Summary

A 29-year-old woman recounts her lifelong struggle with nightmares and sleep paralysis, which she attributes to her childhood experiences in a new, old house and her overactive imagination, exacerbated by horror films and sleep deprivation.

Abstract

The author, a 29-year-old professional woman, shares her personal history with nightmares and sleep paralysis, a condition she has faced since the age of three. Her family's move to a larger, older house seemed to trigger these experiences, which were intensified by the house's eerie characteristics and her solitary childhood. She describes the terrifying sensation of being conscious but unable to move during sleep paralysis, often accompanied by intense, reality-blurred dreams. The author links her condition to a combination of factors, including an overactive imagination, exposure to scary media, and the stress of parenthood and work-related fatigue. Despite her fears, she has learned to manage the occurrences by avoiding horror content and improving her sleep habits, though stress and accidental exposure to horror can still trigger nightmares.

Opinions

The author believes that her nightmares and sleep paralysis are partly due to her childhood environment and the house's creepy atmosphere.
She suggests that children are more susceptible to paranormal experiences, referencing her own encounters with a "lady in a blue dress" as a toddler.
The author is critical of how her parents handled her night terrors, comparing their response unfavorably to her own approach with her daughter.
She expresses a personal theory that sleep paralysis and its associated hallucinations could be behind some claims of supernatural encounters, such as witchcraft and alien abductions.
The author admits to being too afraid to watch horror films, fearing that they will trigger visits from "dream demons."
She acknowledges the impact of sleep deprivation, particularly during her daughter's infancy and her demanding work schedule, on the frequency of her nightmares.
The author is proud of her strategies for coping with fatigue and improving sleep quality, which have helped reduce the occurrence of nightmares.

I Still Have Nightmares at 29

A brief history of my encounters with the Dream Demon

Imagine this, a 29 year old, career driven woman, who still has nightmares. Pathetic, right? I agree.

Let’s start from the very beginning.

Being brought up with siblings almost a decade older than me, meant that I had to go through many hardships on my own. While my elder sister and brothers had each other’s back, I was left to fend for myself. I may be a bit dramatic with my choice of words but there is still some truth.

when I was 3 years old my parents, siblings and I moved from a small cul-de-sac council house with cheap rent, to a large town house that my parents had saved up to buy.

We went from sharing 3 bedrooms to having a bedroom each. We went from 1 staircase to 3 spiralling staircases that stretched over 4 floors.

It was a much bigger house but it was also much older, with a lot of character.

When I say character, I mean, the wallpaper was peeling off the walls, every floorboard would creek, the carpet hadn’t been updated in over a century and the wind would howl through the bedroom fireplaces.

As I said, I was 3 when we moved, I was fully aware of my surroundings but too young to have any say since you know, “I was just a child.”

You know what they say about children? There most likely to encounter paranormal activity. Which is great when you’re a toddler whose bedroom is on the top floor of the old and cold house.

I don’t remember much about my first ‘encounter’ but my mom used to tell me of a time I exchanged pleasantries with a lady in a blue dress. We didn’t speak about this ‘lady’ too much since it scared mom a little. Or a lot.

My nightmares started pretty much as soon as we moved in. Night terrors would have me sweating and crying into my pillow. My parents gave me the usual spiel, “It’s alright — just go to sleep — everything will be fine.”

Nowadays, my 4 year old daughter gets nightmares and I allow her to watch ‘Disney’ in her bedroom. I was lucky to get a night light. How times have changed.

I would be so afraid to sleep in my room most nights, that I would face, ‘sleep paralysis’ on a regular basis.

If you’re not quite familiar with what sleep paralysis is, I’ll try and explain as best as I can. Just be mindful that I’m not a doctor and this is just information that I’ve pulled over the years of trying to understand.

What is sleep paralysis?

Sleep Paralysis is caused by your brain entering its REM sleep phase whilst you’re still partially awake. It can happen when you’re just falling asleep or when you’re about to wake up.

As you are only falling asleep and not quite sleeping, your brain is still aware of its surroundings. If you hit REM cycle, your brain can not make use of any information you try to tell it. This makes you unable to move, nor even blink your eyes. So, if you feel like you need to move in a matter of urgency — well you can’t.

To keep things interesting, like that wasn’t scary enough, REM sleep is when your brain has its most intense dreams.

What happens to those REM sleep dreams during paralysis? Well your brain acknowledges what the last thing that you had seen was or even sometimes, what you are seeing, depending on whether your eyes are still open or not. Your REM cycle will then work and do its thing, giving you intense dreams. Intense dreams with some of your reality mixed in. How fun.

The trouble of not being able to move during this time, is that your brain scares itself so much that it will imagine the worst possible scenario that you could possibly face. I feel like this is probably why so many people see unwanted visitors in their rooms and why so many people say they felt like they were being strangled.

‘’I think it can explain claims of witchcraft and alien abduction,’’ said Kazuhiko Fukuda, a psychologist at Fukushima University in Japan and a leading expert on sleep paralysis — The New York Times

Back to the main event…

Many folklore stories believed these happenings to be some sort of witch or evil creature which attacked its victims as they slept.

The first clinical description of sleep paralysis was published in 1664 in a Dutch physician’s case histories, where it was referred to as, ‘Incubus or the Night-Mare’. — https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5167075/

I’m not sure if it was the significant change from small warm house to what felt like Britain's most haunted and being put to bed hours before all the rest of the household, that started it.

Personally, I think it was mainly because as a child, I was over imaginative.

I would be so afraid to sleep that I would imagine all the worst possible things happening and then they would happen during my partial reality. So’ if I watched something that was even remotely scary on TV, I would go weeks of seeing the same hair-raising scenario every night.

I had those dream demons visit me every night from 3 years old until I was about 10 years old. After having them for so long I learnt that they were down to lack of sleep (from being too afraid) and I learnt to avoid watching anything gruesome.

After a few years, I figured, why not, let’s put on a horror film. What’s the worst that can happen? Well, I’ll tell you what happened. I had nightmares for months, which once again plagued me with dream demons.

I haven’t watched a horror film in over ten years. TEN years!

Sadly, the horror movies weren’t the only things that set things in motion. In 2016 I gave birth to my amazing daughter. Beautiful and amazing in every way, but my god, the lack of sleep was excruciating.

When I returned to work when she was 1, I was practically raising her on my own and working a full time job. I had no time to sleep. So when I did get some shut eye, my brain would shut off before I’d even had a chance to properly fall asleep.

I recently posted an article on how I’ve manged to deal with fatigue, (5 Ways to Beat Fatigue), which was another side effect from lack of sleep.

Thankfully I reduced my hours in work and my child didn’t need as much attention as she grew. I was able to enjoy my free time with her and sleeping became easy again.

I don’t have nightmares as much anymore but I have the odd one when I’ve been stressed out at work or when I’ve accidentally watched a horror trailer.

This is my sad reality, I’m a 29 year old who still has nightmares and is too afraid to watch a rated 18 horror. Too afraid in case those evil dream spirits pay another visit.

People have the weirdest fears. Mine just happens to be running into the supernatural entities that curse my dreams.

I’m not embarrassed to admit that.