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[TheBiggerFish]

@Rolan:My condolences.

@SalmonGod:Wow, that's...Really creepy.

[kilakan]

-snip-

Wow... I uh, I just had a serious flashback to a series of very similar events that happened between when I was about... 5 years old up till when I was about 17 or so.  Not gonna go into detail unless people want, but suffice to say I hope it clears up for you.  Cause I don't think I slept through a night until 5 years ago.  Haven't had a nightmare/encounter/whatever it is since at least.

[hops]

Get an exorcist.

[Eric Blank]

Ugh, moms at the casino gambling again. She swears she only had one drink "so far" and she won't have any more. Goddamnit I hope shes okay

Everything is fine.

[ChairmanPoo]

[Tiruin]

-snip-

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Umf ._. Reminds me of my first time with sleep paralysis--the first five paragraphs in vivid similarity.
In my perspective, I *could* feel my arms and legs, but also could notice that subtle difference between being awake and being vividly dreaming. I was looking down my bed (and given my sleeping area at that time, this meant looking right at the corridor next to the stairwell, as the room is an 'open room' rather than a closed one with a door) and wiggled my hands--I threw my arms up, expecting to humorously feel the blankets follow but it didn't; my vision didn't change at all, although I felt like my arms moved.

Thoughts are awesome.

Then the follow-up paralysis-ish moments: As I couldn't move my vision, the area I was looking at became somewhat grainy--while the wallpaper was a decoration of thin white embossed lines, the graininess was becoming more apparent as the seconds(?) passed, like a (very subtle) sepia tone. Then those grainy bits plus the sepia tone seemed to slowly conglomerate...or how you say FORM into a vague humanoid figure (or counter-parabolic figure :v) in front of me, with my vision retaining the grainy texture though gathering around the figure--my peripheral vision was pretty much the same as the start of the dream. I felt curious at the figure but it didn't feel 'evil' or otherwise disconcerting. The atmosphere felt tense though.

Then an...oldies radio sound turned on (like the ones back a couple or so decades? In an American or European accent), as if describing the weather or something. There were words but I forget what was said.

Then I woke up!

...I like that there's a similarity of 'Ooooo, I get to experience this o_o' thinking here!

How can you tell the presence is 'evil'? Or is it pure gut feeling?

Like a physical manifestation of sinister intent.  Don't know how else to describe it.  An "evil presence" is how pretty much all accounts of sleep paralysis describe it - The Intruder.  Most accounts describe a sense of impending evil or doom preceding any sensory experience.

It's a phenomenon that isn't necessarily termed to be evil--it's the idea that within very similar or familiar surroundings to oneself, the sudden presence or feeling of another unfamiliar presence may be off-putting to people, even the sensation of such before even observing such occurring can happen because of significant and 'felt' differences from one's point of view.

E:
All this talk about spooky stuffs reminds me of one scenario I'd rather forget (BECAUSE SHAAAAME :V AND EMBARASSMEEEENT)

Spoiler: So I'll put my shame in this spoiler anyway! (click to show/hide)

So context is that my parents are usually home late at night when I'm away and stuff. We sleep in different rooms.
Also it sometimes gets moldy due to high humidity in my area because I live on a mountain and our fog is clouds passing by :v
Also also my parents are really tense regarding stolen belongings or break-ins and are pretty...tense on any behavior that can display 'insecurity'. (ie That one door unlocked that can lead outside to the basement, to a place that's hard to access? YOU SHOULD LOCK THAT OR WE GET GRUMPY. :I) I mean we only had one door leading right into the house, and all the windows were barred/screened because of protection against insects.

What I'm recalling happened months ago. I was sleeping in the sala (which we take to mean the common room because it was a spanish term and not from tagalog :v), on the sofa. With a thick and comfy blanket and the pillows for a makeshift bed--I wasn't sleeping in my room because of ANNOYING MOLDS just having been cleansed, so it was busy being aired out.

I woke up--breathing as loud as you listening to your own thoughts--and noticed three things:
1. It was still night, since the sofa was under a windowsill aimed directly at the East. Despite the forest in between, it's one of the first places illuminated.
2. My face was under the blanket, because I'm messy when I sleep :v
3. I could hear breathing! Other than my own, it only took several seconds to regain composure and awareness of my situation.
There was another person in the room with me, and this is in particular a room that has no other bedrooms on the same floor. I could hear their breathing, like a calm person, before their footfalls could be heard moving about. (I say footfalls because it didn't sound like slippers or shoes--we usually use slippers in the Philippines and I have no idea if it's common in America or otherwise) Since this was quite a big room--big enough for a piano--I could trace where the person generally was as they moved about the floor. It seemed erratic as the person would stop at an area and just...breathe. I somehow (weirdly) felt afraid for some reason despite also being calm, and quieted my breathing by slowing it down as well, as I recalled anything is louder at nighttime due to how sound works along with the temperature.

The footfalls continued several more times, with the person stopping for several seconds. I could hear nothing else but that, and didn't move from my position. I could hear them checking the whole floor and the idea that we were being robbed was quite at the forefront of my mind...along with me checking out who that was and doing something about it, since it was only one person thus far. I could hear them go around and open the door to the garage before coming back in-- no light from outside when they did so, because I would notice given the position of where I was sleeping. Every second passes by really slowly when you're very aware of everything around you.  ... Although I was aware that my pulse wasn't panicky.

Then the footfalls went downstairs. I went out from under the blankets and decided to follow quietly, until I heard the person go inside a room. A room that quite dispelled the idea that we were being robbed because of how isolated it was from anywhere, deep inside the home. My face then felt the cold touch of our wooden railing as I slumped in shameful realization of what was happening.

Come the morrow, I decided to ask my dad what he was doing last night (as I quickly opened his bedroom door a minute or so after my feeling embarrassed-and-slump-on-the-stairs, and said "I love you and goodnight" as he was tucked in his bed.) He told me he was checking the place because he was hearing a water leak, and when I brought up the idea if he noticed me--he said 'no, why, where were you?'.

Also argh. CP, that thing would've scared me if I wasn't 10 years older. :< It seems respect for the supernatural dulls fear of it. Maybe because respect entails understanding. o_O

Dooble edit:
Yes scriver. I'm just being silly around here.

[scriver]

He wasn't saying that it was an objectively evil thing, Tiruin, just that he felt it was evil

[SalmonGod]

He wasn't saying that it was an objectively evil thing, Tiruin, just that he felt it was evil

Except that doesn't quite go far enough to describe it.  I didn't feel it was evil in the sense that I felt that way about the thing.  It's more like it felt like it was made of evil.  It radiated it in a way that I could physically feel, like a temperature.  And when I felt the physical sensation of something touching me, it wasn't like something physical touching me that I didn't trust.  It felt like evil intent projecting itself onto me with force.

And when I say evil, I mean 'Of a nature that's sole purpose for existence is to cause harm and enjoy it.'

That's what my experience was like, anyway.  Most of the accounts I've read have described The Intruder (as the phenomenon is officially referred to) as a sense of oppressive evil or doom.  Something I couldn't fully understand without first-hand experience.  Normally that type of feeling towards something/someone is developed through experience.  I wouldn't call someone a bad person unless I learned, from direct experience or otherwise, that they do bad things.  But you know how sometimes in dreams you'll feel really strong irrational emotions towards things?  Could be totally the opposite emotion from what makes sense when you think about it later, but in the dream, that emotional reaction is just forced out from somewhere really deep and visceral.  It's like that, but when you're conscious.  And it's not being forced out from within you as a feeling that you have.  It's like that feeling left your body, physically manifested outside of you, and wants to force its way back in.

I did some more looking around recently to see if anyone has positive experiences with it... it was very, very difficult to find any, but there were a few out there on the 'nets that weren't so bad.  Only a couple that were really good experiences.  But I read several that were neutral, and some that started out with an evil intruder but that they managed to mentally manipulate into the evil presence being fought off by something else.  Might try putting that to use in the future.  Also read a lot of people saying that they use sleep paralysis as a springboard into lucid dreaming, which I've never experienced, but always wanted to.  Might delve further into that.

All this talk about spooky stuffs reminds me of one scenario I'd rather forget (BECAUSE SHAAAAME :V AND EMBARASSMEEEENT)

If that spoiler'd bit is notably embarrassing to you, you've done pretty well for yourself

It seems respect for the supernatural dulls fear of it. Maybe because respect entails understanding. o_O

I'm curious.  Mind expanding on this a bit?

Get an exorcist.

Not going that far yet.  I'm still chalking it up to sleep paralysis.  Even though I don't feel like I was, I can still reason that when I was feeling stuff was when I was falling towards sleep, which meets the criteria.  When something like this happens when I'm fully up and about, then I'll worry about it on that level.  And next time it happens, I'll probably try to fully get up out of bed right in the middle of it, since the feeling that I was fully conscious and able to move through it is the most unsettling part of this whole thing to me.  If I eliminate that, it's really pretty neat.  I know, I'm weird.

[Reelya]

~~~

I had sleep paralysis exactly one time, and it was trip as well. I woke up late at night, could see but not move, I had a street light shining brightly through my window (which was opposite the bed, and had the blinds open) onto a side wall, making streaks of light. Basically it felt like the whole room was a box moving at a million miles per hours towards the light. But I think that's part of how the mind rationalizes away the abnormal state of being awake while REM sleep (dream state) is still active.

I know this one girl who had a similar experience prior to that, she woke up and couldn't move, felt a "presence" behind her. She decided it was God and became a religious zealot. So after my own experience of waking REM sleep, I think I have a handle on how such "God experiences" actually happen.

I think next time you should open your eyes and look around. At the very least it would be a trip, because of how the REM sleep mind interprets visuals. My one interpreted streaks of light as movement, and since the rest of the room was static, decided the whole room was hurtling through space at a million miles and hour. It might be a case where if you don't open your eyes your imagination of this "presence" will keep it happening. After all, this is the dreaming mind at work, even if you are awake. My guess is that the idea of a "presence" is because of how the mind anthropomorphizes things. Some unpleasant or uncanny feeling from the sleep paralysis gets reinterpreted as a hostile entity. Humans love to assign feelings to things that lack feelings.

[Tiruin]

E: eep new page!

...I'm terrified of psychological horrors! D:

-snip-

Do we have a thread for discussing these? I'm afraid that this may get lost in this thread!
Although I'm unsure how many story-discussions are packed into the other emotion threads now... ._.

It seems respect for the supernatural dulls fear of it. Maybe because respect entails understanding. o_O

I'm curious.  Mind expanding on this a bit?

The Philippines and many other Asian countries have a LOT OF LORE on supernatural stuffs--partly due to what happened in WWII (because of certain events that made war crimes >_>) and partly because of historical stuffs (grr Spanish colonizer stuffs). But that's dependent on the area--as I'm in the Cordilleras [Mountain area], we lack the spanish stuffs, but the country has ghost, folk, and otherwise stories ever since. :3
I mean there are some that have been published and the like (as in you can search up True Philippine Ghost Stories) because that basically was part of my childhood...as in reading from classmates because I had no money to buy them, xD but on the most part--and on the question, I grew up with both my parents' stories and awe and respect towards the idea because of how local authors and such portrayed them.
I mean...I can't forget that one comic; The Mythology Class (Linkie I, II). As our mythology combines both spiritual and mythical elements to form both a historical view from our ancestors and local beliefs from the diverse cultures of our country, it's very vast and various--with subjects from mundane, benign, and helpful spirits or entities (which is probably why I keep using the word 'entity' when describing stuff), to malevolent or otherwise creatures. Like our ideas of dwarves for example, we have a friendly type that likes to be respected and usually left alone, and the not-that-friendly type in which any transgression or even doing rude stuff like not acknowledging its presence BRINGS BAD LUCK LIKE YOUR ARM FALLING OFF. They also combine natural elements, spiritual-natural elements, with ideas ranging from 'this causes "this thing I observed"', while the others also go with spirit-nature-entities which are still believed today in a form of a tutelary spirit for example. It's this kind of personification towards natural elements of our external surroundings that helped me analyze (subconsciously anyway, at the start) many horror things that people talk about--even ghosts or other 'silent' horrors have a humane element to them, and understanding their purpose or their actions makes an inclusive and possibly effective way to conceptualize them more wholesomely.
For me as a child, those stories were very profound and impactful. That one book there was from my kuya (older brother) I believe, so I was considerably blessed to even be able to read that given that I had little to read other than schoolbooks and gifts (which were mostly academic!).
That, and my own personal experiences with dreams and memory:
> I have this 'memory' of how it is to...not live, per se. As far as I can term it, it's like a memory before life :v Inertness. Take that how you will but it's hard to explain.
> Early dreams from when I was 12 (discovering that I can fly!) to otherwise horrible nightmares, like at 6 years of age when I was shredded up by what seemed to be Freddy Kreuger in a huge trenchcoat that I could only see and feel the claws :v even if I had no idea about the character at all. Totally felt pain I didn't experience before, but realized 'hey I'm alive'. That evolved into an observational perspective whenever horrors came up--in the seconds that followed, I would quickly assess the situation and, in a way, switch to third-person viewpoint; figurative and literal, this helped me in the waking hours in remembering my dreams, and in my dream-state in order to act...since I've got lucid dreams multiple times per week, usually.
> We've our local culture with dreams and the like. A spiritual culture--similar to, but different from religion as a whole, which generally orients our outlook in life towards our community and neighbors, our ancestors and elders, acting just like religion in the values area, promoting a helpful lifestyle, but also giving acknowledgement to a spiritual counterpart which acts like a philosophical viewpoint in turn; our knowledge is limited towards what we experience, and taking in knowledge with education and open-mindedness helps a lot. Acts as a foundation to your outlook in life--there's just SO MUCH out there, and in contrast (personally speaking) to the first bit I wrote, it's an added impact when you realize even the tiniest stimuli, the sensations, the ideas, even the presence of organized thought in a way that makes similarities and connectedness to others like you, makes a big mark onto your attitude and personality.
> ...Although, during my childhood, being left alone at home with the lights out due to storms and me huddling under the blanket while everyone is away for hours or so also may have affected my understanding of things. Even after the crying and tears, I was also thinking about the ideas that the people around me and what I've read prodded at in my mind.
> And probably other things I forgot right now because it's 12:11am!

All this talk about spooky stuffs reminds me of one scenario I'd rather forget (BECAUSE SHAAAAME :V AND EMBARASSMEEEENT)

If that spoiler'd bit is notably embarrassing to you, you've done pretty well for yourself

Probably my culture affecting me? I'm really blushy \o/
Or maybe its the aftereffects of my social anxiety. o.O
_{Thanksmuch that means a lot}

[hops]

Not going that far yet.  I'm still chalking it up to sleep paralysis.  Even though I don't feel like I was, I can still reason that when I was feeling stuff was when I was falling towards sleep, which meets the criteria.  When something like this happens when I'm fully up and about, then I'll worry about it on that level.  And next time it happens, I'll probably try to fully get up out of bed right in the middle of it, since the feeling that I was fully conscious and able to move through it is the most unsettling part of this whole thing to me.  If I eliminate that, it's really pretty neat.  I know, I'm weird.

Get a sleep doctor who know exorcism.

Really though, aren't you an adult with a child and everything? I don't think your dad will materialize and give you shit for seeing a somnologist.

[Eric Blank]

Just because his dad won't materialize doesn't mean his spouse won't. Or the kids, for that matter.


Also tiruin, there really isn't any reason to be ashamed of being spooked in the middle of the night by somebody in the house, even if it turns out to be a family member. You don't have a dog to bark at strangers for you, do you?

[SalmonGod]

I think next time you should open your eyes and look around. At the very least it would be a trip, because of how the REM sleep mind interprets visuals. My one interpreted streaks of light as movement, and since the rest of the room was static, decided the whole room was hurtling through space at a million miles and hour. It might be a case where if you don't open your eyes your imagination of this "presence" will keep it happening. After all, this is the dreaming mind at work, even if you are awake. My guess is that the idea of a "presence" is because of how the mind anthropomorphizes things. Some unpleasant or uncanny feeling from the sleep paralysis gets reinterpreted as a hostile entity. Humans love to assign feelings to things that lack feelings.

Yeah, this is a pretty intense internal debate with me, right now.  Because I can shrug off what I've experienced so far, even if the nature of what I've been describing is pretty intense.  But if I do open my eyes and get an associated visual, I'm worried about it having the opposite effect towards less control.  Even if I could still shrug off the experience like I have been, I'm afraid that there's a higher likelihood of this becoming a more intrusive cycle if I'm reminded of, say, an image of a shadow person looming over me.  Right now, I'm reminded of it when I go to bed, but it's a more abstract thing.

It's tempting regardless, just because of my morbid fascinations.

The Philippines and many other Asian countries have a LOT OF LORE on supernatural stuffs

Neat stuff.  I've never thought to look into Philippine legends.  And I like finding other people who have a rational appreciation and curiosity towards those things.  It seems most common, at least here in the U.S., that everyone is either absolute rejection as worthless nonsense or full genuine belief.

Really though, aren't you an adult with a child and everything? I don't think your dad will materialize and give you shit for seeing a somnologist.

No, I just don't think it's that serious at the moment.  I do have other sleep issues that I should be more active about fixing... but I live paycheck to paycheck in 'Merica.  My wealth class only sees a doctor if we need a note for work, or it's already too late.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I have something really terrifying happening today.  U.S. Customs has been rolling out a new system for electronic clearance of imported goods over the past year.  100% adoption of this system for everything was mandated a couple months ago.  Had our first hand carry clearance two weeks ago, and it was a high profile event.  Even with many expert eyes on the situation, and one of our own employees as the courier, it didn't go well.  Now there's another one organized by a different company landing in LAX in about 15 minutes that I'm responsible for clearing.  I've had no confirmation of what went wrong with the last one, and there's very little support available if something goes wrong.  So my entry is submitted, with a couple minor adjustments to see if they make a difference, and I've just been sitting here waiting all morning to see what happens.  It gets really ugly, really fast if these things fall through.

[sprinkled chariot]

I think next time you should open your eyes and look around. At the very least it would be a trip, because of how the REM sleep mind interprets visuals. My one interpreted streaks of light as movement, and since the rest of the room was static, decided the whole room was hurtling through space at a million miles and hour. It might be a case where if you don't open your eyes your imagination of this "presence" will keep it happening. After all, this is the dreaming mind at work, even if you are awake. My guess is that the idea of a "presence" is because of how the mind anthropomorphizes things. Some unpleasant or uncanny feeling from the sleep paralysis gets reinterpreted as a hostile entity. Humans love to assign feelings to things that lack feelings.

Yeah, this is a pretty intense internal debate with me, right now.  Because I can shrug off what I've experienced so far, even if the nature of what I've been describing is pretty intense.  But if I do open my eyes and get an associated visual, I'm worried about it having the opposite effect towards less control.  Even if I could still shrug off the experience like I have been, I'm afraid that there's a higher likelihood of this becoming a more intrusive cycle if I'm reminded of, say, an image of a shadow person looming over me.  Right now, I'm reminded of it when I go to bed, but it's a more abstract thing.

It's tempting regardless, just because of my morbid fascinations.

The Philippines and many other Asian countries have a LOT OF LORE on supernatural stuffs

Neat stuff.  I've never thought to look into Philippine legends.  And I like finding other people who have a rational appreciation and curiosity towards those things.  It seems most common, at least here in the U.S., that everyone is either absolute rejection as worthless nonsense or full genuine belief.

Really though, aren't you an adult with a child and everything? I don't think your dad will materialize and give you shit for seeing a somnologist.

No, I just don't think it's that serious at the moment.  I do have other sleep issues that I should be more active about fixing... but I live paycheck to paycheck in 'Merica.  My wealth class only sees a doctor if we need a note for work, or it's already too late.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ehm, are not you as manager part of middle class?

[ChairmanPoo]

Proletarization of  middle class chummer. Managers, teachers, doctors, engineers, and nurses are being slowly demoted to wage slavery.