The Mystery of Our Dreams

‘Mare’ is an old English term that refers to a demon or evil spirit that comes in the night and sits on their sleeping victim’s chests pinning them down. The ‘mare’ was often similar to the mythical creature Incubus or his female counter part Succubus who according to mythology would lie on or sit on innocent and helpless sleepers. Today when we have troubled or horror filled dreams we refer to having nightmares...

Upon hearing the front door click shut as my partner left early for work I turned over in bed back into the comfort and warmth of the duvet. I was aware that I had to be in work an hour early and was anxious to be in on time however I still had half an hour or so left in bed. My alarm was set and I gladly acquiesced into sleep again, having only really been half awake upon her leaving. What happened next I can only try and explain with words as best as I can.

After falling to sleep again at some point I became aware that I was awake again, normal enough I hear you say! I felt my body in bed and was conscious of the fact that I had to get out of bed shortly. I could feel the duvet laying over me up to my shoulder and the pillow under my left cheek. I was warm and cosy and having the usual stream of consciousness you might have on a weekday morning when you are in bed and are aware you have to be up for work soon, "I’d literally, quite literally, give my right hand for an extra hour in bed /will anyone really notice if I don’t iron my shirt?” etc.

I then attempted to move, just a little contented ‘mmm my bed is lovely and warm shuffle and to my terror realised that I couldn’t. ‘Terror’ just doesn’t quite encapsulate the pounding, maddening fear that I instantly felt. My heart began to loudly and firmly pump in my chest as I frantically strained to move. The sensation of dread only deepened as I heaved to open my eyes to no avail. I couldn’t move a muscle, I couldn’t even scream. I levered with all my will but just could not move. I could feel my body but it was as if my connection with it had been severed, I was totally paralysed, entombed in my own body. I do not know how long this went on for. It felt like a long time, realistically, probably 60 seconds at most.

The morbid horror I felt then increased to an unbearable intensity when I clearly began to hear slow, creepy steps on the laminate wooden floor with me in the bedroom coming towards me. The steps were not those of a healed shoe they did not ‘click’ on the floor I can only say I heard the movement of someone and that the feeling of a presence in the room was so tangible, so obvious and so real. I inwardly trembled with the might of trying to budge my body as I heard the steps get closer rounding the bed towards me. The feeling of being completely and utterly vulnerable was sickening and I was by now stupefied with pure fright. I then had the sensation of the duvet being gently pulled off my shoulder. I can recall the gruesome helplessness I felt as the soft material gently ran over my skin. The terror seemed to then come to a black crescendo.

I managed to open my eyes. I did not come forth from this experience as you would suspect, like a diver who’s been down a little too long finally breaching the surface of the water and gasping for air, flailing my arms around in confusion. I simply opened my eyes and the terror all instantly vanished. I lay in bed silently and felt a great sense of relief wash over me. I was clearly the only person in the flat. I could blink and move and was delighted to do so and not before too long, I was asleep again.

Upon waking again for work the experience seemed instantly ridiculous. Surely I’d just had the Mother of all Nightmares. I began to rationalise it like Ebenezer Scrooge in a Christmas Carol when he questions his senses upon seeing Jacob Marley’s ghost, “you may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!" On my way to work I sceptically googled ‘awake but cannot move.’ I then read of the experiences people have under what is known as 'Sleep Paralysis.' I read of people experiencing audible hallucinations, the strong sense of a presence in a room and also the feeling of having someone or something sitting on their chest which I did not have. Interestingly it seems most cultures globally have a name for this phenomenon and most even a common folklore attributing it to some evil spirit or demon.  For example the southern United States talk of the ‘old hag’ who sits on victims, the Japanese have ‘Kanashibari’, in Turkey they apparently refer to ‘Karabasan’. It seems often these experiences are attributed by some to be acts of torment by demons or evil spirits which is not in the least surprising.

I now know that was I experienced appears to be well documented and I feel that what I experienced was not the ‘spirit world’ or the ‘other side’ or the presence of a demon or an evil spirit of some sort. Rationally I feel that cannot be the case. However I cannot stress enough the way the experience had a feeling of the spiritual. By feeling ‘spiritual’ I mean that it felt connected to a reality not of the corporeal world we live in, but a reality of the spirit or the Soul. The presence had felt and this is the only word that will really do; celestial. I had experienced everything through a heightened sense of reality (if you tap your knuckles on the nearest thing to you, that’s how clear and crisp I heard the foot step’s) but yet it had all felt poignantly ethereal. I presume it must have felt ‘spiritual’ because of the heightened sense of not feeling at one with my body at the time. It was a peculiar, frightening and mysterious experience that actually appears to be common place and very worldly. It was a concrete incorporeal experience that reminded me how mysterious consciousness is, how much more of the story of being human there is yet to unravel.

Henry Fuseli-The Nightmare (1781)