pyramid and pendant and decided to sleep with it (pyramid under me, pendant on me). On the second and third night I had an interesting experience. The third night's experience is less relevant, but the initial experience had me lying in my bed in a paralyzed state hearing voices talking inaudibly around me. After a short while I made out a single voice saying something to the effect "Please stop what you are doing at once". I tried to converse but after getting no response didn't leave and felt immense pain/pressure on my back - the same spot I am always attacked. It wasn't exactly the same kind of pain, but it was on the same spot.

[frodo13]

The old hag i saw was just that, a old skinny hag that floated above me and choked me with her bare hands.I have had other times in my life before and after the old hag indecent where it feels like a body laying on me and in some cases trying get me aroused sexually.That is unnerving in it self. There is no pattern to this and has not happen for a few years.

[shaberon]

"Hypnogogic" is the term I've acquired for not-fast-asleep-but-hardly-awake state. This is indeed a pretty sensitive moment.

Never felt paralyzed or afraid then.

I've had a *lot* of those quick astral movements where you slam back into your body and wake up, never felt those symptoms then either. Most people, when they feel that pull, like falling from a great height, wake up before they "hit", and a lot of things have said if you experience the "hit" you'll have a heart attack or something. Not so. I've "hit" many times and it's business as usual.

For this reason, I would say that if you have terror/paralysis/sense a being, it's something a little more than one's own astral activity taking place. "Shadow people" as mentioned in the video's title are not quite the same either, I've found boat loads of those guys and still no night hag.

Assuredly there are thousands of variations on night terror/sleep attacks, but the classic hag as frodo13 reports seems to be a specific type of being throughout all time, anywhere.

[vanEyck]

Hi Daughter of Time!

Thanks for your post. Your point was an interesting one, never considered it could be something to do with astral travel. I don't have much time now, but I'll come back another day and explain another theory I have, which has to do with reincarnation and accessing to memories from previous lives while asleep.

Merry Christmas!

vanEyck

[halcyon026]

I hope this fits with the intent of this thread.

I use to have reoccurring nightmares when I was a pre-teen. However, I was able to get them to stop, not that I knew how to but I started to lucid dream & after getting really good at it, all dreaming stopped.

I would practice flying anytime I was lucid dreaming and at first I'd fall a lot and wake up, this annoyed me so I decided I'd train myself to not wake up when I die in dreams, which I was able to do. I could fall 40k feet, hit the ground and get right up and fly away. I could get stabbed, shot, you name it and not wake up.

Once my lucid dreaming skills got to this point of not waking up when I die, manifesting any object(s) I wanted, being able to instantly change the entire environment, or simply teleporting away, my nightmares turned into really fun dreams. It was around this time that I stopped being afraid of any nightmare, that I simply stopped having them. Decades later I still almost never remember dreaming.

I can remember looking forward to the idea of having a nightmare because it was like playing the best Virtual Reality game around, huge demons would come after me and I was fearless, I had total control of that reality.

I'm still really interested in understanding why I was able to get really good at lucid dreaming only to have dreaming suddenly stop...

[shaberon]

I'm still really interested in understanding why I was able to get really good at lucid dreaming only to have dreaming suddenly stop...

Your experience is a pretty close parallel of mine.

I can't call it a "nightmare", but one of the recurring bad dreams that would wake me up, was a tidal wave. When I was young, they would be gargantuan--100 feet high or even taller. At first, the very sight of the thing would make me "faint" in the dream, which was to wake up. Through the years, they would eventually start to crash, which would wake me up. Later, I made it to the flooding after the crash before awakening. Eventually, the last one was just standing at the shore and, as it approached, I didn't worry and it diminished to a puny two foot wave that just got my feet wet.

After that, I have never dreamed about waves. But then also reached the point where during regular sleep, I never dreamed at all. The only thing that changes that is to shatter the circadian rhythm. Stay up way too long and sleep at irregular times. The other day I did this and slept in six or seven hour long chunks, each one filled with dreams, wake up long enough to remember them and then *poof*, out again.

I went to a "flight school" as well, which was the most amazing thing. I developed what you could call complete "mechanical" control of the motions, although, mentally, had no idea where I was going. I do miss that, and yes, it's much harder to get back to, after many years of a general lack of dreams.

Glad to hear someone else took "the big fall", went smash! ...and it didn't matter. I think it is similar to being able to get in control of reflexes. Easier said than done, but, once you do it...it's easy.

I don't know, but perhaps yours is related to the fact that you were excited it was a fun game. If, instead of "virtual reality"--it IS reality--you might find one of the hags, etc. that plague other people--and bind it where it belongs.

Which, I shouldn't be too adamant that the hags are all elementals, possibly they are undead as well, or even--an undead possessed by an elemental.

[Kalamos]

I've had four experiences in the past two months, of being awakened by a "felt presence" in my bedroom.

The first one was mild. I have trouble sleeping, especially if I try and go to bed early for the night. I get into a light, dreamy sleep and wake up for a few seconds every hour to turn over onto my other side.

Anyway a couple months ago I was dreaming, can't remember what about, when I felt more than half awake but eyes closed, and the distinct feeling of someone moving their hands up my back. Lasted for couple seconds then I jolted awake. It actually felt nice, like caressing. When I felt fully awake, I could see my room, but really fuzzy, and I saw what I thought was a being standing a couple of feet away. It's hard to describe it. Small and wearing a baseball cap covering its head and face. I was coming out of paralysis at that moment, and playfully pointed my fingers at it like a gun and said, "I got you". It then moved to wall and disappeared. I heard the dogs barking so I went out to calm them down, and heard a chime sound from the kitchen. One of my roommates was up cause of the dogs and I asked if he heard that chiming sound. He did not.

I'm no stranger to sleep paralysis and false awakenings, but when it comes to things touching me, it freaks me out.

The next time wasn't so mild. Maybe a few weeks after. Same sleeping conditions, half awake when suddenly it felt like some one was digging their knuckle into the middle of my back. It got harder, up to slightly painful over three seconds or so. When I woke up I had the fuzzy vision again and I saw floating and spinning some dark, round, object in the middle of the room. Lights were still off so it basically grey. But it moved with me eyes, so I thought it was just something in my eyes, like a floater.

Now last night I was dreaming, and in the dream I was getting romantic with dream character, nobody I know. It was just some quick kissing, then I felt myself in bed and something crawling over the top of my back, applying pressure as it climbed. It felt heavy like 40 pounds of weight. After a second I jolted awake and turned the lights on. No fuzzy vision this time. But, I picked up my phone and started to search about night terrors, and just then I hear a loud thump on my wall! THAT FREAKED ME OUT! I got up check to see if one of my longboard skateboards had shifted, but everything was tight on the rack. So I was a little scared to go back sleep last night. Just a little.

So tonight I was a little anxious getting into bed. And again I trouble getting to deep sleep. I was just having weird dreams. Then I woke, mostly paralyzed, eyes open right in my face was like a brown mass taking half my vision, where I could also see the wall next to my bed. It felt like an entity, and was clawing my back. I held it there by asking three times "what do you want", where I could of jolted out of it, which I eventually did after what felt like ten seconds. I got the fuzzy vision again and saw, digging into my wall, a strange little creature, like a multicolored grasshopper. It disappeared into the wall, making no sound.

So that's that. Not sure why it keeps happening to me. A little unsettling, but as a skeptic I just think it's hallucinations. That makes me feel better, but deep in me I wonder what it might really be.

Back when I believed in metaphysical things, I would probably ascribe this to a nature spirit or elemental. If this were the case, I would take it to be a playful being just messing with me. But I really don't know.

If it happens again I'll update this post.

Thanks for reading.

[Pam]

I've had four experiences in the past two months, of being awakened by a "felt presence" in my bedroom.

The first one was mild. I have trouble sleeping, especially if I try and go to bed early for the night. I get into a light, dreamy sleep and wake up for a few seconds every hour to turn over onto my other side.

Anyway a couple months ago I was dreaming, can't remember what about, when I felt more than half awake but eyes closed, and the distinct feeling of someone moving their hands up my back. Lasted for couple seconds then I jolted awake. It actually felt nice, like caressing. When I felt fully awake, I could see my room, but really fuzzy, and I saw what I thought was a being standing a couple of feet away. It's hard to describe it. Small and wearing a baseball cap covering its head and face. I was coming out of paralysis at that moment, and playfully pointed my fingers at it like a gun and said, "I got you". It then moved to wall and disappeared. I heard the dogs barking so I went out to calm them down, and heard a chime sound from the kitchen. One of my roommates was up cause of the dogs and I asked if he heard that chiming sound. He did not.

I'm no stranger to sleep paralysis and false awakenings, but when it comes to things touching me, it freaks me out.

The next time wasn't so mild. Maybe a few weeks after. Same sleeping conditions, half awake when suddenly it felt like some one was digging their knuckle into the middle of my back. It got harder, up to slightly painful over three seconds or so. When I woke up I had the fuzzy vision again and I saw floating and spinning some dark, round, object in the middle of the room. Lights were still off so it basically grey. But it moved with me eyes, so I thought it was just something in my eyes, like a floater.

Now last night I was dreaming, and in the dream I was getting romantic with dream character, nobody I know. It was just some quick kissing, then I felt myself in bed and something crawling over the top of my back, applying pressure as it climbed. It felt heavy like 40 pounds of weight. After a second I jolted awake and turned the lights on. No fuzzy vision this time. But, I picked up my phone and started to search about night terrors, and just then I hear a loud thump on my wall! THAT FREAKED ME OUT! I got up check to see if one of my longboard skateboards had shifted, but everything was tight on the rack. So I was a little scared to go back sleep last night. Just a little.

So tonight I was a little anxious getting into bed. And again I trouble getting to deep sleep. I was just having weird dreams. Then I woke, mostly paralyzed, eyes open right in my face was like a brown mass taking half my vision, where I could also see the wall next to my bed. It felt like an entity, and was clawing my back. I held it there by asking three times "what do you want", where I could of jolted out of it, which I eventually did after what felt like ten seconds. I got the fuzzy vision again and saw, digging into my wall, a strange little creature, like a multicolored grasshopper. It disappeared into the wall, making no sound.

So that's that. Not sure why it keeps happening to me. A little unsettling, but as a skeptic I just think it's hallucinations. That makes me feel better, but deep in me I wonder what it might really be.

Back when I believed in metaphysical things, I would probably ascribe this to a nature spirit or elemental. If this were the case, I would take to be a playful being just messing with me. But I really don't know.

If it happens again I'll update this post.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks for sharing this. It doesn't seem friendly to me at all. There would have been a time I would found have found a myriad of ways to write it off as well..I'm sorry you are going through this. I have taken to being up in the middle of the night to avoid, not the same things you are experiencing but things I would rather not deal with, either.

[Pam]

It seem's sort of ominous that this thread popped up. I usually look at the new posts when I visit the forum. I have been having a series of dreams/visions. This is a new thing for me that these weird dreamish states will happen sequentially at different times. Here is the recent series.

Dream 1- It is night time and I have to go somewhere, I seem to live in a city somewhere. As I leave the front door there are many people on the street. Some of the humans have been altered and have a cyborg, metallic quality to them. In fact, the mechanical aspects of do not seem to be well blended. Each of the altered ones look different. I am terrified of them.

Dream 2- I am forced to walk out among them, I am not only terrified of their grotesque appearances, they are amoral, violent and are sexually degenerate in ways I find repugnant. They don't mind having unwilling partners. I have to make it to a destination so I try to keep my head down and not draw attention to myself lest I become of interest to one of them. There are many that look like regular humans that don't seem to be disturbed by the altered ones. The environment that I live is very accepting of all of these behaviors.

Dream 3- I realize in this dream that mechanical cyborg humans are not voluntarily becoming these things. They are being taken away and turned into these things. I continue to witness how bizarre they are. Then, and I have no memory of the process, I am made into one of them. The weird part is I am still in the dream as Pam, the observer, but I also can experience the consciousness of Pam, the cyborg. The observer aspect of myself is frightened and repulsed that I have become one. I am also shocked that when experiencing the consciousness of Pam, the cyborg, I realize that she didn't care that she was one. She no longer cared in the least.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

I don't claim any expertise in analysing the psychological components of dreams - meaning other people's dreams, as they're personal to them, but with my own I only have to sit and think a while before decoding the symbolism. If it was me who had Dream 1 and 2, I'd say yup, that's a pretty good metaphor for present day reality: being forced to go out into a world full of mechanical people (deeply conditioned), thinking with mechanical brains (their phones), and living a mechanical life in a society slipping further into dysfunction by the day. All the while the people do not see it, much like the scenario of the boiling frog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog).

Dream 3 is possibly a warning, and one to us all, of what we may become if we don't jump out of that boiling pan of water in time!