posted on Apr, 14 2014 @ 06:46 PM
This post caught my attention - I have a little history with this 'sleep paralysis' phenomena, and I'd like to share my angle on it. It is a
Christian angle, so if you disregard Christianity as a worldview, you'd better stop reading now and spare yourself the agony.
My first recollection of hearing about sleep paralysis was as a child, at a family gathering.
One of my older sisters was telling me about a Catholic nun who would fall into trance-like states during prayer. The nun would experience wonderful
prayer, in which she would experience deep connection with God. The sisters around her knew this would occasionally happen, and would just let her
be. Once, after she had been seen in such a state, she "came to" and said (rather alarmed), "How come you didn't wake me from that trance from
which I nearly died?" She went on to explain that instead of being in communion with God, she had instead been attacked by demonic spirits, but was
'paralyzed' within the trance and could not break free.
(By the way, this type of trance-like prayer isn't necessarily uncommon in traditional Christianity - Roman Catholic mystics/contemplatives have
described such things, as have Orthodox monastics, when in prayer and experiencing theoria. Clairvoyance has also been attributed to many holy
monastics of the Orthodox Church, such as Elder Porphyrios, Elder Joseph the Hesychast, Elder Ephraim at St. Anthony's monastery in Arizona, and many
many others. Protestant Christianity tends to lump this stuff into the "occult" category and dismiss Catholic and Orthodox Christian teachings on
this (despite the New Testament reference that Paul makes to being "caught up to the third heaven" while in prayer). Though I am not a Protestant
Christian, in the Protestant Christian's defence, by and large, most experiences like these in secular society are probably occultic in nature. But
for the record, there are indeed legitimate holy Christian examples of such abilities, albeit rare. I digress, sorry.)
A couple years after first hearing that account about the nun, I experienced my first (very brief) sleep paralysis experience. I was simply in my bed
and couldn't move. I could hear the radio on in the living room. Then, the radio began to get louder and louder, rather quickly, in a weird and
very disconcerting way. It was scary somehow - the paralysis was threatening. Then I came to full consciousness. I was probably 14 or 15 years old.
It was short, mostly uneventful, but definitely not pleasant in any way.
Around this time, I developed an interest in electronic music. These were the early 1980's, so I'm talking about stuff like Tangerine Dream,
Vangelis, Klaus Schulze, Kitaro, etc. Anyway, I began to notice a similarly-themed aspect to much of the cover art on these albums. Geometric
designs, primarily circles. I mentioned this to a clerk at one of the record stores I frequented, and they said it was because the circles on the
record covers could be used as focal points for inducing trance. This guy started talking about transcendental meditation, astral projection,
mirror-transference, all sorts of weird stuff. As I got more and more into this kind of music, I started seeing connections to these
"parapsychological" or "occult" phenomena/practices in the song titles, too. Anyway, although a nominal Christian who had been taught to avoid
such things, I was curious, and began to explore. Using the rationale that "man only uses 10% of his brain, and these were latent capabilities in
everyone" (something a school teacher told me, I think), I began to experiment, with a particular interest in astral projection. I checked out every
book on astral projection I could get my hands on, determined to accomplish "soul travel."
Sorry, time does not permit me to continue. I have a lot to relate and share, but want to share it as clearly and as thoroughly as possible. I'll
return in a day or two and add some more. More later...