A chilling home-recorded video provides a glimpse of what sleep paralysis looks like from an external perspective.
If sleep paralysis is something you’ve never experienced, consider yourself fortunate. It’s an unsettling experience that has even inspired a horror video game.
Picture yourself lying awake, only able to move your eyes, while witnessing a menacing presence in your room or feeling like you’re being suffocated by some entity.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, this is a type of parasomnia, which is a disruptive sleep-related disorder. Typically, these episodes are brief and temporary, lasting anywhere from a few seconds to 20 minutes.
It’s believed that sleep paralysis affects around 30 percent of people worldwide at least once in their lives, though there are some who face this harrowing issue repeatedly.
One individual from Texas, who experiences this condition, managed to capture two of his episodes on video, which has since gained widespread attention.
The YouTuber, known as Josh, experiences sleep paralysis ‘about once a week.’ In a 2017 video, he can be heard crying out while lying completely still, aside from a few slight movements.
During the video, a family member enters his room, attempting to gently wake him while capturing the incident.
In another clip, the person recording says: “Josh is in a sleeping paralysis state right now.
“The best he could do is shake a bit like that and have a little moan and try to yell.”
Josh is shown twitching in an effort to move before eventually awakening and embracing his grandmother.
Reflecting on his experience, Josh shared with his 9,000 subscribers: “I have it very often and it’s very rare someone is able to get me out of it.
“If you also have SP, I’m sorry for what you have to go through. Also, don’t forget to hug your grandma.”
In a 2023 update, Josh mentioned he has been dealing with sleep paralysis for years, experiencing it 75 times in 2022, averaging once every four days.
“I am now 30 years old and I still suffer from sleep paralysis,” Josh wrote, adding: “I’ve had it since the first time I could remember at the age of five.
“This video is not monetized and no, I didn’t ‘fake’ this for self attention.”
In response to skeptics who accused him of staging the video, he clarified that it’s ‘impossible’ for him to move his neck in the way shown in the video unless he’s in a state of sleep paralysis.
Josh concluded: “I hope someday that there will be a cure.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hs8rekoBfI
Josh is not alone in his frequent struggles with the condition. Photographer Nicholas Bruno has experienced sleep paralysis since he was six years old and uses his photography to recreate some of his terrifying episodes, hoping to overcome his fears.
As the term suggests, during sleep paralysis, you are unable to move any part of your body except for your eyes. This typically occurs just before falling asleep or upon waking, as the body transitions between sleep stages.
While it may not sound too severe, the episodes become particularly distressing due to the vivid hallucinations. These can include seeing an ominous figure in your room or feeling as if you’re being suffocated by pressure on your chest, which may be imagined as a person sitting on you, making it even more terrifying.