INTRODUCTION AND WARNING At night, while in the process of going to sleep or waking up from sleep, I have experienced, experience, and will presumably continue to experience the phenomenon known as sleep paralysis, paired with appearances from what I have come to know as "shadow people". This is not a fictionalized creepypasta nor any kind of bait-and-switch "me and my buddy saw this thing in the woods" type of writing. I certify that everything in this writing is "true" in the sense that I have personally experienced it. This is not intended to be in any way funny. I am dead fucking serious. I think that reading this may be disturbing for some, so please note this as a warning. Let me start by noting that I am in no way superstitious and have a strictly scientific worldview. I don't believe in any kind of the supernatural, ghosts, gods, angels, demons, the paranormal, cryptozoology, or anything that would lead me to a supernatural explanation for these things. My current dominant hypothesis is that my brain, being the incredibly complex machine that it is, functions somewhat poorly during the shutdown-wakeup cycles and creates these things for me to experience, and that they are only hallucinations. When I speak of the shadow people as "they" or "him" or "her", what I really mean is "the human-shaped hallucination that my brain created for me". Also, I'm not sure if this is related or not, but I occasionally experience absence seizures. When this happens, I begin to feel extremely lightheaded, then overheated and nauseated, and then I see stars near the edges of my vision. Then the stars close in and fill my vision, I collapse, I become non-lucid and non-responsive, and I can only hear the environment around me in distorted frequencies. This usually only goes on for a few minutes, though it is hard to tell time while I'm like this. It happens about two to three times per year, and can be triggered by perceived mental stressors. This started when I hit puberty, and is still ongoing. In the most plain of terms, something about my brain is fucked up and has serious malfunctions at times, and I'm aware of it. You might think me less sane after reading this. PART 1 / I SERIOUSLY THOUGHT THAT I WAS GOING INSANE The occurences of sleep paralysis and shadow people hallucinations started when I was in my early 20s and I was in college, probably around 2007. I was living in an apartment with a roommate, and I when I wasn't getting shithouse deadfuck drunk, I would routinely stay up for extended periods (30 hours or more) to get my class assignments done on time. The repeat alcohol ingestion and sleep deprivation, in hindsight, represent risk factors that I now believe trigger these things. Based on my own experiences, other risk factors for me may include use of any kind of stimulants/depressants or psychotropic drugs, high stress levels, and emotional/psychological instability. On one typical evening, I was in the process of waking up from a mid-day nap in the apartment. I had abused caffeine and sugar to push myself to finish a class assignment overnight, and naturally needed to catch up on lost sleep. I had fallen asleep on my bed in my street clothes. It was the kind of sleep that one gets after staying up for way too long - the best kind. I was laying on my back and beginning to drift towards consciousness, but wasn't fully awake yet - an in-between state. In this half-dreaming half-waking state, I suddenly began to experience two very new things: a feeling of intense, icy fear, and the feeling of a presence being in the room with me with malicious intent. As I looked toward the end of my bed, I saw a shadowy figure standing silently at the opposite side of the room. Judging from its form, it appeared to be a young adult male. The strangest thing about the figure was that it had no discernable features, instead being just an inky black silhouette with poorly defined edges - almost like more of a shadow than a physical object in and of itself. The figure then moved toward the foot of my bed, stopped and simply stared at me, all the while projecting an extremely threatening presence through its body language. As this was happening, I felt that I needed to move to a sitting position and to tell this person to get the fuck out of my room and leave my apartment, but strangely found that I could not. I couldn't move, speak, or do anything except move my eyes to follow the movement of the figure, and was forced to lay completely still in a state of intense paralyzing fear. The situation became extremely personally invasive and upsetting as the figure moved slowly from the end of my bed to a position directly beside me, standing over me, well inside of my personal space. I was still unable to do anything about it but breathe heavily and sweat. In that moment, I wanted absolutely nothing but for the figure to go away and leave me alone. I jolted awake in an instant, gasping for air. Convinced that there was someone in the room with me, I took out my pocket knife (I always have one in my pocket in my street clothes), waved it around in the near-darkness, screamed at the perceived intruder to tell them to get the fuck out of my room, and stumbled to the light switch. After turning on the lights, there was no sign of the mysterious figure. I repeatedly searched the small apartment for any sign of entry or disturbance. I found no sign of my roommate, and no sign of any intruder either. Being a skeptic, I also immediately began questioning the reality of the experience and my perceptions. Had it been a nightmare? It hadn't felt like a nightmare, yet I obviously hadn't been fully awake either. It had felt more like a mixed reality, as though between waking and dream states. Clearly, this was something new and different. Waking up from this experience and mentally processing this was disorienting and upsetting, to say the least. I went to the bathroom, splashed some cold water on my face, talked aloud to myself to mentally reinforce what I was doing, and fully regained my orientation and sense of reality. Later, after my roommate got home, I asked him why the fuck he had been in my room while I was trying to sleep and why he had just stood over my bed like that. I told him that he had seriously scared the shit out of me and asked him not to do anything like that ever again. He said he didn't know what I was talking about, and that he wasn't home at the time. I said that I must have had a real serious motherfucking nightmare, and went on about my business for the day. At this point, I thought that I might be going insane. I had never seen anything in my life that would not easily be explained by my existing scientific worldview, but simultaneously could not explain the bizarre and upsetting experience that I had just had. In my mind I very quickly searched for any and all existing references to anything that could explain what I had just seen (no matter how ridiculous), and assembled a number of competing hypotheses: hallucination, nightmare, mental malfunction, someone drugged me, someone broke into the apartment while I was asleep, ghosts, demons, alien abduction, interdimensional beings, out-of-body experiences, and the list went on from there. Occam's Razor told me that the most likely explanation would be some kind of mental malfunction, as this was the explanation that made the fewest new assumptions. I did a Google search, which actually turned up a wealth of information (in relative terms, as the internet as a whole was not as well-developed in 2007 as it is today) from those who had had similar experiences. I found references to callers on Coast to Coast AM reporting seeing "shadow men" while in transitionary sleeping-waking states, and the appearances being paired with feelings of intense fear and an inability to move. The phenomenon is called sleep paralysis and is well-documented. Though the initial experiences was severely disquieting (I cannot emphasize this enough), I felt better having a reasonable explanation for it. In my opinion, what makes this so upsetting for so many people around the world is that it is a variation on the classic human fear of home invasion, and the imagery lends itself to supernatural explanations. After this first experience during young adulthood, I would have many more over the years of my life, continuing into adulthood. PART 2 / THE NATURE OF THE SHADOW PEOPLE The nature of the shadow people is ever-changing. They were always threatening at first (like the first experience that I had in the college apartment), until I fully accepted that I would be visited by them during the night at random times. They seem to want to invent new ways to surprise me. In a way, the shadow people are kind of like real people, because their own motivations and behaviors vary so wildly. They emerge from the shadows on my walls or any area of the room, though they seem to prefer my closet (I try to never sleep facing away from my closet because of this). They can look like men, women, or children of all ages, and can be single or multiple. However, they are always only black silhouettes with no distinct features. The historical majority are entirely human but some appear to be humanoid creatures. Some wear clothing, but others do not. They may present different body language, depending on their personality. Things that the shadow people don't do include making sound and interacting with physical objects (including touching me) in the room. Strangely, whenever they are present, I get the feeling that they cannot touch or otherwise directly interact with me because I know that they are not real. I have no idea what it would feel like to be touched by one of them, but I do know that I would never want to find out. The shadow people don't seem to acknowledge the concept of "personal space" and would just as soon stand anywhere in the room as inches from my face. They usually observe me, and will sometimes attempt interaction. When multiple shadow peoplare present, they are able to sense and interact with each other. The majority of the shadow people that I experience are, for lack of a better term, telepathic. They are able to project feelings and narratives into my mind, along with forcing me to feel their presence. Thus, I am able to understand their motivations even though they cannot speak to me and to know where they are in my bedroom relative to me, even when I can't see them. The feelings and narratives can be anything from "I am only here to observe you" to "I don't really want or need to be here" to "I enjoy making you feel threatened". They can be curious, shy, funny, friendly, mischevious, or even unaware of me altogether. The majority are benign in the sense that they have no malicious intent. However, the telepathy can be extremely disturbing when a shadow person does have that malicious intent, as it will project feelings of terror and doom into my mind. PART 3 / EXAMPLES OF NON-TYPICAL SHADOW PEOPLE As typical as some behaviors or types of shadow people are, some just don't seem to follow the established rules. These are just examples of unique ones that I have experienced. -One non-human creature, similar to a combination of a dog/human or a werewolf. It sat on the edge of my bed, just past my left leg with a hostile hunched-over body posture that animals make when they think that you're a threat. -A tall angular adult male with limbs and fingers too long, and several accompanying children. It signalled that they were there only there to briefly observe me and that they didn't mean to disturb me. Very polite and non-hostile. Appeared from and disappeared back into my closet. It was almost like a schoolteacher with students on a field trip. -A slender young woman in a flowing gown with arms that ended in assymetrical claws resembling tree branches and a head like a combination of a dog's and a human's. She stood with a hunched posture, mostly still near the foot of my bed, but I could tell from her telepathic broadcast that she was waiting for me to look away, and that she wanted to harm me somehow. She thought of herself as some kind of huntress. PART 4 / EXPLODING HEAD SYNDROME, FUCK YOU SPEAKING SHADOW PERSON During the Fall of 2016, I had a new development. I've begun hearing loud noises while waking up - like gunshots, rumbling, metallic banging, roaring, human screams, or doors opening and slamming. Having already experienced the shadow people for something like a decade, my first thought was something along the lines of, "Well, it looks like the little assholes are up to some new tricks; oh well, nothing new." After this happened a few times, I Google'd (it's a verb now) and found Exploding Head Syndrome, which perfectly describes what I experience and is even known to have an overlap with those who experience sleep paralysis. I don't know why it took so goddamn long for my brain to start thinking that it hears these things, but I'm not really surprised by it. As I've said above, the hallucinations during my waking-sleeping transitions are ever-changing. Then, after the development of sound, things took a turn for the weird, dark, and scary. During a fairly recent sleep paralysis incident in Winter 2016, I was visited by what I can only describe as a shadow person in the form of a disembodied voice. I was sleeping on my left side, facing towards my bedroom window and away from my closet; the darker part of the room and my closet was over my right shoulder. As I was transitioning to wakefulness, I felt the familiar presence of a shadow person, but was surprised by the amount of hatred that it projected for me. It was very specific and personal. I sensed the presence come closer to me in the bedroom, to the point of being just over my right shoulder and ear. Of course, as in all cases I was in that state of paralysis, and thus was unable to turn to look to see the form of the shadow person. I got the feeling that this shadow person was unhappy with me, unhappy with being in my room, and wanting to physically harm me despite being unable to do so. Typical. But then, to my absolute shock, amazement, and terror, the shadow person began speaking to me. The voice was my own, but forced into a low growl, saturated with pure hate. It was extremely verbally abusive, saying things like, "If you don't think that I'm real, why don't you turn over and look at me? You're a fucking coward and a liar, and you lie to yourself about us. Why are you surprised? You didn't think that we could talk to you? You're stupid and fucking pathetic. You think you've accepted us, but you know nothing about us." Per the usual, I jolted awake and screamed things back at the presence, which had by then vacated. I was just so shocked that a shadow person had spoken to me, and that it had done so in such an abusive way, that it was almost like going through the experience of initial exposure all over again. To say the least, this incident seriously disturbed me and led to me beginning to write what you now read. During this, I never visually saw what the speaking shadow person looked like, and I'm glad for that. Speaking shadow person, being a product of my mind, if you're still in my subconscious somewhere and can read what I'm typing: go fuck yourself, man. I fucking own this mind and this reality. PART 5 / THINKING ABOUT THEM MAKES THEM WORSE, PRESENT TIME As I wrote the majority of the above, problems began to develop. Thinking and writing about my history with these experiences for a few days in a row during February 2017 triggered the EHS and shadow people hallucinations often, and I was woken up several times per night by them. This went on for about a week or so and became increasingly disruptive. Then, I set into motion the worst shadow person incident that I have ever experienced when I made the mistake of discussing the writing of this story with my online gaming clan on our VoIP channel. I discussed them at length, and especially in the aspect that thinking about them directly correlated with the frequency of their appearances. I then wondered aloud about why the shadow people could not touch me when they could affect my other senses such as sight and sound. That very same night, I fell asleep in my bed on my stomach after getting kind of drunk. As I was beginning to wake and entered the familar state of paralysis, I heard a series of door-slamming noises and footsteps approaching my room. Even though I couldn't see, I sensed the presence of a shadow person - a young adult woman, with malicious intent. She entered the bedroom, and to my horror and surprise approached the bed and climbed on top of my back in an unwelcome and uncomfortable way. I was shocked to feel the sensation of her knees resting on my shoulder blades and her weight pressing down on me. Her skin felt like human skin (I'm not sure what I would have expected, and still not sure what to make of this). Bending down over me, she whispered taunting things into my ear from behind me and repeatedly laughed at me. She said things like, "I am here. We are all still here. Your mind is not your own. You are ours to torment." Her laughter wasn't jovial or friendly at all, but icy. After waking up from this disturbing experience, it was at that point that I realized that I was uncomfortable continuing to write about this aspect of my history, because thinking about it so much was actively causing more intense and disturbing hallucinations with malicious tones. So I stopped. I think it took about a month for me to revisit and complete this. This brings us to the present time. I haven't really seen many shadow people since the incident with the last speaking/touching woman, and certainly none as unique as her or the other malicious speaking hallucination. I now believe that thinking about these additional abilities of speech and touch may have in turn given my brain the idea to include those abilities in the hallucinations. I've been up for about 4 hours longer than I should have writing this through the night. I'm going to go take a nap before work, and I'll sure as hell sleep on my fucking back. REFERENCES IN POPULAR CULTURE OR ELSEWHERE Note that the fictional slasher movie villain Freddy Krueger stalks the teenagers of Elm Street in their sleep, appearing at night from within walls and furniture as an extension of their dreams during sleep cycles. Rather than only inflicting physical harm (as his contemporary Jason Voorhees would), Freddy Krueger will threaten, taunt, or do otherwise transgressive things to emotionally/psychologically compromise his victims and their sense of reality. The similarities are too strong to be coincidental. My belief is that Freddy Krueger was at least partially inspired by episodes of sleep paralysis. Perhaps this is recognition bias on my part. Trailer for the 2015 documentary "The Nightmare", which contains interviews with people with similar experiences. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoPsjWqvwT4 Wikipedia Entry for "The Nightmare", a 1781 oil painting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightmare Wikipedia Entry for "Shadow Person". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_person Wikipedia Entry for "Sleep Paralysis". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis… Wikipedia Entry for "Exploding Head Syndrome". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome Whether you liked or disliked this non-fiction writing, I'd appreciate it if you left a comment as feedback.