Man…

For me it happens when I’m under extreme stress, like my 3 year long “come back, I love you. I don’t love you anymore. I’m not cheating, he’s just a guy I snuck out with for no reason while I thought you were gonna be at work” divorce.

You said wiggling a toe got you out of it. For me it was tapping my pinky and trying to scream.

I even learned to control it and it was like an acid trip. Well, more like I learned to ride it and not be afraid.

One of the wildest ones I experienced though, I had recently purchased a hamster for my daughter that turned out to be a pregnant female. I tried to give the babies away, no one would take them. They slaughtered each other. I didn’t know they did that.

I was laying in bed watching my comfort food, Star Trek TOS. Suddenly the hamster cage appeared on my stomach with the gate opened. 40-50 hamsters crawled out and started eating my fingers and burrowing into my chest and stomach. I couldn’t move. My ex appeared at the foot of the bed as a shadowy creature with wild hair rocking back and forth laughing at me and hissing. I tapped my pinky and tried to scream once I was aware it was sleep paralysis. A hamster crawled up on my face and started eating my nose. I finally managed to mumble scream enough to get my exes attention and she reached out and touched me. As soon as she did I snapped back to reality.

The last time it happened I wasn’t expecting it. I was in a decent place in my personal life, work was chaotic though. I thought my house was full of distant relatives and they were killing people from outside of the family in my living room.

I hate that shit when it takes me by surprise. When it happens regularly I take control and I don’t mind it.

I get that feeling of "someone's in the house" every single time... Horrid even though I know that it's not true.

I haven't had an episode in a long time but I would try to tell myself to just breathe through it. The moving an extremity would help too. The worse part was that I'd get them in bunches. If one happened I'd have to stay awake for a bit or I'd get them over and over. Thankfully never saw any demons; just a vision of my surroundings but I couldn't move.

This is almost exactly how it happens for me, I've never really seen "the demon", but I know it's there and I can feel its presence at a super intense level. Sometimes, I hear them walk into my room and stand over me. Other times, they're just there, staying perfectly out of sight.

The worst part of it for me is when I try to speak or scream and nothing comes out. That's more scary to me than "the demon"

I got shaken by the demon until it got shoved over by a white light in my teens. I wonder what kind of wires snapped in my head, probably knocked a few screws loose.

I have extremely irregular sleep patterns and I’ve never had this happen… weird

I've had a few episodes a few years ago while i was heavily depressed and my sleep pattern was messed up. i didn't see much, just shadows in the corner of my eyes, but i knew something evil was in the room and i heard deep, demonic voices from behind. the first few times i was in a full blown panic, but i read about sleep paralysis before, so i at least connected the dots quickly... wiggling my pinky finger was my mode of escape.

fixing my sleep pattern with sleep meds (by force) made it go away